Balija

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Balija ( plural : balije ; originally abalija , from Turkish abalı for a person clad in coarse fabric ) is a South Slavic derogatory term for a Bosniak or other Slavic Muslim . It is also a Muslim male first name in the Bosnian language .

history

The term balija in the sense of shepherd was used in the 19th century in Bosnia and Herzegovina under Ottoman rule especially for the Muslim sheep farming communities who lived as semi-nomads in the Velež Mountains . The Bosnian Begs (nobles) and Agas (landowners) used the term for their Muslim farmers to indicate that they considered them to be rough people with low education. Accordingly, Balija was used disparagingly by the elitist Muslim urban population for the rural Muslim population.

At the beginning of the 20th century , Muslim farmers or, in Herzegovina, the wandering shepherds on the right bank of the Neretva, generally regarded as backward, were called Balije. During the Bosnian War (1992-1995) the Serbian and Croatian propaganda used the term as a derogatory term for the supposedly uneducated and dirty Bosniaks . The term Balija is said to come from the South Slavic term bala for saliva or mucus , which makes it the name of a primitive, "snotty" Muslim.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Andreas Moritsch, Alois Mosser (ed.): The other in view: Stereotypes in the former Yugoslavia (=  Pro oriente: series of publications of the Commission for Southeast European History . Volume 2 ). Lang, 2002, ISBN 978-3-631-34646-4 , ISSN  1437-367X , pp. 120 .
  2. ↑ Nusret Mulasmajic: Bosnian-English Dictionary: Turcisms, colloquialisms, Islamic Words and Expressions . AuthorHouse, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4634-0179-5 , pp. 20 .
  3. ↑ a b Hannes Grandits: Rule and loyalty in late Ottoman society: the example of multi-confessional Herzegovina . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2008, p. 687 .
  4. ↑ Zentralblatt für Anthropologie . F. Vieweg, 1909, p. 32 .
  5. ^ Carl Patsch: Historical walks in the Karst and on the Adriatic: Herzegovina then and now . Ed .: Research Institute for East and Orient. tape 1 , 1922, pp. 22 .
  6. ↑ Zeljko Ivankovic and Dunja Melcic: The Bosniak-Croat "war within a war" . In: Dunja Melčić (Ed.): The Yugoslavia War: Handbook on Prehistory, Course and Consequences . 2nd Edition. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2007, p. 433 .
  7. ↑ Emran Qureshi, Michael A. Sells (Ed.): The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy . Columbia University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-231-50156-9 , pp. 373 .
  8. ^ Michael A. Sells: The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (=  Comparative Studies in Religion and Society . Volume 11 ). University of California Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-520-92209-9 , pp. 77 .
  9. ↑ Norbert Mappes-Niediek: The Ethno Trap: The Balkan Conflict and what Europe can learn from it . Ch. Links Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86284-096-0 , p. 43 .