Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska, also referred to as the Republic of Srpska or the Serb Republic, is one of the three political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the others being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Brčko District. Situated in the northern and eastern regions of the country, it recorded a population of 1,228,423 in the 2013 census. Its largest city and administrative hub is Banja Luka, located on the banks of the Vrbas River.
Republika Srpska was established in 1992 at the onset of the Bosnian War with the stated purpose of safeguarding the interests of the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the conflict, a majority of Croats and Bosniaks were expelled from territories controlled by Republika Srpska, while the majority of Serbs were displaced or expelled from the present-day Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Republika Srpska. The 1995 Dayton Agreement created Republika Srpska as one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's two constituent entities. Today, it is inhabited by the Serb population of the country.
The entity operates under a parliamentary system, with legislative power vested in the National Assembly, which comprises 83 seats. While Republika Srpska is relatively centralized, it is administratively divided into 64 municipalities, known as Municipalities of Republika Srpska. The current legislative term marks the tenth session since its inception.
Name
In the name Republika Srpska, wiktionary:Srpska is a noun derived from the ethnonym of the Serbs with a different suffix from Srbija 'Serbia'. In Serbian, many names of countries are formed with the wiktionary:Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/-ьskъ suffix. An analogous English formation would be Serbland. The government uses the name "Republic of Srpska" in English.Although Republika Srpska is variously glossed in English as Serb Republic, Bosnian Serb Republic, or Republic of Srpska, the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and English-language news sources such as the BBC, The New York Times, and The Guardian generally refer to the entity by its transliteration.
According to Glas Srpske, a Banja Luka daily, the modern entity's name was created by its first minister of culture, Ljubomir Zuković.
History
Early history
Archaeological evidence in Republika Srpska attest to pronounced human activity in the Paleolithic. Within the wider region of Herzegovina, the discoveries tie the region's early activities to Croatia and Montenegro.More permanent settlement arose with the Neolithic, which occurred along the rivers of Bosnia and Herzegovina as farming spread from the southeast. The Butmir culture developed near present-day East Sarajevo on the river Bosna. A variety of idols, mostly of female characters, were found in the Butmir site, along with dugouts.
The Indo-European migrations of the Bronze Age contributed to the first use of metal tools in the region, along with the construction of burial mounds—tumuli, or kurgans. Remains of these mounds can be found in northwestern Bosnia near Prijedor, testament to not only denser settlement but also Bronze Age relics.
With the influx of the Iron Age, the Glasinac culture, developing near Sokolac in eastern Republika Srpska, was one of the most important of the country's long-standing Indo-European inhabitants, the Illyrians. Later, these Illyrians—the Autariatae—were influenced by the Celts after the Gallic invasion of the Balkans.
Roman period
With the end of the Illyrian Wars, most of Bosnia and Herzegovina came under Roman control within the province of Illyricum. In this period, the Romans consolidated the region through the construction of a dense road network and the Romanisation of the local population. Among these roads was the Via Argentaria, or 'Silver Way', which transported silver from the eastern mines of Bosnia to Roman population centres. Modern placenames, such as the Una and Sana rivers in the northwest, have Latin origins, meaning "the one" and "the healthy", respectively. This rule was not uninterrupted, however; with the suppression of the once-dominant Illyrian population came revolts such as the Bellum Batonianum. After 20 AD, however, the entirety of the country was conquered by the Romans, and it was split between Pannonia and Dalmatia. The most prominent Roman city in Bosnia was the relatively small Servitium, near modern-day Gradiška in the northern part of the entity.Christianity spread to the region relatively late at least partially due to the countryside's mountainous nature and its lack of large settlements. In the fourth century, however, the country began to be Christianised en masse. With the split of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires in 395, modern-day Republika Srpska fell under the Western Roman Empire. Testament to its and Bosnia and Herzegovina's later religious polarisation, it was later conquered as a frontier of the Eastern Roman Empire, a harbinger for religious division to come.
Middle Ages
With the loosening of the Roman grip on the region came the Migration Period, which, given Republika Srpska's position in southeastern Europe, involved a wide variety of peoples. Among the first was the invasion of Germanic peoples from the east and north, and the territory became a part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 476.By 535, the territory was taken once again by the Byzantine Empire. At this time, the Empire's grip was once again relatively loose and Slavs invaded the surrounding area. Modern-day Republika Srpska was therefore split between the mediaeval Kingdom of Croatia and, according to De Administrando Imperio, mediaeval Serbian županije, including, Bosna, Zachlumia, Travunija, and Serbia, then including land in eastern Bosnia. Parts of present-day Srpska were locations of settlement of the original White Serb people.
File:Stećak na Gvoznom polju.jpg|thumb|left|Stećak, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, on Treskavica mountain
By the end of the 11th century, the entirety of Bosnia became part of the Hungarian Crown Lands. Under Hungarian rule, the area was known as the Banate of Bosnia. Later, however, with the rule of Ban Kulin, who is regarded as the founder of Bosnia, the region became de facto independent. In 1377, the Banate of Bosnia became the medieval Kingdom of Bosnia, under Tvrtko I of House of Kotromanić. The capitals of the kingdom were all located in its centre, while the northern periphery remained under nominal Hungarian rule as the region of Usora. Architectural legacies from this period include Kastel Fortress in Banja Luka, the fortress of Doboj as well as castles, churches, and monasteries across the country.
With the growth of the Ottoman Empire, Stefan Tomašević, the last Kotromanić ruler, surrendered Bosnia and Serbia to Ottoman tributary status. A Catholic, he was unpopular among the Orthodox population of Serbia, as well as the members of the Bosnian Church. Refusing to pay tribute to Mehmed the Conqueror, King Stefan was executed and much of Bosnia fell under direct Ottoman rule in 1463 as the Eyalet of Bosnia. The entirety of the country fell in 1482, with the founding of the Sanjak of Herzegovina.
16th to 19th centuries
Ottoman rule in modern-day Republika Srpska saw another addition to its religious fabric—Islam. Members of the Bosnian Church, as well as many Orthodox and Catholic Bosnians, gradually converted to Islam. Ottoman rule left a profound architectural legacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. The most famous mosque from this period is the Ferhadija mosque, located in Banja Luka. In addition, the subject of Ivo Andrić's book The Bridge on the Drina, Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad, was constructed by Mimar Sinan, the most famous Ottoman architect, in 1577, for Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. Years earlier, the same Grand Vizier was born into an Orthodox family in a small town in Bosnia and taken from his parents as a child for upbringing as a janissary. His bridge is a symbol of the religious and cultural spans—and eventually conflict— that characterise Republika Srpska and Bosnia and Herzegovina.With the Ottoman-Habsburg conflicts of the late 17th and 18th centuries, parts of northern Republika Srpska became a part of the Habsburg Empire for relatively short periods. The rule was more permanent following the Austro-Hungarian invasion in 1878. Characterised by economic and social development not seen in the by-then backwards Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian rule was welcomed by many. However, many Muslims left Bosnia, leaving Serbs as the majority in the entirety of the Condominium.
20th century
With the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, carried out by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Yugoslavist Mlada Bosna, World War I broke out in 1914. Following the war, the territory of modern-day Republika Srpska was incorporated into the Vrbas, Drina, and Zeta banovinas of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, renamed Yugoslavia in 1929.Following the outbreak of World War II and the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, modern-day Republika Srpska fell under the rule of the Nazi puppet state, The Independent State of Croatia. Around 300,000 Serbs are estimated to have died under the Ustashe regime as a result of their genocide campaign; a slew of massacres, as well as the use of a variety of concentration and extermination camps, took place in Republika Srpska during the war. The Jasenovac concentration camp, located in modern-day Croatia, was the site of the deaths of some 100,000 people, about 47,000-52,000 of which were Serbs. Massacres also occurred at Garavice and Kruščica concentration camp in the eastern part of Bosnia. The regime systematically and brutally massacred Serbs in villages in the countryside, using a variety of tools. The scale of the violence meant that approximately every sixth Serb living in Bosnia-Herzegovina was the victim of a massacre and virtually every Serb had a family member that was killed in the war, mostly by the Ustaše. An estimated 209,000 Serbs or 16.9% of its Bosnia population were killed on the territory of Bosnia–Herzegovina during the war. Today, monuments honouring these victims can be found across Republika Srpska and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationalist movement Chetniks, a guerilla force that engaged in tactical or selective collaboration with the occupying forces for almost all of the war, pursued genocide against Croats and Muslims, which included thousands of Croat and Muslim civilians killed on the territory of modern-day Republika Srpska. The Chetniks killed an estimated 50,000 to 68,000 Muslims and Croats. A December 1941 directive, attributed to Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović, explicitly ordered the ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats from Sandžak and Bosnia and Herzegovina. About 300 villages and small towns were destroyed, along with a large number of mosques and Catholic churches. The Chetniks were almost exclusively made up of Serbs except for a large number of Montenegrins who identified as Serbs.
During the entire course of World War II in Yugoslavia, 64.1% of all Bosnian Partisans were Serbs.
After World War II came a period of relative peace and economic development. Ljubija mine and companies like Agrokomerc played a vital role in much of the economic development of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Literacy rates increased greatly, and the University of Banja Luka was founded in 1975.