Europe on the Sava: Austrian Encounters with "Turks" in Bosnia

This article examines Austrian perceptions of the people and landscape of Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1878 to 1908. It traces Austrians' fantasies about and encounters with Bosnian Muslims, whom they often categorized as "Turks." Following the Congress of Berlin, Austrians claimed to be doing the civilizing work of "Europe" in Bosnia. The article investigates the meanings of border and borderlands between the Habsburg Empire and Ottoman Bosnia, focusing in particular on crossings of the Sava River. Drawing on the writings of soldiers, administrators, journalists and travel writers, the essay considers a number of mental maps, imagined geographies of what Habsburg authors thought they knew about the land and people they occupied. It contributes to a growing scholarship on the Habsburg-Ottoman borderlands.