Abstract:

The core of contemporary Bosniak politics of history is composed of narratives depicting the history of Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslims, also known as Bosniaks, as the history of genocides. These narratives are systemized as the “Paradigm of Ten Genocides” which were committed by European Christians, chiefly Serbian and Montenegrin Orthodox Christians and Croatian Catholics, since the Great Turkish War in the late 17th century until the Bosnian War at the end of the 20th century. According to this paradigm, Croatians committed four great genocides against Muslims or more specifically Bosniaks. These narrations serve as nationalist self-victimization myths, based on ignoring historical facts and their scientific interpretation. From a political science perspective, it is especially disastrous to ignore scientific concepts and typologies of political violence and violent conflicts, and to classify almost all types of crimes under the notion of genocide.

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