Mostar

Human settlements on the river Neretva, between Mount Hum and the Velež Mountain, have existed since prehistory, as witnessed by discoveries of fortified enceintes and cemeteries. Evidence of Roman occupation was discovered beneath the present town.[9]

As far as medieval Mostar goes, although the Christian basilicas of late antiquity remained in use, few historical sources were preserved and not much is known about this period. The name of Mostar was first mentioned in a document dating from 1474, taking its name from the bridge-keepers (mostari); this refers to the existence of a wooden bridge from the market on the left bank of the river which was used by traders, soldiers, and other travelers. During this time it was also the seat of a kadiluk (district with a regional judge). Since Mostar was on the trade route between the Adriatic and the mineral-rich regions of central Bosnia, the settlement began to spread to the right bank of the river.[9]

Prior to 1474 the names of two towns appear in medieval historical sources, along with their later medieval territories and properties – the towns of Nebojša and Cimski grad. In the early 15th century the county (župa) of Večenike covered the site of the present-day Mostar along the right bank of the Neretva, including the sites of Zahum, Cim, Ilići, Raštani and Vojno. It was at the center of this area, which in 1408 belonged to Radivojević, that Cim Fort was built (prior to 1443). Mostar is indirectly referred to in a 1454 charter of King Alfonso V of Aragon as Pons ("bridge"), for a bridge had already been built there. Prior to 1444, the Nebojša Tower was built on the left bank of the Neretva, which belonged to the late medieval county still known as Večenike or Večerić.[10] The earliest documentary reference to Mostar as a settlement dates from 3 April 1452, when Ragusans from Dubrovnik wrote to their fellow countrymen in the service of Serbian Despot Đorđe Branković to say that Vladislav Hercegović had turned against his father Stjepan and occupied the town of Blagaj and other places, including “Duo Castelli al ponte de Neretua.”.[11]

The Old Town Street

Springtime in Mostar by Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry (1853–1919)

In 1468 the region came under Ottoman rule[11] and the urbanization of the settlement began. It was named Köprühisar, meaning fortress at the bridge, at the centre of which was a cluster of 15 houses. The town was organized into two distinct areas: čaršija, the crafts and commercial centre of the settlement, and mahala or a residential area.[12]

The town was fortified between the years 1520 and 1566, and the wooden bridge rebuilt in stone.[9] The stone bridge, the Old Bridge (Stari Most), was erected in 1566 on the orders of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent[13] and at 28 metres (92 feet) long and 20 metres (66 feet) high, quickly became a wonder in its own time. Later becoming the city's symbol, the Old Bridge was designed by Mimar Hayruddin,[7] a student and apprentice of Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan. In the late 16th century, Köprühisar was one of the towns of the Sanjak of Herzegovina. The traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote in the 17th century that: the bridge is like a rainbow arch soaring up to the skies, extending from one cliff to the other... I, a poor and miserable slave of Allah, have passed through 16 countries, but I have never seen such a high bridge. It is thrown from rock to rock as high as the sky.[14]

The first church in the city of Mostar, a Serbian Orthodox Church, was built in 1834 during Ottoman rule.

People of Mostar in 1890–1900

People gathered waiting for Stjepan Radić to arrive in Mostar in 1925

Austria-Hungary took control over Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 and ruled the region until the aftermath of World War I in 1918, when it became part of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and then Yugoslavia. During this period, Mostar was the main urban centre of Herzegovina.[15] In 1881 the town became the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mostar-Duvno and in 1939, it became a part of the Banovina of Croatia. During World War II, Mostar was also an important city in the fascist Independent State of Croatia.

During the period of Austro-Hungarian rule (1878–1918), Mostar’s city council cooperated with the Austro-Hungarian administration to implement sweeping reforms in city planning: broad avenues and an urban grid were imposed on the western bank of the Neretva, and significant investments were made in infrastructure, communications and housing. City administrators like Mustafa Mujaga Komadina were central players in these transformations, which facilitated growth and linked the eastern and western banks of the city. Noteworthy examples of Austro-Hungarian architecture include the Municipality building, which was designed by the architect Josip Vancaš from Sarajevo, Residential districts around the Rondo, and Gimnazija Mostar from 1902 designed by František Blažek.

8th Yugoslav Partisans' Corps in liberated Mostar, February 1945

After World War II, Mostar developed industries producing plastics, tobacco, bauxite, wine, aircraft and aluminium. Several dams (Grabovica, Salakovac, Mostar) were built in the region to harness the hydroelectric power of the Neretva. The city was a major industrial and tourist center and prospered economically during the time of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Between 1948 and 1974 the industrial base was expanded with construction of a metal-working factory, cotton textile mills, and an aluminum plant. Skilled workers, both men and women, entered the work force and the social and demographic profile of the city was broadened dramatically; between 1945 and 1980, Mostar’s population grew from 18,000 to 100,000.

Because Mostar’s eastern bank was burdened by inadequate infrastructure, the city expanded on the western bank with the construction of large residential blocks. Local architects favored an austere modernist aesthetic, prefabrication and repetitive modules. Commercial buildings in the functionalist style appeared on the historic eastern side of the city as well, replacing more intimate timber constructions that had survived since Ottoman times. In the 1970s and 1980s, a healthy local economy fueled by foreign investment spurred recognition and conservation of the city’s cultural heritage. An economically sustainable plan to preserve the old town of Mostar was implemented by the municipality, which drew thousands of tourists from the Adriatic coast and invigorated the economy of the city. The results of this ten-year project earned Mostar an Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1986.[16]

According to the 1991 census, Mostar had 127,000 inhabitants with roughly an equal number of Bosniaks (34.6%) and Croats (34%), 18.8% Serbs, and 13.6% of those who declared themselves Yugoslavs or Others.[17]

War damage on the former Mostar frontline, 2001

After Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in April 1992, the town was besieged by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), following clashes between the JNA and Croat forces. The Croats were organized into the Croatian Defence Council (HVO)[18] and were joined by a sizable number of Bosniaks.[19] The JNA artillery periodically shelled neighbourhoods outside of their control from early April.[20]

On 7 June the Croatian Army (HV) launched an offensive code named Operation Jackal, the objective of which was to relieve Mostar and break the JNA siege of Dubrovnik. The offensive was supported by the HVO, which attacked the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) positions around Mostar. By 12 June the HVO secured the western part of the city and by 21 June the VRS was completely pushed out from the eastern part. Numerous religious buildings and most of the city's bridges were destroyed or severely damaged during the fighting.[20] Among them were the Catholic Cathedral of Mary, Mother of the Church, the Franciscan Church and Monastery, the Bishop's Palace and 12 out of 14 mosques in the city. After the VRS was pushed from the city, the Serbian Orthodox Žitomislić Monastery and the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity were demolished.[21]

Throughout late 1992, tensions between Croats and Bosniaks increased in Mostar. In early 1993 the Croat–Bosniak War escalated and by mid-April 1993 Mostar had become a divided city with the western part dominated by HVO forces and the eastern part controlled by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH). Fighting broke out in May when both sides of the city came under intense artillery fire.[22] The city was divided along ethnic lines, with a number of offensives taking place, resulting in a series of stalemates.[23][24][25] The Croat–Bosniak conflict ended with the signing of the Washington Agreement in 1994, and the Bosnian War ended with the Dayton Agreement in 1995. Around 2,000 people died in Mostar during the war.[26]

The war double war (Serb aggression and Croat-Bosniak conflict) left Mostar physically devastated and ethno-territorially divided between a Croat-majority west bank (with ca. 55,000 residents) and a Bosniak-majority old City and east bank (with ca. 50,000 residents), with the frontline running parallel to the Neretva River. Most Serbs had fled the city.[27]

The Old Bridge undergoing reconstruction in June 2003.

Since the end of the wider war in 1995, great progress has been made in the reconstruction of the city of Mostar. Over 15 million dollars has been spent on restoration. A monumental project to rebuild the Old Bridge, which was destroyed during the Bosnian War, to the original design, and restore surrounding structures and historic neighbourhoods was initiated in 1999 and mostly completed by spring 2004. The money for this reconstruction was donated by Spain (who had a sizable contingent of peacekeeping troops stationed in the surrounding area during the conflict), the United States, Turkey, Italy, the Netherlands, and Croatia. A grand opening was held on 23 July 2004 under heavy security. In parallel, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the World Monuments Fund, with funding provided by the World Bank, undertook a five-year-long restoration and rehabilitation effort to regenerate the most significant areas of historic Mostar, and particularly the urban tissue around the Old Bridge. Also in July 2004, the Stari Grad Agency was launched to operate and maintain the restored buildings, including the Old Bridge complex, and promote Mostar as a cultural and tourist destination.[28] In July 2005, UNESCO inscribed the Old Bridge and its closest vicinity onto the World Heritage List.

International reconstruction efforts also aimed at the reunification of the divided city. The February 1996 Mostar Agreement led to the adoption of the Interim Statute of the city the same month, and to a 1-year period of EU Administration of Mostar (EUAM), headed by former Bremen mayor Hans Koschnick, till early 1997.[29] After six years of implementation, in 2003 OHR Paddy Ashdown established an "international commission for reforming Mostar", whose final report noted how the HDZ/SDA power-sharing in Mostar had entrenched division and corruption, with "rampant parallelism" in administrative structures and usurpation of power by the municipalities over the City. [17]^:5 A new Statute was negotiated, and finally imposed in February 2004 by OHR Paddy Ashdown.[17]^:6 In November 2010, the Constitutional Court struck down as discriminatory the electoral framework for Mostar. Yet, the Bosniak and Croat ruling parties did not get to a new compromise. In the lack of a legal basis, local elections could not take place in Mostar in 2012 and 2016, and outgoing mayor Ljubo Bešlić (HDZ BiH) remained in office as the only person authorised to allocate the city budget on an emergency basis. Almost a decade without administration led to a decline in service provision, including as regards trash collection. In October 2019 Irma Baralija won a case against Bosnia and Herzegovina at the European Court of Human Rights for the lack of elections in Mostar. Finally, a political deal, agreed under international mediation in June 2020, enabled legislative amendments in July 2020 and the conduct of the vote in Mostar on 20 December 2020.[30][31]

Its population consists of the following ethnic groups: Croats (48.4%); Bosniaks (44.1%) and Serbs (4.1%). The city of Mostar has the largest population of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As in many other cities, its demographic profile was significantly altered after the Bosnian War; in case of Mostar, most of the Serbs left or were forced out of the city.

According to the official data of the local elections of 2008, among 6 city election districts, three western ones (Croat-majority) had 53,917 registered voters, and those three on the east (Bosniak-majority) had 34,712 voters.[41]

The ethnic composition of the city of Mostar:

The City of Mostar (aside from city proper) includes the following settlements:

After the Bosnian War, following the Dayton Agreement, the villages of Kamena, Kokorina and Zijemlje were separated from Mostar to form the new municipality of Istočni Mostar (East Mostar), in the Republika Srpska.

International reconstruction efforts aimed at the reunification of the divided city. The February 1996 Mostar Agreement led to the adoption of the Interim Statute of the city the same month, and to a 1-year period of EU Administration of Mostar (EUAM), headed by former Bremen mayor Hans Koschnick, till early 1997.[53]

The Interim Statute introduced a Yugoslav-style two-level of administration, with a City level with its own council and mayor (with two deputies) and six municipalities, each with its own administration and council, reflecting the wartime division: three in the Croat-majority West Mostar, and three in the Bosniak-majority East Mostar. A tiny "Central Zone" strip (not a municipality) was to host the rebuilt institutions of the city and, according to the original plans, also of the Federation entity. Mostar citizens would cast three votes: the first two for the City council's 48 members (half from a city-wide lift and half from candidates in each municipality, 4 each), and the third to elect the members of the councils of the six municipalities. Ethnic quotas and veto rights were to prevent any domination. [17]^:4

After six years of implementation, in 2003 OHR Paddy Ashdown established an "international commission for reforming Mostar", whose final report noted how the HDZ/SDA power-sharing in Mostar had entrenched division and corruption, with "rampant parallelism" in administrative structures and usurpation of power by the municipalities over the City. [17]^:5 The Mostar Commission, headed by another former German mayor, Norbert Winterstein, gathered members of all Mostar parties with the overarching aim of reuniting the city. A new Statute was negotiated, although few points of contention remained. Finally, in February 2004 OHR Paddy Ashdown imposed via its Bonn Powers the new City Statute and related amendments to the BiH Election Law and cantonal and Federation Constitutions. The 2004 Statute abolished the six municipalities and created a unified City administration with a single budget and one Mayor of Mostar, with no deputies. Ethnic quotas in the City council were replaced by minimum/maximum thresholds; 17 councillors would now be elected from a city-wide list, and 18 from the territories of the six former municipalities, now "city areas", which retained a single residual competence on "the distribution of revenues deriving from allocated construction land", managed by city area "commissions" formed by the 3 city councillors elected in each one. The "central zone" remained outside any city area, and its residents were only entitled to vote for the city-wide list.[17]^:6

According to the City Statute, imposed by High Representative Paddy Ashdown on 28 January 2004 after local politicians failed to reach an agreement, the mayor of Mostar has to be elected by the city council with a two-thirds majority.[54][55] Ashdown abolished the six municipalities that were divided equally among Bosniaks and Croats and replaced them with six electoral units,[56] ridding Mostar of duplicate institutions and costs.[57] In the process Ashdown also reduced the number of elected officials from 194 to 35.[56] According to the City Statute, the constituent peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs) are guaranteed a minimum of four seats and a maximum of 15 seats.[56] 18 councillors are elected by election units (3 councillors from each of the 6 districts) and 15 councillors from a city-wide list.[55] This move was opposed by the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH).[56]

On the basis of the 2008 election, the City Council was composed by 35 councillors from the following parties:

• Party of Democratic Action (SDA) 12
• People's Party Work for Prosperity (NSRzB) 7
• Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH) 7
• Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDP BiH) 3
• Croatian Democratic Union 1990 (HDZ 1990) 3
• Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH) 2
• Croatian Party of Rights of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HSP BiH) 1

Relative winners were HDZ BiH with the greatest number of votes. However, neither party had enough votes to ensure election of the mayor from their party. The city council met 16 times without success. Eventually OHR was involved and High Representative made some minor changes to the City Statute. After that Ljubo Bešlić (HDZ BiH) was reelected as a mayor.

Following an appeal by HDZ BiH, in November 2010 the Constitutional Court found the electoral framework for Mostar (2004 Statute) to be discriminatory and unconstitutional.[58] Among other things, the Constitutional Court noted that the votes of Mostar residents did not count the same, as the six electoral zones all elected 3 councillors despite their different population (with the smallest having 4 times fewer residents than the largest); and that the voters from the "central zone" counted less, as they only elected representatives from the city-wide list and not from any of the electoral zones. The Court annulled the relevant provisions of the Election Law of BiH and of the 2004 Statute, and ordered the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH and the Mostar city assembly to revise them within six months.[17]^:6 Yet, the Bosniak and Croat ruling parties did not get to a compromise.

In the absence of a legal basis, local elections could not take place in Mostar in 2012 and 2016. The mandate of the City council also expired in 2012. Bešlić thus remained as acting mayor for eight additional years, during which he affirmed that he considered resigning multiple times,[59] also due to his deteriorating health.[60] During this time, he shared the administrative duties with Izet Šahović, head of the Mostar City's Finance Department, a bureaucrat and member of the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA). For two full mandates, Bešlić and Šahović have decided together how to disbourse Mostar's yearly 30 million euro budget, without any legislative oversight or public transparency. The situation has been denounced by multiple NGOs, which have pointed at the SDA-HDZ power-sharing as the source of the mal-administration of Mostar and the recurrent problems with trash collection, water treatment, and continued ethnic duplication of the city services [60]

During this period, several rounds of talks were held with international facilitation. Between October 2012 and May 2013 Deputy High Representative Roderick W. Moore launched an 8-months mediation effort that produced a compromise framework aimed at merging the city areas (and central zone) into multi-ethnic voting districts. This was endorsed by the Peace Implementation Council’s Steering Board (PIC SB). Yet, the proposal found no political support when it was submitted by Moore's successor Tamir Waser in July 2014 to the BiH Parliament. A second mediation attempt led by US and UK ambassadors to BiH, Maureen Cormack and Edward Ferguson, and based on a model with a single city-wide electoral district, also failed [in 2017]. In 2018, the two main parties HDZ BiH and SDA autonomously negotiated a compromise solution, based only on a formula for the election of the councillors from each city area along the "one man, one vote" principle, which would be later taken up in the June 2020 agreement.[17]^:6

In October 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the case brought by Irma Baralija on the absence of electoral rights for the residents of Mostar.[61] In July 2020, the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina amended the electoral law to allow for local elections in Mostar to be held in December 2020.[62][63][64]

Following the election on 20 December 2020, the 35 members of the new City Council include:[65]

• Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH): 13 (+6)
• Coalition for Mostar (SDA, SBB, DF, SBiH, BPS): 11 (-1)
• BH Bloc (SDP BiH, NS): 7 (+4)
• Croatian Republican Party (HRS): 3 (+3)
• Serb list "Stay Here – United for Our Mostar" (SNSD, SDS): 1 (+1)

[66]

+ Jadranko Prlić (1988)

Mostar is twinned with:[80]