Jajce

Jajce
Јајце

Basic data

State :

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Entity :

Federation of BiH

Canton :

Central Bosnia

Coordinates :

44 ° 20 ' N , 17 ° 16' E Coordinates: 44 ° 20 '29 " N , 17 ° 16' 1" E

Height :

380 m. i. J.

Area :

350 km²

Residents :

27,258 (2013)

Population density :

78 inhabitants per km²

Telephone code :

+387 (0) 30

Postal code :

70101

Structure and administration (as of 2016)

Mayor :

Edin Hozan ( SDA )

Website :

www.opcina-jajce.ba

Others

City Festival :

September 13th (Liberation Day)

Old town of Jajce

Jajce (German obsolete Jaitze ) is a town and municipality in the canton of Central Bosnia . It is located about 70 km south of Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina . Before the conquest by the Ottoman Empire, Jajce was the seat of the kings of Bosnia.

geography

Jajce is located in the center of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the territory of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina . The old town is located on a castle hill, which is bounded in the south by the Pliva and in the east by the Vrbas . To the southwest of the old town, the Pliva flows over a 20 m high waterfall into the Vrbas Gorge. The mostly forested mountains in the area rise up to 1400 m.

The municipality Jajce is in the north, northeast and west of the Republika Srpska limited . The neighboring municipalities within the federation are Dobretići in the east, Travnik in the southeast and Donji Vakuf in the south.

To the northwest of Jajce are Mrkonjić Grad , Ključ and Bihać .

Community structure

The municipality Jajce next to the city include even the villages Barevo , Biokovina , Bistrica , Brav Nice , Bučići , Bulíci , Carevo Polje , cusine , Divičani , Donja Šibenica , Donji Bešpelj , Donje Mile , Doribaba , Gornja Šibenica , Gornje Mile , Gornji Bešpelj , Kamenice , Klimenta , Krezluk , Kruščica , Kuprešani , Lendići , Lupnica , Pšenik , Peratovci , Podlipci , Podmilačje , Rika , Skela , Smionica , Vinac , Vlasinje , Vukičevci , Vrbica and Zgone .

history

Relics from the Bronze and Iron Ages have been found in the urban area . A first permanent settlement in the area emerges from the oldest existing monument, a temple of the god Mithras from the 4th century AD.

Jajce was founded in 1396 by Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić , Duke of Bosnia. The Duke, who came from Split , had a fortress built at the confluence of the Pliva and Vrbas rivers and named it Jajce. In the 15th century a town developed below the fortress. The Bosnian King Tvrtko II (1421–1444) made Jajce his royal seat. It gained not only political but also economic importance as the center of the Bosnian state and can be regarded as the “first capital of Bosnia”. This heyday ended in 1463, however. Stjepan Tomašević was crowned as the last Bosnian king by papal legate Nikola von Modruš , a Dalmatian humanist , in Jajce in November 1461 , before he was captured by the Ottomans and executed in 1463 . In the same year they took the city for the first time, but were repulsed by the Hungarians . Their king Matthias Corvinus established the " Banat Jajce" in 1464 .

Ivaniš Berislavić , a nobleman of a Croatian lineage, was Banus of Jajce from 1504 to 1514 . His task was to protect the borders of the Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, from Ottoman attacks. After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the city came under the Ottoman Empire.

From July 29, 1878 , Austrian-Hungarian troops occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina in accordance with the resolutions of the Berlin Congress . Jajce itself was occupied on August 7th. Previously, there had been fighting in the area around the city.

During the Second World War, Jajce was the scene of important political events due to its location in an unoccupied area. In the building of the former Sokol gymnastics club , the 2nd assembly of the Anti-Fascist People's Liberation Council (AVNOJ) met from November 21 to 29, 1943 , at which historical resolutions were passed and the federalist concept for socialist Yugoslavia was developed ( AVNOJ resolutions ). Therefore Jajce is considered to be the founding place of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia .

Before the Bosnian War , about 45,000 people lived in Jajce; today the community has around 30,000 inhabitants, mostly Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks . Tensions recurred on the return of residents displaced during the war, and one person was killed in 1997. During the war, the western districts of the municipality of Jajce split off and form the municipality of Jezero in the Republika Srpska today .

Culture and sights

Before the war, the urban area of Jajce was classified in the highest category in terms of the importance of protecting the cultural heritage in its original form. Of the 22 monuments in the city, 10 objects were of the greatest importance. The well-preserved city center bears witness to the time as a royal city.

Apart from the Roman temple, most of the surviving monuments date from the Middle Ages. Mention should be made here of the tower of St. Luke with the associated church of St. Mary . This church was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest. The bell tower became a minaret. In the immediate vicinity are the Bear Tower and the so-called catacombs, which house an underground church with the graves of Duke Hrvatinić and the associated fortifications. These have been preserved in their original form.

Two great empires, the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian , which ruled this city from 1528 to 1918, shaped the city with their way of life and architectural styles. Many buildings of cultural and historical importance have been preserved from this period. Among the mosques the most significant is the Esma Sultanija Mosque. There is also the Sinan Beg or Okić Mosque and the Dizdar or Women's Mosque.

Jajce is also known for the Pliva waterfall and the medieval fortifications in the city center, the Pliva lakes, some well-preserved water mills and the pilgrimage site Podmilačje in the vicinity. The building in which the second AVNOJ assembly took place contains a museum with documents on the establishment of the socialist , communist Yugoslav state.

The old town of Jajce has been a candidate for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2006 ; the decision is still pending.

population

The Bosnian War changed the ethnic composition of the population of Jajce. After the conquest by the VRS in 1992, the non-Serbian population was expelled. When the HVO was recaptured in 1995, the Serbian population was expelled and the Croatian, later Muslim, population returned.

1991 census:

17,380 Bosniaks (38.6%)
15,811 Croatians (35.1%)
8,663 Serbs (19.3%)
3,153 Other (7%)

2013 census:

13,269 Bosniaks (48.7%)
12,555 Croatians (46.1%)
501 Serbs (1.8%)
933 other (3.4%)

Jajce itself is predominantly inhabited by Croats and Bosniaks, while the inhabitants of the villages on the northern, eastern and southern outskirts are mostly Bosniaks. The villages in the Rijeka valley around Krezluk in the southeast were completely empty in 2007.

traffic

Jajce station in 1966

Jajce is at the junction of the M5 ( Sarajevo - Ključ - Bihać ) and M16 ( Livno - Banja Luka ) highways , which share the route through the upper Vrbas Valley. Another, but not developed, path leads from Jajce over the 1179 m high Karaulapass to Travnik.

As early as 1895, Jajce became the end point of the network of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian State Railways (BHStB) with a Bosnian gauge of 760 millimeters. The route Jajce-Donji Vakuf-Lašva led to southeast over Donji Vakuf and the gear portion via the Komarsattel (Komar sedlo) and Travnik according Lašva. There it flowed into the Bosna Railway , which led from Bosanski Brod to Sarajevo and from there, in the form of the Narenta Railway , extended to the Mediterranean Sea. Later there was a connection to Belgrade via the Bosnian Eastern Railway . The rail connection was important for the Elektrobosna Jaice power and chemical plant . In 1916, the Bosnian forest industry Otto Steinbeis created a connection with its Steinbeisbahn by extending it from Jaice west to Čardak. Since 1905 a branch of the Steinbeisbahn has led from there to its main connection Knin - Prijedor . Railway operations were given up from 1965 to 1975 and the tracks were dismantled.