Images of the Ottomans in History Textbooks in Bosnia and Herzegovina
To achieve that paper compares the ways in which the key issues in Ottoman history, such as the Kosovo battle and the Islamization process, are handled. In the end it is clear that there is a clear difference between those BH history textbooks that try to highlight the best from the past as the basis for contemporary coexistence, while Serbian textbooks, and sometimes Croatian ones, bring the worst of it to the students’ attention. Especially disturbing is Serbian textbooks multiple mentioning of alleged impalements of Serbs by Ottomans.
The myths that other authors have identified in general national historiographies of the Balkans are almost all present in the textbooks analyzed.
By comparing contemporary history textbooks with the Franciscan and Orthodox monastery chronicles from the 15th and 18th century Bosnia the paper shows how nationalism distorted historiography in Bosnia in ways that ask for urgent rewriting of the textbooks to include others in a meaningful way.
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