P.A. Rovinsky on the Muslim society in the early stage of the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The article examines the opinion of the famous Russian ethnographer, traveller and publicist Pavel Apollonovich Rovinsky (1831–1916) on the Muslim society of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early stage of the Austro-Hungarian occupation. Rovinsky as a reporter for the St. Petersburg newspaper «Novoe vremya» ("New time") traveled to the occupied territories in the autumn of 1878 and spring of 1879. In 1881, he published an article "Observations while traveling in Bosnia in 1879". Rovinsky’s works are important because they present the fi rst public reaction to the alien presence.