The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy began their rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina after the occupation of the country in 1878, and the rule ended during the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in November 1918. That year Bosnia and Herzegovina finally terminated all the snaps with that empire.
The people of this area became part of the European community, and since then their fate was linked with European ideologies, conflicts and geopolitical plans.
Despite many attempts by the Ottoman authorities to modernize the economy and public administration, modernization in Bosnia and Herzegovina was still at the very beginning. Under developed economy, not too many roads in bad conditions and the outdated Ottoman state administration were all put before the Austrian government in 1878, which was a huge task to do. Everything needed to be changed.
The lack of a trained bureaucracy and experts was a huge problem. Therefore, the new government in the early years of the establishment of a protectorate in Bosnia and Herzegovina had to bring a professional staff that was needed to organize the state administration and to run the economy.
Among the experts and educated people who then came to Bosnia and Herzegovina, there were many Croats, but also people from other parts of the monarchy. Particularly in large numbers came people from Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Polands, which was not too difficult for them to manage in the new environment because of the closeness of Slavic languages.
At the beginning, the leader was general Josip Filipovic, but in 1882 as civil administration was introduced than the first civilian administrator was appointed -Hungarian Benjamin Kallay, who was then the Austro-Hungarian Minister of Finance.
In Mostar, there are many buildings built during the Austro-Hungarian period and they represent a good blend of Western and Oriental architecture (pseudo style).
The most interesting buildings include the Old Gymnasium (1898), which was one of the most elite schools in the city (today located on the Spanish square) and the City Spa (1914), designed by the architect Rudolf Tonnies with the support of Miroslav Loose.
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