History
The area near the town is believed to be settled up to 4000 years ago, and settlements around 2000 years ago by Illyrian tribes travelling upstream along the Neretva River have been found. Konjic was earliest recorded by name in the records of the Republic of Ragusa on June 16, 1382. The town, being part of the Bosnian kingdom, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire, of which the lasting feature for the town (apart from the many mosques and bringing of Islamic faith) is the Ottoman-inspired bridge which features in the town's coat of arms, and later into the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
During World War II, the town became part of the Independent State of Croatia, and following the war joined the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Between 1953 and 1979, a 611 square-metre atomic bunker, dug 300 metres into a mountain, was built secretly by the government in the Konjic municipality, in which President Tito and about 350 people from the Yugoslav ruling elite would have been able to find shelter. The town grew significantly and prospered as a vibrant, multi-ethnic city with good transport links (the town is on the railway between Sarajevo and the Adriatic Sea), the large Igman ammunition factory and Yugoslav Army barracks. These factors became one of the main reasons for the conflict in the 1990s.
Read more about this topic: Konjic
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”
—Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)