 | Muslim village homes near Sarajevo, 1954. Serb homes in the adjoining village were identical. Built by local craftsmen from available materials. Steep roofs were
designed to shed the heavy mountain snows. By the 1980s this house style, shared by all groups, had virtually disappeared, replaced by uniform concrete homes with electricity and plumbing. |
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One of the characteristics of the preindustrial Bosnian city was the domnance of religious architecture. Monumental mosques provided the backdrop for the daily, weekly and monthly gatherings of villagers and their urban customers. Banja Luka marketpla
ce in 1954 provided a setting for different groups to trade and a place where they could interact peacefully. The blowing up of this mosque and the expelling and killing by the Bosnian Serbs of the local Muslim and Croat population has permanently altered
this city. |
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A mosque's courtyard provides a convenient place for Muslim elders to gather on a sunny spring afternoon in 1954. The white band on the cap of the man at the right signifies his completion of the pilgrimage to Mecca. His cane is a further mark of status. A worker's cap defines another member of the group. |
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Generational differences are clearly apparent in the different dress styles of the governing board of the Maglaj mosque. Bosnian Muslims always accommodated themselves to the policies of the socialist government, which were relatively lenient toward organized religion as long as it never constitutied an overt threat to communist power. |
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A Muslim rope seller and Croat customer at the Maglaj market, 1964. Although Maglaj at that time had a large paper factory, local craftsmen still prospered. Most of their customers were other peasants from surrounding villages. Ethnic differences were
no barrier to trade. |
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Muslim man with wooden plow 1954. This technology can be seen in American farm museums representing early 19th century technology. In Bosnia within two decades wooden plows became almost universally replaced by steel ones. Yugoslav agriculture in the
1950s and 1960s received substantial American assistance in the form of wheat shipments. These were designed to secure a cold-war alliance. |
 | Playing cards at a Maglaj cafe (1964). Occupations were no barrier to social interactions. But the distinctions with rural people were clearly marked because peas
ant vendors at the market would not have the time for such leisure activities. |
 | A Croat village woman experiments with shopping at a new supermarket in Maglaj in 1964. Folk dress, a marker of marital status, ethnic and regional identity, was tied to locale. |
 | Catholic bishop celebrating the Feast of the Assumption in Vares, 1964. It is reported that the local Bosnian authorities now in control at Vares, a
one-time steel industry town north of Sarajevo, are not permitting the return of Catholics to the area. |
   | Boy with flute at the Maglaj market. This was then
a look toward a future with no overt markers of ethnic identity. |
