Jajce
From Free net encyclopedia
Jajce (Cyrillic: Јајце) is a town in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, located in the Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation. It is on the crossroads between Banja Luka, Mrkonjić Grad and Donji Vakuf, on the confluence of rivers Pliva and Vrbas.
History
Jajce is a town that was first built in the 14th century and which served as the capital of the independent Bosnian kingdom during its time. The town has gates as fortifications, as well as a castle which has walls which lead to the various gates around the town, to protect the castle. When the Bosnian kingdom fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1463, Jajce was taken by the Ottomans but was retaken the same year.
During this period, the last Bosnian queen Katarina Velika (Catherine the Great) restored the Church of Saint Luke in Jajce, today the oldest church in town. Eventually, in 1525, Jajce became the last Bosnian town to fall to the Ottoman rule. There are several churches and mosques built in different times during different rules, making Jajce a rather diverse town in this aspect.
Jajce gained prominence during the Second World War because it hosted the second convention of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia on November 29 1943, a meeting that set the foundation for the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia after WWII.
In the census of 1991, the municipality of Jajce was inhabited by 44,903 people: 17400 (38.75%) Bosniaks, 15781 (35.14%) Croats, 8684 (19.34%) Serbs, 2486 (5.54%) Yugoslavs, and 552 (1.23%) others. The town of Jajce itself had 11,031 residents, of which 37.8% Bosniaks, 28.7% Serbs, 18.2% Croats, 13.4% Yugoslavs and 2.2% others.
At the beginning of the Bosnian war, Jajce was inhabited by people from all ethnic groups, and was situated at a junction between areas of Serb majority to the north, Bosnian Muslim majority areas to the south-east and Croatian majority areas to the south-west.
In early 1992, many Serbs left the city for Republika Srpska. In the summer of 1992, the Bosnian Serb army started heavy bombardment of the city. Serb forces occupied Jajce in October 1992, apparently due to lack of cooperation between Bosnian Muslim and Croatian forces. The Bosniak and Croat population escaped through Divicani into Travnik. In the Croat counteroffensives of August-September 1995, the town was taken by Croatian forces, and became part of the Muslim-Croat Federation according to the Dayton Agreement.
Surroundings
Image:Waterfall in Jajce Bosnia.JPG
The town is also famous for its beautiful waterfall where the lake Pliva meets the river Vrbas. It was 30 meters high, but during the Bosnian war, the area was flooded and the waterfall is now 20 meters high. The flooding may have been due to an earthquake and/or attacks on the hydroelectric power plant further up the river.
The roads and other infrastructure that connect Jajce to the villages surrounding it (part of the Jajce municipality) are in bad shape due the wartime devastation.