ZEMALJSKA PRIPADNOST STANOVNIKA BOSNE I HERCEGOVINE U PRVIM GODINAMA AUSTROUGARSKE UPRAVE
LANDESANGEHÖRIGKEIT OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA’S PEOPLE DURING THE FIRST YEARS OF AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN RULE

Summary/Abstract: According to the article 25 of the Berlin Treaty, it was decided that Austria-Hungary would occupy and administer Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since this article did not define Bosnia and Herzegovina’s position in detail, the newly created situation required that the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary sign a convention on 21st April 1879 in order to regulate certain issues more precisely. Although it was stated in the introduction of the Convention that the occupation would not harm the Sultan’s sovereign rights over these provinces nonetheless the new authorities swiftly assumed the role of the actual sovereign. Prominent jurists of the time developed a discussion about the legal position of Bosnia and Herzegovina. One group referred to the Convention and claimed that sovereignty over these provinces belonged to the Sultan whereas the other group based their views on the realistic situation and the picture “on terrain” arguing that the true sovereign was the Austrian emperor and Hungarian king. Very soon the new authorities completely assumed the so called external sovereignty over the provinces and started issuing travel documents to the Bosnian-Herzegovinian population. A number of legal acts which regulated this issue were passed. It was attempted to define the term Landesangehörigkeit (national affiliation) of the local population but these efforts were easily thwarted. The term remained ambiguous until the very end of the Austro-Hungarian rule, without a legal act that could strictly define it. Efforts made to represent the question of Landesangehörigkeit (national affiliation) with a particular legal act were prevented. All this created difficulties for inhabitants, originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina residing in one of the South-Eastern European countries, who attempted to receive consular protection from the Austro-Hungarian authorities.

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