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Download or read book The Development of Sarajevo During the Period of Austro-Hungarian Administration, 1878-1918 written by Mary Winifred Davis Sparks and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis examines the development of the urban fabric in the city of Sarajevo during the period of Austro-Hungarian administration, 1878-1918, a time which left an exuberant and visible testament to the social, cultural and economic vigour of the middle-class inhabitants of the city. Events such as the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war of 1992-1995 have had a negative effect on Western views of the city's past, obscuring a more positive assessment of development in the Austro-Hungarian period. Previous 'top-down' accounts ofth~ Austro-Hungarian growth of the city have focused largely on the work of the administration in a colonial role. This thesis takes a wider view, using the urban fabric of the time as a key source of evidence for the nature of the economic, social and cultural development which took place. This approach creates a more nuanced picture. While acknowledging strong elements of continuity within the building programme and aspects of the social and cultural life of the city, it shows how the urban elites and developing middle class played an active role post-1878, fashioning the new parts of the city according to their various agendas and adopting lifestyles and patterns of investment , which owed much to central and west-European models. The role of confessional groups is also explored, as well as the integration between immigrant and local populations at middle class level. The Sarajevan version of urban modernity which is analysed in this thesis is thus shown not only to be the result of Austrian-led policies in the public sector, but also of the initiatives of a strong, well-integrated private sector which included a range of 'agencies' from individuals to religious groups, influenced by the social, cultural, architectural and economic stimuli which were affecting urban middle class development throughout Europe.