Geographical Location as a Key Factor of the Development of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is one of the European countries where the Russian socioeconomic geography pays insufficient attention. BiH as it exists appeared during World War II, when the interests of all parties involved in the war in Yugoslavia – the Communist partisans of I.B. Tito, the Serbian Chetniks, the Croatian Ustashes, and the armed forces of the “Axis States” – clashed on its territory. In the second half of the XX century, Bosnia and Herzegovina was considered by the leadership of the socialist Yugoslavia as the main bulwark in a possible war against either the USSR or the NATO states. The military development of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina determined its slow economic development, which led to the outflow of the Serbian and Croatian population from BiH. At the same time, Bosnia and Herzegovina is characterized by the economic and geographical unity of the territory, which was formed in the late XIX–early XX centuries, when this territory belonged to Austria – Hungary. The civil war in BiH in 1992–1995 years has changed the country radically. The consequences of the war are clearly visible in geodemographic indicators. Indicators of natural population movement that reveal demographic behavior patterns are now poorly differentiated among the three main ethnic groups of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina – Muslims, Serbs and Croats. Unidirectional trends in demographic behavior clearly indicate the convergence of these three groups in terms of lifestyle, while there is a difference in the geodemographic behavior of the Serbs and Croats of BiH from the population of Serbia and Croatia, respectively; Bosnian Muslims in their demographic behavior are now much closer to Christian than to Muslim peoples. The unification of the republics of the former Yugoslavia under the auspices of the European Union should lead to “Yugoslav Renaissance”. Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its specific population composition, located in the center of post-Yugoslavia, can become the core of the reintegration of post-Yugoslav territories.

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