Authors

Lana Šehović¹;  ¹ University of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Discussion

Sarajevo musical life at the turn of the 19th century was shaped by sociopolitical changes that included the change of political powers from the Ottoman to the Habsburg Empire on Bosnian soil. After more than four centuries of Ottoman administration (1463-1878), Bosnia and Herzegovina was occupied by Austria-Hungary, which would remain for forty years (1878-1918). The change of authorities led to a complete transfiguration of the political, social, and cultural circumstances, which implied the shift from the Timar feudal system and Oriental cultural values to the absolutist system of the Habsburg Empire. In daily practice, it meant that Bosnia and Herzegovina, where many buildings, mosques, bridges and other significant architectural monuments of Ottoman culture, was to turn toward social and cultural trends promoted by Vienna and Budapest. In the contexts of musical life, disruption which implied the departure of the Ottomans and the beginning of the Austro-Hungarian occupation meant that the musical life of Sarajevo, which previously relied upon Bosnian and Herzegovinian folk music (sevdalin­ka), Turkish military bands mehterhanas, and the shadow theatre (karađoz), would be transformed in line with the musical trends of the other members of the Empire.
For Bosnia and Herzegovina, and for Sarajevo as its centre, Habsburg occupation meant opening to ‘new’ political, sociocultural, and musical trends. This paper will explore the social elites in Bosnia and Herzegovina who parted with their old traditions and started accepting a Central-European culture and mentality around that time. The social elites of Bosnian and Herzegovinian people were the first who felt the disruptions within their habitus of living. This process was slow in the field of music, and was mostly intertwined with oriental musical influences on the one hand, and Central European influences on the other. This paper will try to address the issues of how the disruptions in the field of music began, which aspects of musical life were most affected, and who the main protagonists and transmitters of this process were.