By: Emir Medanhodžić
I have followed Domagoj Nikolić and Vinko Klarić for a long time on the media scene and on social networks, and about ten years ago I realized that they are not connoisseurs of Bosnia and its history and heritage as they present themselves to be – especially after Vinko published a post in which he referred to a Muslim tombstone/monument (nišan) from Bakići near Olovo as an ancient obelisk, and Domagoj described a Bosnian church with medieval tombstones (stećci) in Prijevor near Bileća as an Orthodox church allegedly built by Hasan Pasha Predojević for his mother, which is a classic mythological Greater-Serbian falsehood.
The continuation of these nebulous theories is the claim that Bosnian medieval tombstones (stećci) originate from the Illyrian period, or rather that they are not Bosnian at all. This theory can be dismantled like a house of cards with several arguments, such as: if they were made by the Illyrians, why are they absent among other Illyrian tribes – the Histrians, Veneti, Liburnians, Pannonians, Dardanians, and Docleatae; all bone samples found beneath medieval tombstones (stećci) date to the Middle Ages; how hard stone could have been carved with bronze tools, and so on. A third dangerous thesis is that, under the guise of some imaginary Croatian Illyrianism, they are reviving Yugoslavia (we know how such entities were bloodily created and how they collapsed), which in fact represents the pacification of Bosniaks ahead of a new genocide.
In the latest book by Domagoj Nikolić and Vinko Klarić “Where Eagles Gather” the cards are laid on the table, making it evident that they may be apologists of the Bosnian Reconquista (reconquest), which has been waged against Bosnia since the 16th century through the writing of books, propaganda, and political manipulation. In this book they list all those so-called respected learned figures of anti-Bosnian orientation. The list is lengthy: from Mavro Orbini, Ritter Vitezović, Ljudevit Gaj, ban Jelačić, Ivan Mažuranić, Petar Preradović, Strossmayer, Stadler, Starčević, and others.
So that everything is not entirely bleak, in this book I was pleasantly surprised that for the first time they mention the Bosnian Church, Arianism, and Islam – topics they had never mentioned before – so we may assume that they have read our book “From Bato to Kulin ban”, in which we described in detail the roots, emergence, and development of the Bosnian Church and the Bosnian state.