implementation of the tanzimat in bosnia

Political Systems

in the Balkans

The implementation of the Tanzimat in Bosnia, and the effects of Omer Pasha Latas’

campaign (1850)

Professor: Kenan RasidagicStudent: Irfan Strika

The period of the Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire had far reaching

consequences for the Bosnian Muslims. Their resistance to reforms resulted in the

military campaign of Omer Pasha Latas in 1850, in order to crush the rebellion of the

Bosnian Muslim landholders and end their defiance to the orders of Sultan Abdulmecid.

The rebellion was relatively easily crushed but the country was left devastated. But what

caused even worse consequences for the Bosnian Muslims was the fact that Omer Pasha

Latas’ troops either killed or sent into exile almost all the members of the Bosnian

Muslim elite. Muslims in Bosnia were left without real leaders for a long time and this

caused retardation in the formation of a distinct Bosniak national identity. This is

probably the main cause of their tragic fate over the last 130 years; they were without real

guidelines, without knowing who they are and where do they belong.

2

In November 1839, Sultan Abdulmecid introduced the earliest scripture of the

Tanzimat-I Hayriye (“The Reordering”), the famous Hatt-I Serif of Gulhane (Noble

Rescript of the Rose Garden).1 These reforms were intended to erode the special

privileges of the ruling Muslim millet and create equality among the millets. These

reforms were especially disliked by the ruling Ottoman class in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These attempted reforms caused a long and deep political crisis in the already crumbling

Empire that had far reaching consequences. What makes the implementation of Tanzimat

specific for Bosnia is that it opposed the ruling landowning and administrative Muslim

(Slavic) class against the Ottoman reformers – Mustafa Resit Pasa, Ali Pasa and Fuad

Pasa.2

After the Ottoman unsuccessful Siege of Vienna in 1683, the slow downfall of the

once glorious empire started.3 The foundations of this Empire were made on conquests,

and large-scale conquests didn’t occur for almost a century before the defeat at the gates

of Vienna. The agrarian timar system was thus in a great crisis. There was an obvious

need for reform and the first steps were made at the end of the 18 th century. However, the

sultan that started the period of real reforms was Mahmud II. Among his first moves was

to abolish the janissaries in 1826. Since further conquests and spread of the Empire

stopped long ago, this once formidable force became one of the biggest burdens on the

Ottoman state and the biggest obstacle to reforms. As mentioned previously, the Empire

was on the retreat for more than one century and these once elite forces were rarely called

into action. And even when they were, most of the time they would disobey the orders of

1 Misha Glenny, The Balkans (Penguin Books, 1999), 742 Misha Glenny, The Balkans (Penguin Books, 1999), 74

3 Craig, Graham, Kagan, Ozment, Turner, The Heritage of World Civilizations (Pearson, 2006), 617

3

the Sultan. In some parts of the Empire (e.g. Serbia) they even openly rebelled against the

authority of the Sultan and ruled those territories as de facto independent states.4

The decision to abolish the janissary corps and to conduct a reform (Nizam-I Cedid)

of the army was strongly resisted in Bosnia. If a modern army based on Western

principles was to be formed, then the privileges and positions of the Bosnian Muslim elite

would be in danger. The janissaries in this province enjoyed an especially high social

status. Thus the rich landowners and the military men in Bosnia formed a coalition in

1831 under the leadership of a young captain from Gradacac, called Husein (Dragon of

Bosnia).5 Among other demands, they also demanded autonomy for Bosnia which would

be ruled by a native ruler and not by a vizier sent from Istanbul. The Bosnian rebels were

cooperating with Mustafa Pasha Bushati, an Albanian from Shkoder, who had similar

plans for his province. However, the Albanian forces were relatively quickly defeated by

the Ottoman army. The Bosnian rebels had some early military success and reached as far

as Kosovo, but Husein was forced to retreat as he himself faced a rebellion from Alijaga

Rizvanbegovic and Smail Aga Cengic (powerful landlords from Hercegovina). With the

help of the Ottoman army these two were able to defeat Husein (near Sarajevo in 1832)

who was forced into temporary exile in the Habsburg Monarchy, and then to Istanbul

where he died in 1834. In 1834, the so-called “kapetanije” (administrative units governed

by the captains) were abolished and Herzegovina was separated from Bosnia. The

province of Bosnia was also divided into new administrative units: six sanjaks, 42

nahiyes, and numerous other communes.6 Most of these units were governed by officials

4 Misha Glenny, The Balkans (Penguin Books, 1999), 15 William Miller, The Ottoman Empire and Its Successors, 1801-1922, 1386 Barbara Jelavich, HISTORY OF THE BALKANS, Eighteenth an Nineteenth Centuries, 349

4

who were directly appointed from Istanbul. Thus a strong decentralization was enforced

in Bosnia. But this didn’t mark the end of the Bosnian elites’ defiance of the reforms.

The son of Mahmud II, Abdulmecid continued his father’s path of reforms. He

installed Resid Pasa as Foreign Minister. Sultan Abdulmecid introduced the Hatt-I Serif

of Gulhane in 1839. It was partly the product of great power pressure (they more and

more acted as the protectors of the Christian population of the Empire) and the Sultan had

to agree on giving equal rights to the Christian raya (at least nominally).7

Bosnia was the most western province of the Ottoman Empire. It was specific in

many ways. It had a majority (two thirds) Christian population, but it was ruled by a

minority Muslim landlord elite. The Muslim population of Bosnia was Slavic ethnically

and linguistically. Thus only religion differentiated them from their Christian neighbors.

So the resistance to the reforms by the Muslims and the later peasant (Christian)

rebellions were first and foremost social in character. Only later will the Orthodox

peasants come under the influence of the Serbian nationalist idea and its demagogues

(related to Ilija Garasanin’s Nacertanije of 1844).

The newly introduced reforms caused resentment among the Bosnian Muslim elite

who in a sense felt betrayed. After the Austrian conquests at the end of the seventeenth

century, many Muslims retreated from Hungary and other lost regions into Bosnia. Also,

many Muslims fled to Bosnia during the First and Second Serbian Uprisings in the

Belgrade pasalik. Lots of these Muslims witnessed atrocities committed upon them by the

Christian forces. The Bosnian Muslims served in the Ottoman army for a couple of

7 Misha Glenny, The Balkans (Penguin Books, 1999), 75

5

centuries already, died on battlefields across the Empire. They opposed giving equal

rights to Christians, as well as the de facto independence of neighboring Serbia.

But the main reason why Bosnian elites opposed these new sets of reforms was the

fact that it would make them loose many (if not all) privileges they enjoyed as lanholders.

The reforms also included a proposal for a complete overhaul of the tax system, thus

ending the activity of the tax farmers. Opposition to the Tanzimat can be seen as a

continuation of the defiance of the Bosnian elites against the Porte, one that started with

the Nizam-I Cedid.

Some scholars argue that the Bosnian Muslim elite had one of the most developed

sense of separate own national identity (along with Serbia, Egypt and the Danubian

Principalities).8 Even though they belonged to the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire, the

Muslim millet, during this period they started to look the Ottoman element in Bosnia as a

foreign one. They developed a national identity opposed to the Ottoman Turkish one. It

can be said that the seeds of Bosniak national identity were planted around this time.

However, the elites were more preoccupied with their own personal economic interest

than that of the Bosniak community. Both the Muslim and Christian peasants were

treated equally bad and were both overtaxed by their Muslim landholders and tax

farmers. Thus those elites wanted a new rebellion because the Tanzimat reforms would

endanger their ownership and control of the land, not because it represented a direct

threat to the Bosniak community and its future survival.

Several years after launching the Tanzimat reforms, it was obvious that none of the

goals were reached in Bosnia. The Bosnian begs continued to ignore the central


6

government, more and more people avoided conscription, and the position of the peasants

became even worse. All these represented a direct challenge to the authority of the

Sultan. That is why Abdulmecid decided to send one of his best and most experienced

commanders, Omar Pasha Latas to Bosnia.9

Omer Pasha Latas was a very interesting historical figure. He was born as Mihajlo

Latas, as a Serb from Lika (today in Croatia).10 He was a member of the Austrian army (a

cadet) until he escaped to Bosnia for mysterious reasons. He converted to Islam and then

quickly rose up the ranks of the Ottoman army. He became a colonel in 1839 and after

that he was appointed as the military governor of Lebanon in 1842. He earned a

reputation of “rebellion crusher” after successful campaigns in Albania (1843) and

Kurdistan (1846). Abdulmecid believed that he was the right man for the job.

The Bosnian begs were well aware of the Sultan’s intentions. They especially

disliked Omer Pasha Latas, and his ethnic background complicated the situation even

more. The decision of the Sultan to send an ethnic Serb (albeit “Muslim”) to crush a

Muslim rebellion in Bosnia made begs even more defiant. Omer Pasha Latas arrived in

Sarajevo in May 1850. His “visit” to Bosnia will have far reaching consequences, ones

that will shape the future of the Bosniaks even to this day. He came with troops who were

trained according to the modern Western militaries, wearing Wester-style uniforms. His

forces counted around 30 officers, more than 10000 troops as well as 34 modern cannons.

Many of those troops were Huingarian and Poles who “converted” to Islam after they fled

their countries after the 1848 revolutions.11 This sight caused fear among the people in

9 Barbara Jelavich, HISTORY OF THE BALKANS, Eighteenth an Nineteenth Centuries, 349

10 William Miller, The Ottoman Empire and Its Successors, 1801-1922, 139


7

Sarajevo, who never previously saw such a formidable and well trained and equipped

force in their lives. This was an intentional move made by Omer Pasha Latas, one that

had a great psychological impact.

On the opposing side, the Bosnian begs organized themselves under the leadership

of Alijaga Rizvanbegovic, who was the vizier of Herzegovina. This is the same

Rizvanbegovic who stood up against Husein-kapetan Gradascevic and defeated him with

the help of the Ottoman army near Sarajevo in 1832. As a reward for his cooperation,

Herzegovina was separated from Bosnia and Alijaga Rizvanbegovic became its vizier.

However, over the course of time he became an opponent of the Tanzimat reforms,

seeing that he might loose all his privileges under those new conditions. Thus he claimed

that if the Tanzimat reforms succeded, it would result in “expulsion of the Bosniaks from

Bosnia” and that “Bosnia would cease to be Bosnian in thirty years”.12

Upon his arrival to Sarajevo, Omer Pasha Latas read the Sultan’s firman which

required begs to accept and implement the Tanzimat. This wasn’t an indirect declaration

of war on the defiant begs. Roughly half of the Bosniak elite decided to accept the

Sultan’s demands while the other half started a rebellion that would last for almost two

years. The rebellion first started in the northern region of Posavina (south of the Sava

river), as well as in the region of Tuzla (under the leadership of Mahmud Pasha Tuzla)

and in Herzegovina (led by Alijaga Rizvanbegovic). However, the rebellious Bosniak

begs did not coordinate their attacks, thus enabling Omer Pasha Latas to confront them

one by one and defeat easily. It is important to mention that there was always a great deal

of regional rivalry among the ruling Bosniak elite.


8

In the middle of December 1850, Omer Pasha Latas was able to crash the resistance

in Tuzla. There was a great loss of lives in these fighting, and repercussions continued

even after the city was taken. It has to be said that Latas’ forces did not differentiate

between Muslim and Christian villages, none were spared. After Posavina, Latas turned

to Herzegovina where he was able to take Alijaga Rizvanbegovic as prisoner, and then he

turned to northwestern Bosnia – Jajce, Banja Luka, Prijedor, Bihac. Due to a very large

number of prisoners, he set up a temporary prison camp in his military headquarters in

Travnik. Virtually the entire Bosniak aristrocracy was crushed by Omer Pasha Latas.

After he successfully dealt with the rebellion, the Porte installed Muslims from outside

Bosnia in all offices in the province. Not a single one was held by a Bosniak.13 By

literally cutting the Bosniak aristocracy, he cut the head of the Bosniak national

movement. This national identity would not recover many decades after that…

Thus some of the goals of the Tanzimat reforms were reached. The administrative

structure of Bosnia was completely reorganized. But when it comes to the native

population, both Christian and Muslim, things did not get much better. On the contrary,

they only got worse. Omer Pasha Latas’ crushing of the rebellion cost a lot of money, and

soon after the Porte was not able regularly pay its troops. Thus they started confiscating

whatever they could from the Bosnian peasant population.

When it comes to the Christian population, they were sympathetic to Omer Pasha

Latas’ cause. Even though he committed atrocities against both Muslims and the

Christians, he showed his care for the latter quite a few times. However, their position did

not improve. Among other reasons, there was not sufficient funding to implement the

indented reforms.


9

On the other hand, the Bosniaks were crippled by Omer Pasa Latas. They saw his

“visit” as a Crusade, led by an ethnic Serb, commanding a large force of Hungarians and

Poles who were just nominally Muslim. As one author puts it: “ Omer Pasha Latas

embodied everything that the begs despised about their Empire – he was a foreigner, a

professional and a reformer”.14

The rebellion was crushed by the autumn 1851. Bosnia was completely devastated.

The Bosniak elites were destroyed and new administrative mechanisms were imposed.

But Omer Pasha Latas was not able to succeed in implementing key economic goals of

the Tanzimat – the regularization of the conscription and a new system of tax collection.

As soon as he left Bosnia, the few remaining aristocratic families restored their land

ownership and their tax farming. They also refused sending people to the Ottoman army.

Bosniaks lost the control over the administration of the province, but they were somehow

able to maintain their feudal economic possessions. There was no agrarian reform as the

result of the reforms during this period. The position of the Christian peasants

deteriorated even more. Soon after, they started their first massive rural uprisings. These

uprisings will with time have a national character.

These first rural Christian rebellions against the Muslim landowners and tax farmers

led to a rapprochement between the Bosniak landholders and the Reformers in Istanbul.

This was due to the fact that Bosniak landlords needed help in calming those rebellions.

So this time there were the ones who demanded military interventions. Again, the Sultan

sent Omer Pasha Latas to Bosnia in 1858, this time to crush a serious Christian peasant

uprising. In return the Bosniak landlords had to accept the slow implementation of the

Tanzimat. These reforms gave much more rights to the Christians, especially when it


10

comes to religious rights. The Muslim elite also abandoned any further demands for

autonomy and instead accepted the total supremacy of the Porte. These reforms were

implemented during the 1860’s, under the much more benevolent Topal Osman Pasha.

But these moves came too late, and they were again not enough to ease the situation of

the peasants. None of the proposed Tanzimat reforms dealt seriously with the agrarian

reform in Bosnia. This in turn will start a new wave of Christian peasant uprisings, this

time more violent and directly supported by neighboring Serbia. Around this time various

Serbian intellectuals visit the Orthodox villages and propagate the idea that they should

not define themselves as Orthodox in Bosnia, but Serb instead. This was the first step of a

plan whose final goal was the annexation of Bosnia by Serbia.

In 1875, a Christian uprising in east Herzegovina, the so-called Nevesinje rifle

started. This uprising will have far reaching consequences and would mark the start of the

Great Eastern crisis. As time went on, the European great powers got more and more

involved in the internal affairs of the “Sick man of Europe”. In 1878, the famous Berlin

Congress was held. Among other things, it was decided that Bosnia and Herzegovina

would come under Austro-Hungarian administration, while staying de iure a part of the

Ottoman Empire. This situation would last until the Empire is capable again of

maintaining order in Bosnia. In practice this meant the occupation of Bosnia and

Herzegovina by Austro-Hungary. This occupation will turn into annexation in 1908, thus

officially ending any connection between Bosnia and the Ottoman Empire after more

than 400 years.

As mentioned many time throughout this paper, Omer Pasha Latas’ crushing of

Bosniak aristocracy had far reaching consequences for the Bosniaks. Around the middle

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of the 18th centuries both Croats in Austro-Hungary and Serbs in Serbia had developed a

distinct national identity. This was almost entirely due to the fact that their political and

intellectual elites were able to articulate their national idea. This national idea served as a

cohesive force among the Serbs and Croats, uniting people regardless if their social class.

The seeds of a distinct Bosniak nation were planted around this time also. They

were Slavs ethnically and linguistically, like the Serbs and Croats. But religion

differentiated these three groups, which had as a consequence the belonging to various

millets (in Turkish literally “nation”). But even though the Bosnian Muslims belonged to

the ruling Ottoman class, the Muslim millet, the Muslim landholders started to enter into

conflict with the central government in Istanbul more and more often. Even though this

was mainly for economic reasons, these disputes reinforced their sense of separateness

from the “Turks” with whom they shared a common religion. They saw their interests as

sometimes completely opposed to those of the Porte. Thus this reinforced the cohesion

among the Bosnian Muslims. But it is important to note that this cohesion was true just

for the ruling minority landholding class, who had common economic interests. The

Muslim peasants were not involved in this process; they lived under hard conditions

similar to their Christian neighbors and very often they did not have the same goals as the

Muslim elite. Thus a big obstacle to the birth of the Bosniak nation around this time was

the fact that the elites were not able project the idea of a common national identity across

the social classes.

To make things worse, the purges of those elites by Omer Pasa Latas delayed the

formation of a Bosniak nation even more. The events of 1850 were probably the most

important in the more recent history of Bosnia. These events had a direct consequence on

12

the subsequent future of the Bosnian Muslims during the Austro-Hungarian times, the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav Federal Socialist Republic, as well as the

independent Bosnia and Herzegovina and even today. Bosnian Muslims were left without

any real leaders, without elites who would articulate their national identity. They would

be like a flock of sheep without its shepherd. They did not understand who they are,

where do they belong, they felt totally lost. Thus they would be easily manipulated by

Croatian or Serbian nationalists. Because of these, it is not a surprise that some of the

greatest intellectuals that this country had defined themselves as Croat or Serbs (e.g.

Musa Cazim Catic – Croat, Mesa Selimovic – Serb, etc.)

The consequences of Omer Pasha Latas’ brutal campaign against the Bosnian

Muslim elites were already obvious during the Austro-Hungarian occupation. A brief

look at the profiles of the leaders of the resistance against the occupation, such as Hadzi

Lojo, tells a lot. For two decades Muslims in Bosnia felt totally disoriented, with almost

no political activity. It was hard for them to adjust to the fact that after more than 400

years under a Muslim Empire, they were now governed by a Christian state. And when

they started acting as a “united front” in 1900, they were concerned with Muslim

religious rights, not with their national identity.15 At the same time, Austro-Hungary

started to promote a common “Bosnian” identity. This was done in order to counter

Serbian influence, as it was well know that Serbia had territorial pretensions towards

Bosnia since the majority of the population was Orthodox at that time. Both the Croats

and the Serbs in Bosnia rejected the idea of “Bosnian” nation, since they already had a

well defined national identity. But even Bosnian Muslims rejected this idea, instead being

15 JSTOR: Review by Zachary Irwin, The Bosnian Muslims: Denial of a Nation, by Francine Friedman, page 211

13

more preoccupied with their religious rights. There was no powerful intellectual elite that

would guide the.

Similar situation, if not even worse, would continue during the Kingdom of

Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (later Kingdom of Yugoslavia). Like during the time of the

Austro-Hungarian occupation, religion formed the leitmotif for activities of the Yugoslav

Muslim Organization (JMO), in resisting Serbo-Croat pressure for assimilation. After

Second World War, similar position of the Bosnian Muslims continues. In 1968, they

were recognized as “Muslims in the national sense” by the socialist regime in

Yugoslavia. As late as 1990 there was a debate over the identity of Bosnian Muslims.

They debated among themselves which concept should prevail: “muslimanstvo”

(muslimhood) or “bosnjastvo” (bosniakhood).16 These debates in 1990 were led among

the intellectuals who were centered on the Party of Democratic Action – SDA (Alija

Izetbegovic) and the Muslim Bosniak Organization – MBO (Muhamed Filipovic and

Adil Zulfikarpasic). Finally in the Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Accord (Constitution of

Bosnia and Herzegovina) Bosniaks were recognized as one of the three “constitutional

nations” in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, there are still debates about the national

identity of the Bosnian Muslims, and the competence of their leadership is questionable

even to this day…

Thus the effects of the Tanzimat in Bosnia and the purges of Omer Pasha Latas had

far reaching consequences for the Bosniaks. It even more slowed the formation of their

national identity. They were left without any real intellectual and political figures that

would lead them during the hard times that were upon them. There was a great threat of

assimilation by the Croatian or Serbian national idea. On numerous occasions in the last

16 Aydin Babuna, National Identity, Islam and Politics in Post-Communist Bosnia-Herzegovina

14

130 years they were able to manipulate Bosnian Muslims. This was a direct consequence

of the fact that Serbs and Croats had elites in the 19 th century that were able to shape the

formation of their national identity. Thus Bosniaks were left behind, crippled by the loss

of their elites in 1850. The consequences of this are felt even today…

REFERENCES

Misha Glenny, The Balkans (Penguin Books, 1999)

Craig, Graham, Kagan, Ozment, Turner, The Heritage of World Civilizations

(Pearson, 2006)

Barbara Jelavich, HISTORY OF THE BALKANS, Eighteenth an Nineteenth

Centuries

William Miller, The Ottoman Empire and Its Successors, 1801-1922

JSTOR: Review by Zachary Irwin, The Bosnian Muslims: Denial of a Nation,

by Francine Friedman

Aydin Babuna, National Identity, Islam and Politics in Post-Communist

Bosnia-Herzegovina

15

Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History

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implementation of the tanzimat in bosnia

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