The Yugoslavia which emerged from World War II was a six republic federation. From north-west to south east, the political entities were Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia.

At various times during the past millennium, the country know known as Yugoslavia, and its surrounding countries, straddled the borders of three faith groups: Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and Roman Catholicism. Various sources give conflicting stories of the area's past. The following is our initial attempt at describing the history of Yugoslavia. Although this data came from usually reliable sources, we are uncertain about its reliability. We will attempt to improve this in the near future:

Yugoslavia has been gradually disintegrating since the death of Tito. The country lost much of its territory and population during the 1990's as Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina achieved independence. As of 1999-APR, Yugoslavia consists of only four provinces: Vojvodina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. Montenegro has a large degree of local autonomy. The government and Serbian people of Yugoslavia are totally opposed to losing any more territory to independence or autonomy movements. This has recently led to a massive civil war in Kosovo, and a (currently) lower-scale program of ethnic cleansing in Vojavadina.

Quote:

"...the peace negotiations between the Orthodox [Christian] Serbs, the Catholic Croats and the Muslim Bosnians had collapsed again. And there is no doubt that the religions that are so involved here had neglected in the period of more than forty years since the Second World War to engage in mourning, honestly confess the crimes which had been committed by all sides in the course of the centuries, and ask one another for mutual forgiveness....I think there can be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions!" Hans Küng and Karl-Josef Kuschel, commenting in 1993 on conflict within the former Yugoslavia. ₁

Maps of the Balkans, Yugoslavia and Kosovo:

The history of medieval Croatia is completely missing from this scheme.

As Jay wrote Quote:

"At various times during the past millennium, the country know known as Yugoslavia, and its surrounding countries, straddled the borders of three faith groups: Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and Roman Catholicism. "

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"...religious identity has been present constantly in the antagonisms that have fragmented the Balkans for centuries - setting neighbor against neighbor, Muslims against Orthodox Christians, and Orthodox Christians against Western Christians..." ₂₀

I too would like to build on the facts of these religious in Yugoslavia:

Yougoslavia's problems in the 1990's were due to the conflicts between  three faiths: the Orthodox Cristians who were known as the Serbs, the Roman Catholics who were known as the Croats, and the Muslim Bosnians.

Bosnians, were converted in large groups by the Ottoman Empire. Albania also largly Muslim populated country. Bosnia's mass conversion was a bit of a mystery. Bosnia was a country that was dedicated to the religion of Christianity, even a church that was out of the reach of Catholic and Orthodox Churches was created in Bosnia in the 11th century. The religion was a little unstable when the 15th century raid of the Ottoman's occured.The Ottomans were not interested into converting the Christian people that they governed into Muslims. Scholars dismissed the facts that the migration of Muslims to Bosnia after the Turks raided it could have had an influence on it.  Later, the Turks found out that there was very little travel there at all. The conversion was due to the Bosnians who already converted to Islam spreading the faith to other Bosnians. The conversion was very steady because from the years 1468-1469, the Cristians were outnumbering the Muslims by more than 115-20 to 1. But the Muslim faith kept on growing. In the year 1485 the number of muslims were swelling greatly, but the Cristians were still outnumbering them 2 to 1. The muslim faith kept on growing untill the 1600's were Bosnia was a country the mostly populated by Muslims.

What were the relations between Mislim and Christian Bosnians back then? Before the country was 100 % Muslim how did Christian Bosnians accept their compatriots' conversion? In Bulgaria Muslimised Bulgarians (Pomaks) were mistrusted and still live pretty much isolated. Some Bulgarians perhaps even tend to view them as traitors, but this is not justified, because in Bulgaria the conversion to Islam was forceful. So how were things in Bosnia?

Bulgarian so why didnt  others  converted?Greeks,bulgarians, serbs, armenians but only a small minority of  bulgarians? what type of forcefully conversion is this? It let main part of  population to live his  old religion, and  only forcefully convert a minority.

By the way, when  main conversion is happening ottomans were ruling bosnia, I dont think christians  had much voice, against this conversions.

bulgarian ottomans  had different tactics for divide and conquerer thing, and  It  is not conversion, they had mostly mass exiled the rebellions.Specialy Turkish rebellions. They had already orthodox church at their hand, and  this muslim bulgarians not have enough number or power to divide bulgarian  nation. If their aim was this, they should convert  more bulgarians.

most of bosnians and albanians converted, but not even a minority of bulgarians didnt converted  by  peacifully? is this sensible?

I  think, Instead of finding a reason for their  so-called guilty like "yeah they converted, but they were forced to it. So they are innocent", You should accept them as Muslim bulgarians. Convertion is not a guilt. If your people dont accept this, a most weird asimilation would happen, This bulgarian  muslims would be turkified, at a bulgarian ruled country.

And If I am not wrong, already some of them call themself as Turk. You should learn something from albanians, I dont think any  muslim albanian refuse christian ones, and I dont know much albanian who call themself as greek.(most probably If you call them as greek, you would just get a punch)

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Mortaza, my knowledge on this matter by far excedes yours. A man is a product of his upbringing. You tend to view the Ottomans as peacefull rulers, and have begun to prove me this even before I've said otherwise. I'm not accusing them of anything. I don't care how the Pomaks were converted. It hapened 600 years ago.

But you said something very true. Sometimes it's hard for Bulgarians to except their Muslim compatriots and they are becoming increasingly Turkified. I'm speaking for those in the Rhodope mountains. They are pretty isolated there. The ones in Southwestern Bulgaria live among the Christian Bulgarians and are slowly converting to Christianity once more. I think there's a dangerous process going on in the Rhodopes. I've heard all sorts of stories about radical islamist missionaries preaching there. Most people really don't know what's going on in there. The state should really do something about the integration of these people, it's a shame how Bulgarians are being devided.

again you are talking about "The ones in Southwestern Bulgaria live among the Christian Bulgarians and are slowly converting to Christianity once more."

you  should accept them with  their religion.  Converting christianity should not be a sign of integration.

I agree with Mortaza.

Bulgarian, Islamic associations in Bosnia and Herzegovina have formed significant partnerships with other associations in the Balkans - the Bosniak National Council of Serbia, Islam Montenegro, Croatian Bosniak Association, Bulgarian Islamic Congress, etc.

I remember an expose they did on OBN about Islamic life in Bulgaria and the picture they painted was one of expansion, so much so that the Bulgarian government is trying to counter the speed at which Islam is expanding - especially in the capital city, Sofia.

Sofia's main mosque is one of my favorites in the Balkans. I just love the colors - there's nothing red, or anything like this, in Bosnia.

I'm not saying that they are being assimilated by force. It's simply a logycal process - when very little Muslims live among numerous Christians they slowly get assimilated. In mixed marriages when a Muslim woman marries a Christian man the children are Christian. I have two friends with Muslim mothers, one of them is 50% Turkish,  from his mother's side. And as for the Rhodopes, I'm expressing  concern, not because these people aren't Christians (I'm an atheist), but because by living in isolation they are becoming hostile to the rest of the Bulgarians. They begin feeling closer to Turks than to Bulgarians. And I think it's a shame that Bulgarians turn against other Bulgarians, we are the same blood.

P.S. I thought you Communists didn't care about religion, Mortaza. 

Bulgarian, I am not communist. Lol, Infact my  Turkish friends call me as fundementalist. and I care religion more than everything.

Infact what I am saying is  totally different, I am not saying you have forcefully asimilating minorities, Infact Bulgaria is most tolerant country  in  balkain against minorities.

There is a problem at balkain, for them,(and  us)  If someone change his  religion, he is no more accepted as member of nation. It  is not different at turkey, greece or another  country.when  we are accepting greek  or armenian muslims or pomaks as one of us, we sent turkish christians to  greece.

Telling this  muslim bulgarians converting back just mean(acording to me), they  are turning their nation back, this is what I understand. Sorry for misunderstanding.

For  Turks, interestingly they are loyal  to bulgarians. They dont care much to joining with  Turkey.

Sorry, I've mistaken you with Kotumeyil.

Originally posted by Mortaza For  Turks, interestingly they are loyal  to bulgarians. They dont care much to joining with  Turkey.

Noone is speaking of border changes here, but of spiritual and national cohesion. The Pomaks are in noman's land, especially in the past, because the Turks didn't trust these new Muslims too much either. They called them dionme (turned, converted). They weren't trusted neither from the Bulgarians, neither from the Turks. The Bulgarians suspected them of allying with the Turks on the basis of their common faith, the Turks suspected them of double games with the Bulgarians on the basis of their common ethnicity. But today there's no doubt that Pomaks are genuiune Muslims and in my opinion are more excepted by Turks and other Muslims. And what's this about Christian Turks? Never heard of such a thing in Turkey. Please, do tell.

There were christian Karaman Turks at middle anatolia, at population exchange, they were sent to greece.

Karamanlides are a Turkish-speaking ethnic group that are of Orthodox Christian faith.

They numbered seveal hundred thousand and lived in the Karaman region of Turkey (in the Central Anatolia) and their origin is rather obscure: they could be either Orthodox Greeks that adopted Turkish language or Turks that converted to Christianity. They wrote the Turkish language with the Greek alphabet.

In the population exchanges between Greece and Turkey (1923), Turkey and Greece decided to exchange population based on religion, rather than on language, so all Muslims of Greece were deported to Turkey, while all Orthodox Christians of Turkey were deported to Greece.

Following this treaty, Greek-speaking Muslims (such as the Epirus and Cretan Muslims) were sent to Turkey and all Turkish-speaking Christians (including the Karamanlides) were sent to Greece.

The Karamanlides had no easy time in their new country, as they did not speak Greek, and during the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas, usage of Turkish in public was forbidden.

Ottomans didn't FORCE Bosnians to convert to Islam..But, since back then Bosnians (Serbs, Croats) were very poor the Ottomans offered them: food, drinks, land, etc to convert. Most families didn't have enough food to feed their children, so they had to accept.

Serbs were converted to Islam in those parts.

I thought that the Bosnians were Bogomils and got repressed by other Christian churches because of that. That was surely a factor in the conversion. Are there any Bogomils left today?