Young Bosnia

Young Bosnia

Mlada Bosna
Gavrilo Princip, Young Bosnia member and the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.
Founder	Unknown
Headquarters	Belgrade and various other places in Serbia and Bosnia.
Key people	Gavrilo Princip
Main organ	Black Hand

Young Bosnia (Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian: Mlada Bosna/Млада Босна) was a Yugoslavist (Pan-Slavist) revolutionary movement active in the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina before World War I. The members were predominantly school students. It included primarily Serbs but also Bosniaks and Croats There were several motivations promoted amongst different members of the group. There were members who promoted Yugoslavist aims of pan-South Slav unification of territories including Bosnia into a Yugoslavia. There were members who promoted Serbian nationalist aims of pan-Serb unification into Serbia. Young Bosnia was inspired from a variety of ideas, movements, and events; such as German romanticism, anarchism, Russian revolutionary socialism, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the Battle of Kosovo.

The ideologue of Young Bosnia and tyrannicide as its method of the political struggle, was Vladimir Gaćinović. In one letter to Dedijer, one of revolutionaries from Herzegovina (Božidar Zečević) stated that the name of Young Bosnia was first mentioned by Petar Kočić in journal "Homeland" (Serbian: Отаџбина) in 1907. In 1911 Gaćinović published an article titled "Young Bosnia" in Almanac (Serbian: Алманах) published by Prosvjeta.

The rise to power of the popular Karađorđević dynasty in Serbia in the 1900s after the May Overthrow of the Obrenovic dynasty by the Serbian Army in 1903, stimulated support by both Serbs and South Slavs for their unification into a state led by Belgrade. Support for revolutionary Yugoslavism in Bosnia grew with the rise of the Serbo-Croatian Progressive Organization in 1911, and drew in support for the cause from Serbs as well as Croats and some Muslims. Young Bosnia received some assistance by the Black Hand - a secret organization founded by several members of the Serbian Army. On the other hand, Vladimir Gaćinović was the only Young Bosnia leader to join Black Hand, and he publicly condemned the assassination in Sarajevo.

It was formed during the 1900s in the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina (an annexed condominium of Austria-Hungary), with significant influence from neighbouring Serbia.

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Main article: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Two notable organizations are referred to in connection with Young Bosnia: Narodna Odbrana and Black Hand. During a Serbian kangaroo court in French-occupied Salonika in 1916–17, Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis testified that he had organized the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, (the assassin was Gavrilo Princip). In the process, he used not only his power over elements of the Serbian military, but also the Black Hand. Leaders of the Black Hand in turn had penetrated Narodna Obrana and used the Narodna organization to infiltrate the arms and assassins into Sarajevo.

The Serbian National Organization of Petar Kočić had ties with the Young Bosnia. They participated in the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand which ultimately, led to World War I.

"The political union of the Yugoslavs [..] was my basic idea [..] I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria"
-Gavrilo Princip during his trial

Vidovdan Heroes' Memorial in Sarajevo

Claimed members of Young Bosnia who participated in the assassination were:

• Danilo Ilić (1891 – 3 February 1915)
• Veljko Čubrilović (1 July 1886 – 3 February 1915)
• Miško Jovanović (executed 3 February 1915)
• Nedeljko Čabrinović (2 February 1895 – 20 January 1916)
• Vladimir Gaćinović (25 May 1890 – 11 August 1917)
• Trifko Grabež (June 1895 – February 1918)
• Gavrilo Princip (25 July 1894 – 28 April 1918)
• Muhamed Mehmedbašić (1886 – 29 May 1943)
• Cvjetko Popović (1896 – 9 June 1980)
• Vaso Čubrilović (14 January 1897 – 11 June 1990)

An evening before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Princip, Čabrinović and Ilić visited the grave of Bogdan Žerajić for the last time. Žerajić's proclamation "He who wants to live, let him die. He who wants to die, let him live", was quoted by Gavrilo Princip in one of the songs he wrote (Serbian: Ал право је рекао пре Жерајић, соко сиви: Ко хоће да живи, нек мре, Ко хоће да мре, нек живи).

Museum of Young Bosnia

The Museum of Young Bosnia was built in the period of SFR Yugoslavia in 1953, at the place where the assassination took place. It commemorates the assassins, popularly known in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as the "Vidovdan heroes". At the front of the museum was a plaque, inscribed: "From this place, on 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, expressed with his shot the people's revolt against tyranny and their centuries-old struggle for freedom. (Са овога мјеста 28. јуна 1914. године Гаврило Принцип својим пуцњем изрази народни протест против тираније и вјековну тежњу наших народа за слободом.)" In 1992, soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina destroyed both the plaque and Princip's footprints. German forces had removed the 1930 plaque in 1941.