Bosnia and Herzegovina is specific for its ethnic diversity and it had existed as such even before the nations and nation states, since the Middle Ages, historian Dubravka Stojanovic told N1.

The Belgrade university professor, who often warns about the destructivity of nationalism while building friendly and academic relations with the countries of the region, noted that the nation states are never monoethnic.

“Bosnia and Herzegovina is specific for many things, and its most important specificity as such, ethnically diverse, it had existed even before the nations and nation states, since the Middle Ages. That has never been a problem for Bosnia, so in that sense it is very dangerous to speak about the fall of Yugoslavia and fall of Bosnia as if that's the same process,” she said, speaking to N1's Nikola Vucic.

Division of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Stojanovic noted, is a war programme imposed by the neighbouring countries.

She further emphasised the nonsense of comparing Yugoslavia with Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly in the context of a disintegration.

“Bosnia is a medieval state, its growth is entirely different than the one of Yugoslavia, Serbia or Croatia. Those are the states that emerged in their own ways. Yugoslavia, as well. But it all has nothing to do with the history of Bosnia and Herzegovin which has a long continuity,” she stressed, adding that the allusions about Bosnia and Herzegovina being a little Yugoslavia are “wrong and dangerous.”

Competing in nationalism

According to the historian, the moment when elites of the peoples in the neighbouring Serbia and Croatia decided to carry out the programme of division and disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina was crucial.

“That was an imposed war programme and that does not mean at all that the process of division of Bosnia and Herzegovina is natural. On contrary, it is superficial. Just like Latinka Perovic, a friend of mine, says – the blood that was shed in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a proof it is impossible to divide it,” she said.

Responding to the host's question about Bosnia Serb Presidency member Milorad Dodik's role and his statements about Bosnia being an “impossible state,” Stojanovic noted that citizens and society who are supposed to produce different ideas should think about these things.

“Competing in nationalism is a problem we are encountering. The opposition parties compete with the ruling parties in nationalism,” Stojanovic told N1.