The history of Muslims in the Balkans in the 20th century, after the Ottoman State had withdrawn from this territory, proceeded in the sign of migrations, a minority status within the newly established Balkan Christian states, hidden or open discrimination, persecution or genocidal wars.

The Balkan Wars, followed by the First World War led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as a centuries-long state framework where Muslim communities in the Balkans had lived and enjoyed their religious, social, cultural and other rights and privileges.

Austrian (Habsburg) strivings and aspirations in Bosnia date back as early as at the time after the Great Turkish or the so-called Vienna War, i.e. the Treaty of Karlowitz of 1699, when Ottomans failed to take Vienna and were definitely stopped in their raid to Europe.

The second half of the 19th century was one of the most difficult periods in the long history of Bosniaks. Upon withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire and occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Bosniaks were left on their own, at the risk of turning from a constituent to a peripheral factor in their own homeland.

As an intersection of roads, Venice has also always been an intersection of worlds: Mediterranean and Central European, Italian, German and Slavic, Christian and Islamic. It has been repeated so many times that it would sound futile had we not found out, again and again, something new about this phenomenon.