Bushnak

Bushnak (Vorlage:Lang-ar, meaning "Bosnian", also transliterated Bushnaq and Boshnak) is a surname commonly held by a minority of Palestinians who are of Bosnian origins. Those sharing this surname are the descendants of Muslim soldiers who were brought to Palestine at the end of the nineteenth century by the Ottoman authorities to provide reinforcements for its army, or who emigrated due to apprehensions about living under Christian rule after Bosnia's incorporation into the Hapsburg empire.>ref name=Cohenp123/> These Bosnian emigrants ended up settling in various places in the country, among them Caesarea, Yanun, Nablus, and Tulkarem. While not originally from one family, most Bosnian immigrants to Palestine adopted Bushnak as a common surname, attesting to their origins.

History

After the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1878, Bosnian Muslims apprehensive of living under Christian rule emigrated to lands administered by the Ottoman empire. Most emigrants during this time and the period directly after the annexation of Bosnia in 1908 settled in parts of what is now modern Turkey, while a smaller number settled in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. Bosnian Muslim immigrants settled in Caesarea in 1878 where they built two mosques, joining other Muslim immigrants from Morocco, Algeria, Crimea, the Caucasus, and Turkestan. These Slavic speaking immigrants eventually assimilated into the Arab population of Palestine. While some Bosnian Palestinians, like other Palestinians, left during the exodus of 1948, others remained. Their descendants live in villages in what is now northern Israel, their heritage reflected in the Arab surname of Bushnak.

Bibliography

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