Bosnia is commemorating 100 years since the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the act that triggered World War One.
Cultural and sporting events, including a concert by the Vienna Philharmonic, are marking the occasion in the city.
Gavrilo Princip, who shot the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, continues to be a divisive figure in Bosnia.
The shots fired by the Bosnian Serb on 28 June 1914 sucked Europe’s great powers into four years of warfare.
Bosnia’s Serbs, Croats and Muslim Bosniaks are still divided over the role Princip played in bringing tensions to a head in Europe in 1914, with counter-commemorations planned by Bosnian Serbs.
In Austria, Franz Ferdinand’s great-granddaughter and family will be holding events at the family castle at Artstetten, near Vienna, where he is buried.
Differing interpretations
Leaders of Serbia and some Bosnian Serbs are boycotting official events, which they say are designed to incriminate Serbs.
On Friday, Serbs in eastern Sarajevo unveiled a statue of Princip, seen by them as a national hero who ended years of occupation of the Balkans by the Austro-Hungarian empire.
In the eastern town of Visegrad, actors will re-enact the murder of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, and the Belgrade Philharmonic will play music by Vivaldi.
The commemorations in central Sarajevo will take on a completely different tone to those in the east of the city, says the BBC’s Guy De Launey.
The Vienna Philharmonic will play a selection harking back to Hapsburg days, including Haydn’s Emperor Quartet, he adds.
The concert is being held at the newly-restored national library, which was destroyed during the 1992 siege of the city by Bosnian Serb forces in the Bosnian War.
Read the Full Article: Source – BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28062876
