Coat of Arms of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Modern Arms

Modern Arms

The coat of arms of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was similar to that of the Kotromanić dynasty. It had a blue background divided by a white line. The diagonal white line is actually supposed to symbolize the sword of Tvrtko and his might as a ruler. The coat of arms was designed in a hurry, right at the beginning of the Bosnian War, which lasted for three years. At the end of the war, there came uproar from the Bosnian Serbs arguing that the coat of arms solely represented Bosniaks. The international community within Bosnia and Herzegovina was the instrument to solve the controversy. In early 1998, a commission for the flag change was created and the same year the current coat of arms was adopted in order to help alleviate the tensions among ethnicities. The current one, however, lacks any history relating to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The current coat of arms of Bosnia and Herzegovina presents the typical straight top, oval sides, and spiked bottom. The coat of arms has two separate background colors, dark blue and gold. Both colors are seen in the coat of arms between 1992 and 1998. Even though the current coat of arms does not directly relate with Bosnian-Herzegovinian history, the colors that were used were the ones from the former coat of arms. The top right corner forms a yellow triangle symbolizing the shape of Bosnia and Herzegovina, portraying the sky, rivers and lakes. Through this the coat of arms portrays the Bosnian and Herzegovinian historical continuity and its historical statehood.