Historically and politically, the Bosnians and the Russians are a perfect match.This history started in the middle of the first thousand years A.D. when the tribes called the Southern Slavs migrated into the
southeast area of Europe known as the Balkans. The Slav people as they are known, were separated from the Northern Slavs, that is, related Slavs in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Russia, by the non-slavic tribes that settled the lands of Austria and Hungary. The Bosnians original ancestors were the Southern Slavs. They raided areas throught the Balkans including what is now modern day Serbia.This tribe eventually split up, mostly for religious and political reasons but also because the geography of the region is such that large groups of Slavs became separated and isolated from one another because of the difficult terrain. When religion came to the Balkans, where you were physically had as much to do with what religion you grew up with as other reasons. The Serbs who were closest to the Byzantine Empire geographically, took up the Eastern Orthodox Religion. The peoples in what is now Croatia, Slovinia and Bosina were infuenced by Rome and took up Roman Catholicisim. However, the Bosnians, who were alwasys being threathned politically by the Orthodox Christian Serbs as well as their Roman Catholic neighbors, by the fifteenth century had made apolitical decision to align themselves with the rising power of the Ottoman Empire, and converted to Islam. Russia, the country where most of the Southern Slavs came from had accepted the Eastern Orthodox religion at around the time the Serbs did. This religious bond between Russians and Serbs was very strong and the two groups supported one another for virtually their entire history up to and including modern times. The Serbs supported the Russians in almost all their wars and helped the Russians gain control of part of the Eastern Mediterraen
from the Turks. This is why the Russians are deeply interested in this area and feel they have a special role to play in the current conflict.

The Balkans are the reason that World War I had started. The Serbs of 1914 was as determined then, as they were for centuries, of preserving their independence in the Balkans. A wider war in the Balkans could risk the security of Europe, and possibly draw Moslen nations into the war. On a more imeadiate level, the reason for peace in Bosnia is so urgent is because cities, roads, bridges, have been destroyed in the conflict.