Vol. XXXIII · 2002 · pp. 43-75 (33 incl. 10 illus.)

Robert J. Donia

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Abstract

Sarajevo entered the twentieth century larger, more developed, and more European than it had been when Austro-Hungarian troops took control of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1878.1 The cityscape acquired a Western- oriented face superimposed on its previous profile as a classical Ottoman town. Underlying this physical transformation were major changes in demography, political organization, cultural life, and social practices in the city. Taken together these changes may be characterized broadly as "modernization" or "Westernization," but they reached Sarajevo mediated through the filters of Habsburg and Viennese experience and often mixed unpredictably with local culture and traditions. By 1900 Sarajevo was in two overlapping cultural orbits: a largely traditional world centered in Istanbul and increasingly dominant influences emanating from Vienna.