Policy: Some Medieval

Bosnian History and Austro-Hungarian policy: some Medieval Belts, the Bogomil The author exposes the ua y in t v h i ch a f a l se vietv of the cultural history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, pro• Romance and the King j ccted for political reasons by Austria-Hungary in t h e early years of it s occupation of th e p r ovince, can still Tvrtko Graves have repercussions in the u ork of present-day scholars of European art-history, u ho have no reason to suspect Đr Marian Wenzel its operation. An instance is given i» >vhich a nun>ber of falsified a r cheological r esults f r o >n early i n the Bachelor of Science, Doctor of Philosophy century have been taken at face value by later scholars Abingdon Abbey, England and have resulted in the >nisdating by half a century or >nore of an i n >portant gr oup o f s i l ver-gilt b elts. The Original scientific p a per group is re-dated o» the basis of >nore reliable ei>idence. BOSNIAN HISTORY .. scholarship from the only half-uncovered body of di s• tortions imposed on B o snian history by q u asi-official In the course of some recent research on medieval Austro-Hungarian sources in t h e l at e 19th an d e a rly B osnian metalwork, I f ou n d m y s elf p u zzled b y t h e 20th ccnturies. It seemed to me that it w o uld be inter• curious mis-dating of a group of i nteresting decorative esting to set out some account of how some extremely silver-gilt belts (f igs, 7 — 10, 11d — 16), Balkan regional disreputable machinations from the turn of the century variations of a t ype be'.ng made in France in the f i r st had led astray several unsuspecting and reputable half of th e 14th century ( f ig. 11a — c.) Of those which scholars from other lands in m ore recent years. have a known provenance, three have been found in or The problem is a c o m plicated knot, the st rands of near Bosnia (figs. 7 — 10) (Gunjača 1955; page 233, sl. >w>hich are as follows: 14; Fingerlin 1971; cat. no. 465; Ko vačević-Kojić 1978; (a) The peculiar h i story o f t h e M u s l ims i n B o s nia page 307) whilst others have been found in Greece (figs. during the first half of the nineteenth century. llc, 12) (Da!ton 1911; page 397, fig. 13, Pl. 56, figs. 8, 9, (b) A false history of Bosnia invented by the Austro• 11, 13; Tait 1986; p. 142, fig. 326, Fingerlin 1971; cat. -Hungarian regime towards the end of t h e n i neteenth nos. 152, 153, 155) and one example was long preserved century, and making use of the circumstance (a). in Georgia (figs. 13 — 16) (Millike» 1930; pages 35, 36; (c) The discovery and s u p pression by s t af f o f the Fingerlin 1971; cat. no. 66.) The whole group was mis• Zemaljski M u z ej, S arajevo, i n 1 909 — 10 of a richly -dated in a recent German book about medieval belt fit• e quipped royal grave, almost certainly that of th e B o • tings, highly reputable in other ways, further reading of snian King Tvrtko I ( d ied 1391), beneath the altar area which revealed that this at first inexplicable muddle was of a church at Ar nautovići near Visoko in ćentral Bo• b ased on a c o n f usion about o b j ects excavated f r o m snia, for the p u r poses of m aintaining (b). what was claimed as the grave of one ot th e B osnian (d) The fact t ha t (b ) w a s s o s uccesfully i m planted kings named Tvrtko.' in Bosnian consciousness that it survived the changed Exploring the problem of why the author had accept• p olitical world w h ich emerged from W o rld War 1. ed the, to m e o b v iously p r eposterous, claim b r ought (e) Some activity by a former Austro-Hungarian mili• to the fore something which had f r equently disturbed tary surgeon i n t h e e a rly 1920's created false scents me during my many years of research on the medieval a bout the graves of b ot h t h e k i ngs called Tvr tko b y tombstones of Bosnia and Hercegovina, namely the way r eleasing some apparently new i n f o r mation about a n in w h ic h t e n t acles s t il l s p r ead i n t o co n t emporary e xcavation which took p l ace in t h e f i rst y ears of t h e Habsburg occupation of Bosnia and Hercegovina. ' Ilse Fingerlin, Gu r tel d es ho hen und s paten M t t t el>tlters, (f) A German r esearcher in a q u i t e d i f f erent f i eld, Munchen 1 971. I am g r a teful to R o nald L i g htbown of i h e understandably ignorant of ( c), accepted, in a p u b l ic• Victoria and A l bert M u seum for b r i nging this material to my attention, and to Derek J. Con>ent for assisting me to ation in 1971, the evidence of the publication resulting obtain additional information. Nada Miletić of the Zemaljski f rom (e), and as a r e sult m i sdated a ~ h ol e group o f Muzej, Sarajevo,has enabled me to examine and photograph early 14th century belts to th e l ater 14th century, the finds from K ing T v r tko I's real grave, for w h ich I e x t end time of the death of T v r tko I ( 1 391), whilst compoun• thanks. Thanks are due also to my husband, John Cornish. who has given much assistance in the final shaping of this ding the confusion or iginating w it h (e ) b e tween that article, and in preparing it for publication. king and Tvrtko II (died 1443.) M. Wenzel: BOSNIAN HISTORY . AND THE KING TVRTKO G R A V E S PERISTIL 30/1987. Once the knot i s exposed and at l east partially un• literature to present the views under discussion in for• tied, the excellent reasons for dating the belts and some eign languages, appeared in Budapest in 1887, in Vienna associated finds to t h e early 14th century can be ex• in 1888, and in London in 1890. plored, and the record put straight. The Treaty of Berlin had granted Austria-Hungary the The above points may be elaborated as follows. sole right of occupation and administration of B o snia and Hercegovina following its take-over in 1879. A de• cade later many inhabitants of the region were still less T HE M U SLIMS IN BOSNIA AND H E R C E G O V I N A than enthusiastic about this arrangement, persisting ob• In the years between 1820 and 1851, the Bosnian Mus• stinately in seeing a linkage with Serbia as the natural lims were not m uch r egarded in I s tanbul (Š iŠić 1938; outcome of their history. Von Asboth's new account of pages 19, 20.) As the disregard grew increasingly mutual Bosnian history was designeđ to convince the upholders in the second half o f t h e c e ntury, they became very of this recalcitrant view that it was based on a failure much a l a w in t o th e m selves. The e ontrol t ha t t h e to appreciate their country's real past. One of the most Muslim landowners exercised over their Christian serfs important facts of Bosnian history, he argued, was that grew more b r u tal, anđ th e t axes they i m posed more it had once had, during the era before the imposition punitive, and many ugly incidents occured as the serfs of Turkish rule, a strongly held national religion. This began to rebel. By this time Istanbul could only weakly r eligion, the message ran, was in n o w a y l i n ked w i t h acquiesce in w ha t t h e B o snian M u slims w ere d o ing. Serbia, on the one hand, and was vehemently condem• Thus, by the 1870's they were the only religious group ned by Rome, on the other. It was, in fact, an heretical in Bosnia and Hercegovina with no aspirations which religion, clearly related to various established medieval depended on backing from some foreign power, at a dualist heresies. Its place of o r i gin was a l and w h i ch time when Catholic Croatia looked to Austria and, be• had also been subjugated to Turkey in later years, na• yond, to Rome, whilst Orthodox Serbia looked to Mon• mely Bulgaria.' It was to B u lgaria therefore that Bos• tenegro, then r u led b y a n O r t h odox vl a dika, and, o f nians should look for cultural links, rather than to We• course, to Russia.

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