Bosniak nationalism

After the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, the Austrian administration officially endorsed Bošnjaštvo ('Bosniakhood') as the basis of a continued multi-confessional Bosnian nation.

The policy aspired to isolate Bosnia and Herzegovina from its irredentist neighbors (Orthodox Serbia, Catholic Croatia, and the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire) and to negate the concept of Croatian and Serbian nationhood which had already begun to make headway among Bosnia and Herzegovina's Catholic and Orthodox communities, respectively.

After 1906, the Muslims established several political parties and many institutions and associations which reflected their ethnic and cultural distinctiveness.

[9] In an article of the journal Bošnjak ("The Bosniak"), Bosniak author and mayor of Sarajevo Mehmed Kapetanović declared that Bosnian Muslims were neither Croats nor Serbs but a distinct, though related, people:[10] Whereas the Croats argue that the Orthodox are our greatest enemies and that Serbdom is the same as Orthodoxy, the Serbs wear themselves out calling our attention to some bogus history, by which they have Serbianized the whole world.

[2] By late 1941, much of the Bosniak elite openly criticized the NDH regime for its policy toward its minorities, and demanded autonomy for Bosnia and Herzegovina.