Hi there,
My name is Mirza. I am from Bosnia Herzegovina. Just like many others on ListServe, I was both excited and mortified when I received the "You've been selected" email from ListServe. What can I say to 20,000+ people? What should I write? How will my email compare to others that came before me? I pondered this question for a while before finally deciding to share 10 things about my country (in no particular order) that you might not know.
1. "World War I" broke out as a consequence of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, being shot dead in Sarajevo (capital of Bosnia), by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six Bosnian Serb assassins.
2. The 1984 Winter Olympics, the XIV Olympic Winter Games, were held in Sarajevo, present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina.
3. One of the last remaining rain-forests (primeval forests) in Europe is located in Bosnia-Herzegovina, near the border with Montenegro.
4. Bosnia-Herzegovina boasts at least two Noble Prize Laureates in Ivo Andrić (1961 - Literature) and Vladimir Prelog (1975 Chemistry).
5. Bosnian writer and director Danis Tanovic won an Oscar in 2002 for best foreign film: "No Man’s Land".
6. The Sarajevo Film Festival, an annual film festival held every August in Sarajevo, is one of the largest film festivals in Europe. Founded in 1995 during the siege of Sarajevo, it has brought international and local celebrities to the Bosnian capital every year since.
7. One of the country's most recognizable landmarks, Stari Most (Old Bridge), is a bridge built in the 16th century by the Ottomans in the city of Mostar. The Old Bridge stood for 427 years, before it was destroyed on 9 November 1993 by Bosnian Croat forces. The bridge was rebuilt and reopened on 23 July 2004. It is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
8. IrfanView, one of the most popular free image/graphic viewers, was created in 1996 by Bosnian Irfan Skiljan.
9. Despite its relatively small population (approximately 3,750,000), Bosnia Herzegovina boasts a number of past and present world recognized sportspeople. Edin Dzeko (Football - Manchester City), Mirza Teletovic (Basketball - Brooklyn Nets), Felix Sturm aka Adnan Catic (Boxing), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Football - PSG), Mirza Delibasic (Basketball - former Bosnia and Real Madrid), Hasan Salihamidzic (Football - former Bosnia and Bayern Munich) all are of Bosnian descent.
10. Since 2005, a number of people have visited Bosnia to see the "Bosnian Pyramids", a cluster of geological formations known as flatirons near the Bosnian town of Visoko, northwest of Sarajevo.The pyramid shaped hills are promoted by Bosnian author Semir Osmanagic as human-made and the largest ancient pyramids on Earth.
Thanks for reading and write back if you found my mail interesting.
Mirza Pandzo
[email protected]
Bugojno, Bosnia Herzegovina