Derventa
Derventa is a municipality and town in northern Bosnia, in the Republiks Srpska. By the 1991 census, the population of the town was 17,748: 31% Bosniaks, 26% Serbs, 24% Croats, 15% Yugoslavs and 4% Others. The town was fought over heavily, with the HVO first seizing control, then the VRS taking the town and holding it until the end of the war. By the 2013 census, the population was 11,631: 83% Serb, 11% Bosniak, 3% Croat and 1% Unaffiliated.
Religious structures: all churches and mosques in Derventa town that stood in 1991 were destroyed during the war, in 1992. After the war new versions were built in the center of the town, as shown on the landing page of this site:
However, what might at first glance seem a manifestation of mutual tolerance looks different on closer examination. First, the Serbian church that existed before the war dated from ca. 1855, when it had been built on the outskirts of the town, as a small church with no bell tower. The Serbian church now in the center of Derventa, the Temple of the Ascension of the Most Holy Mother of God (храм Успења Пресвете Богородице), was built between 1994 and 2010, and dedicated to the Serb fighters killed in the 1990s war. This church is by far the largest of the four sacral structures in the center of the town.
War Memorials
Lest the dominance of Serbian Orthodox Christians not be clear in the size of the church, the main street in the center of the town is now called “Orthodox Christianity Place” (trg Pravoslavlja). Near the church is a monument to the Fallen Fighters of the Army of the Republika Srpska. As we have noted, the location of such a monument on a central public place is the most clear indication of which community is dominant there.
Yet if Croats comprised only 3% of the population of the town of Derventa in 2013, they were 9% of the larger municipality, concentrated on its eastern side. A village with one of the largest number of Croats, Modran, has a monument to the Croat defenders (branitelji) who died in the war. This monument indicators the dominance of Croats in this small jurisdiction, part of one small ethnic island of Croats in the Republika Srpska.
