North America South America Oceania The Bosniaks (Bosnian: Bošnjaci, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, pronounced [boʃɲǎːtsi]; singular masculine: Bošnjak [bǒʃɲaːk], feminine: Bošnjakinja) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia,[14] today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who share a common ancestry, culture, history and the Bosnian language.

Traditionally and predominantly adhering to Sunni Islam, they constitute native communities in what is today Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and the Republic of Kosovo.

[23] Linguists have most commonly proposed the toponym Bosnia to be derived from the eponymous river Bosna; widely believed to be a pre-Slavic hydronym in origin[24][25] and possibly mentioned for the first time during the 1st century AD by Roman historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus as Bathinus flumen.

[26] Linguist Petar Skok expressed an opinion that the chronological transformation of this hydronym from the Roman times to its final Slavicization occurred in the following order; *Bassanus> *Bassenus> *Bassinus> *Bosina> Bosьna> Bosna.

In this regard, Christian Bosnians had not described themselves as either Serbs or Croats before the 19th century, particularly before the Austrian occupation, when the current tri-ethnic reality of Bosnia and Herzegovina was configured based on religious affiliation.

[31] The Austro-Hungarian administration of Benjamin von Kallay promoted the idea of a non-confessional unitary "Bosniak" identity that would encompass all inhabitants (more akin to Bosnism), going even as far as prohibiting Bosnian cultural associations from using the terms "Serb" and "Croat" in their names in the 1880s.

[39] Similarly, the 2002 Slovenian census recorded 8,062 people who registered as Bosnians, presumably highlighting (in large part) the decision of many secular Bosniaks to primarily identify themselves in that way (a situation somewhat comparable to the Yugoslav option during the socialist period).

However, such people comprise a minority (even in countries such as Montenegro where it is a significant political issue) while the great majority of Slavic Muslims in the former Yugoslavia have adopted the Bosniak national name.

"[46] French diplomat Massieu de Clerval, visiting Bosnia in 1855, reported that Bosnian Muslims, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians lived together in harmony unless external influences stirred religious tensions.

[58] The Early Slavs, a people from northeastern Europe, settled the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina (and neighboring regions) after the sixth century (amid the Migration Period), and were composed of small tribal units drawn from a single Slavic confederation known to the Byzantines as the Sclaveni (whilst the related Antes, roughly speaking, colonized the eastern portions of the Balkans).

[62] In former Yugoslav historiography, a second migration of "Serb" and "Croat" tribes (variously placed in the 7th to 9th century) is viewed as that of elites imposing themselves on a more numerous and 'amorphous' Slavic populace,[59][63][64] however such a paradigm needs to be clarified empirically.

[57][69] Following the conquest of Bosnia by the Ottoman Empire in the mid-15th century, there was a rapid and extensive wave of conversion from Christianity to Islam, and by the early 1600s roughly two-thirds of Bosnians were Muslim.

These included Croats (mainly from Turkish Croatia), the Muslims of Slavonia who fled to Bosnia following the Austro-Turkish war), Serbian and Montenegrin Muhacirs (in Sandžak particularly Islamicized descendants of the Old Herzegovinian and highlander tribes from Brda region, such as Rovčani, Moračani, Drobnjaci and Kuči), and slavicized Vlachs,[72] Albanians[72] and German Saxons.

[81] According to Fóthi et al. (2020), the distribution of ancestral subclades like of I-CTS10228 among contemporary carriers indicates a rapid expansion from Southeastern Poland, is mainly related to the Slavs, and the "largest demographic explosion occurred in the Balkans".

The huge differentiation between Bosnian and Slovene samples of mtDNA subclusters that are also observed in Central and Eastern Europe, may suggests a broader genetic heterogeneity among the Slavs that settled the Western Balkans during the early Middle Ages.

"[91] Christian missions emanating from Rome and Constantinople had since the ninth century pushed into the Balkans and firmly established Catholicism in Croatia, while Orthodoxy came to prevail in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and eventually most of Serbia.

[102] Scholars have long debated the reasons that made this collective acceptance of Islam possible among the Bosnians, although the religious dynamic of medieval Bosnia is frequently cited.

[103] Peter Masarechi, saw four basic reasons to explain the more intensive Islamization in Bosnia: the 'heretical past' of the Bosnians, which had left them confessionally weak and capable of transferring their allegiance to Islam; the example of many Bosnians who had attained high office through the devşirme, and as powerful men were in a position to encourage their relatives and associates to convert; a desire to escape from the burdens of taxation and other services levied on non-Muslim citizens; and finally, an equally strong desire to escape the proselytizing importunities of Franciscan monks among the Orthodox population.

[105] Always on purely religious grounds, it is also said, by the orientalist Thomas Walker Arnold for instance, that because of the major heresy in the region at the time, oppressed by the Catholics and against whom Pope John XXII even launched a crusade in 1325, the people were more receptive to the Ottoman Turks.

To fill up depopulated areas of northern and western Eyalet of Bosnia, the Ottomans encouraged the migration of large numbers of hardy settlers with military skills from Serbia and Herzegovina.

Many of these settlers were Vlachs, members of a nomadic pre-Slav Balkan population that had acquired a Latinate language and specialized in stock breeding, horse raising, long-distance trade, and fighting.

This emigration continued throughout the Austro-Hungarian period, intensifying during moments of political tension, particularly following the formal annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, which ended the façade of Ottoman sovereignty.

[142] During World War II, Bosnia and Herzegovina was part of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), and the majority of Bosnian Muslims considered themselves to be ethnic Croats.

[147] Some of them also participated in Ustaše atrocities, while Bosnian Muslims in Nazi Waffen-SS units were responsible for massacres of Serbs in northwest and eastern Bosnia, most notably in Vlasenica.

Even though the pilgrimage at Ajvatovica is a marking of the sixteenth-century conversion to Islam in Bosnia,[180] National heroes are typically historical figures, whose lives and skills in battle are emphasized.

";[181] The nation takes pride in the native melancholic folk songs sevdalinka, the precious medieval filigree manufactured by old Sarajevo craftsmen, and a wide array of traditional wisdom transmitted to newer generations by word of mouth, but in recent years written down in several books.

[182] Rural folk traditions in Bosnia include the shouted, polyphonic ganga and ravne pjesme (flat song) styles, as well as instruments like a wooden flute and šargija.

Probably the most distinctive and identifiably Bosniak music, Sevdalinka is a kind of emotional, melancholic folk song that often describes sad subjects such as love and loss, the death of a dear person or heartbreak.

The poets which in large has contributed to the rich heritage of the Bosniak people include among others Derviš-paša Bajezidagić, Abdullah Bosnevi, Hasan Kafi Pruščak, Abdurrahman Sirri, Abdulvehab Ilhamija, Mula Mustafa Bašeskija, Hasan Kaimija, Ivan Franjo Jukić, Safvet-beg Bašagić, Musa Ćazim Ćatić, Mak Dizdar, as many prominent prose writers, such as Enver Čolaković, Skender Kulenović, Abdulah Sidran, Nedžad Ibrišimović, Zaim Topčić and Zlatko Topčić.

vrelima Bosnensis), prvotno je ime koje označuje pripadništvo srednjovjekovnoj bosanskoj državi.The Bosnian wartime militia (Schutzkorps), which became known for its persecution of Serbs, was overwhelmingly Muslim.Books Journals