Princip or Latin Bridge, Sarajevo

No visit to Sarajevo would be complete without blipping the Princip or Latin bridge. This is the place where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, on 28 June 1914, precipitating the beginning of the First World War and the horror of the 20th century that one could say, in a sense, culminated in the genocide at Srebrenica which I blipped earlier this week. Princip was, of course, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist, and the place where he assassinated the Archduke was the Latin bridge, so named because in multicultural, multiethnic and mutilreligious Sarajevo it led across the river from the predominantly Ottoman/Muslim old town to the Catholic part of the town. The bridge has now reverted to its earlier name having been called the Princip bridge during Yugoslav times. And yes, that is a mosque minaret you can see on the right hand side of the photo, on the "catholic" bank. Sarajevo was, and is, truly a mixed city.

Because he was too young (<20) to be sentenced to death for the assassination, Princip was sentenced to a twenty year term in an Austrian prison where he died in 1918 from TB and malnutrition. Ironically, he was incarcerated in the Terezin prison, which later became notorious as the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt. So many things are circular in twentieth century European history.

Just returned from giving a lecture at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo. Bright and engaged students and young staff. A great place to talk about European citizenship.