January 11, 2013

0460 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA - The map of the country


According to the Dayton accord (signed in Paris on 14 December 1995), which put an end to the war in Bosnia, one of the armed conflicts in the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the borders that appear in this map, is formed from two entities: Republika Srpska (49% of the total area) and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (51% of the total area). In 2000 was created also, in the north of the country, the Brčko District (officially belonging to both entities, but being governed by neither), which separating in two sides (or connects the two parts of) Republika Srpska (depending on how you look at it).

The history of this country is as complicated as its structure today. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the control of Bosnia and Herzegovina was split between the principalities of Serbia and Croatia, the area being also contested between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Byzantine Empire. In the early 12th century, Bosnia emerged as an independent state, under the rule of local bans. Increasing its area by annexing territories to the north and west, as well as Zahumlje and parts of Dalmatia, it was elevated into a kingdom in 1377. The Kingdom of Bosnia ceased to exist in 1463, after its conquest by the Ottoman Empire.

Herzegovina, known as Hum during the Early Middle Ages, received its current name in 15th century, when Stefan Vukčić Kosača called himself "Herzog of Saint Sava, Lord of Hum and Primorje, Grand Duke of Bosnia" (herzog is the German for "duke"). Later, the region was administered by the Ottomans as the Sanjak of Herzegovina.

After the Congress of Berlin (1878), the Austro-Hungaria obtained the administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in 1908 it annexed this territory (the Bosnian Crisis). Following WWI, Bosnia was incorporated into the South Slav kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, soon renamed Yugoslavia, which become in 1943 The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its sovereignty in October 1991 and organized a referendum on independence in March 1992, which meant outbreak of the Bosnian War between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia, who were led and supplied by Serbia and Croatia respectively. The war ended with the Dayton accord (1995).

About the stamp


The stamp is one of the definitive series Stari Grad (Old Cities), issued on June 25, 2012 and consisting of two stamps with the same value (0.20 BAM):
• Bužim - it's on other postcard
• Tešanj - it's on the postcard 

As it can be seen, the postcards was sent on 12.12.2012.

References
History of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Wikipedia


sender: Snježana Makaš (direct swap)
sent from Tuzla (Bosnia and Herzegovina), on 12.12.2012
design: Samir Kamenjas / 2010

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