Addressing at the Founding Assembly of
Forum of Tuzla Citizens

WE SUPPORT THE FORUM OF TUZLA CITIZENS

Respected guests, ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the Ambassador Jakovich and the USA Embassy in Sarajevo I have a special honour to greet the Assembly of the Forum of Tuzla Citizens.
In America, you know, there are three kinds of institutions that support preserving of democracy: free independent media, constructive political opposition and non-partisan civic groups - such as yours.
These three institutions together guarantee that the Government trusts people it serves and that it exists for that very purpose. They find alternative sources of information, ideas, politics and heads of communities and society. They protect the weak from the oppression.
First of all it helps the individuals actively involved in making the decisions that refer to both to their own and their neighbours’ destinies.
During the fighting in the difficult liberation war your country made great efforts to realize the project of the Federation adopted in Washington and Vienna last year. From then on there has been made a great progress, especially in this region. Those who have done it deserve congratulations. The support of the Federation is the major element of the USA policy towards Bosnia.
However in some parts of the country there are some dangerous indicators, for instance becoming the part of the leading party monopoly, separatism, and even the apartheid. Nobody should expect from the USA to be indifferent towards such a development of the situation.
That is why we support the initiatives such as Forum of Tuzla Citizens. It gathers people who struggle for the establishment of the civic society within a legal system in which the human rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the Federation would be conducted in reality as well.
Once Bosnia and Herzegovina established within its recognized borders, as a promising and democratic country of all of its citizens, we could express our thanks fist of all to you and the people from all over the country being similar to you.
I wish you a successful the work of the Assembly, as well as good luck in the coming year. Thanks,

Cameron Scott Thompson
First Secretary
US Embassy to Bosnia and Herzegovina

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THE CITY WITH THE TRADITION OF CHERISHING
GOOD RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS

What has remained of a great human secret that man is determined by time, but that at the same time the time determines by the nature of its own nature. Is it a primordial instinct and need that even at the most fatal moments of great historical turn-overs one should remind oneself of one’s starting point, one’s roots and goals. Hence reminding of the permanent values makes the attempt of placing Tuzla or the spirit of Tuzla within the historical frames - the ones that can not be denied even by the time of an inopportune moment, but only by the man himself.
To talk about the spirit of Tuzla here and today is not an intellectual or citizens imagination, that attempt has its entire life and existential excuse. All the more so since Tuzla has always been and remained interesting because of its social, spiritual and cultural morphology. That is why the spirit of Tuzla has been emphasised in this tragic and tumultuous time when it happens that the man has been totally forgotten. The example of Tuzla and everything that has been created during its hundreds of years long tradition makes an extraordinary value characteristic only for this city and these people.
All of us know who we were, where we are now, but we also want and wish to decide on what is going to happen tomorrow. During its rich and turbulent history Tuzla was carried about and away by various spiritual powers; the first real pioneers have remained the protagonists of eternal and elevated human ideals, freedom, beauty and creating of the live worthy of human being. The first doctors, engineers, painters, teachers, writers musicians and actors have permanently marked the essence of the spirit of Tuzla by their cosmopolitanism, leaving to the time and the generations to judge of its own valorisation. Every philosophy exists in its own time, replies to its challenges, but also carries something of the future as the only valuable project in itself.
From this landscape of Tuzla the creators of the spirit of Tuzla plucked off the purple gamut of Tuzla plum orchard, a multicolour design of the house carpet, the striking verticals of the salt wells, church towers, minarets, the smell of the shadow-making treetops from Kozlovac and Moluhe under which they used to dream future, different and better time for themselves, but also for the city. What did Muhamed Hevaija Uskjufi, Djordje Mihajlovic, Adela Ber Vukic, Ahmed Muradbegovic and Ismet Mujezinovic dream when they left the slopes of Tuzla towards the world and Europe, searching for the exalted sunny space of the spiritual courteousness. What picture of the world and man did Matija Divkovic dream while he was creating the iconography of his human and creative obsession.
What did young : Djordje Mihajlovic, the first Tuzla painter, look for in Minhen at the end of the last century. It is certain that in his Minhen broods there were present also his beloved city, its small streets, as well as the dream about more beautiful Tuzla City and its specific spiritual aroma. All of them were involved in this city, but they enriched it, too, with the new values that have made the town closer to the world. What was Ismet Mujezinovic dreaming about while he walked down the street paved with cobblestones towards Zagreb and further to Vienna, Paris and Europe. From his Tuzla sofas he carried the picture of careless boyish life within the quarters of Tuzla, remembering picnics in Kiseljak, Ilincica, Dragodol, Solina, Tusanj... From such a life ambient he grew a person of extreme sensibility and sharp artistic perception, deeply feeling the spirit of time, but also the rising spirit of Tuzla, its cosmopolitan power. Mujezinovic remembered, as also his older colleague Djordje Mihajlovic did, that pleasant landscape of Tuzla, plum orchards, the smell of shadows, the green carpet of wide and mountainous Bosnian meadows, the ones merged with the picturesque colours of rugs, carpets, rosaries, the church bell sound and the voice of priests from Tuzla minarets.
Many of them carried away a “miraculous box” of their human and spiritual luggage. But in everything they were carrying there was also the spirit of Tuzla, the spirit of its inner essence. They belonged to it as much as it belonged to them. They devoted themselves to the city of their childhood, but to the city of their wisdom as well. Infected with the spiritual magnetism of Europe those well- and less- known protagonists used to come back, carried with love for everything that bore the epithet of Tuzla. Being the torchbearers of the new time for Tuzla, they made Tuzla closer to the world, but also the world closer to Tuzla. Tuzla has always been open to all people with well intentions. According to their human and experts qualities, many of them have weaved in the essence of Tuzla a part of their life ideals and values, refining the already refined and fruitful sole of Tuzla landscape. Beside their basic professional duty, some of them made a step further, giving the aroma and the contents to this city, its entire social and cultural life. Beside Hypocrat’s skill, a young doctor, Milan Bucic, brought also his talent for written word to Tuzla. Here, in Tuzla, he founded the first newspapers, “THE WORK” (RAD) and “THE MILIEU” (SREDINA), proving that Tuzla was really the milieu.
Honoured citizens, dear people of Tuzla! This short review of the things that made and makes Tuzla a city is just the necessary reminding of the trails of the traditional spirit of Tuzla, with all its dimensions and values, that can not be erased. Again and again we must remind ourselves of that, especially because of the present time, but also because of the time and generations being in front of us and that are to come after us. Always again man tries to search for the lost or disappeared trails of the sense and the meaning that are in front of him, in front of his human and spiritual identification. We are totally right when we say that cultural, economic and social values have been made up during many years of creating of Tuzla spirit, the ones that make Tuzla unavoidable fact in its own and our continuity.
We are aware of the fact that the time in which all of the possibilities would be realised does not exist; nor the value once realised remains the reality for ever; the process is going on, vanishing and creating are happening. Let me cite the intellectual mind of the spiritual vertical of the written word of Tuzla and Europe, Mesa Selimovic, and to say that “Tuzla is the reason why we are such as we are”.
Today we are in front of new challenges. Especially the city of Tuzla. But during the last period Tuzla managed to survive the burst of primitivism; it resisted provincial spirit of a small town. Tuzla has always been open to the new initiatives, ideas and projects. Today, more than ever before, Tuzla is in need of the new grey material, new people of the inspiration. Tuzla, together with its entire corps, does not want somebody to endanger its cultural, social and spiritual dignity at all. Today, as usually, Tuzla has struggled for the reconciliation of all of the ideas which bear something from yesterday, but also something of tomorrow. Something which will make us closer to the European standards. We shall always be against the things which might hold Tuzla back in any sense, against populistic primitivism that underhandedly enters the parts of this city. Tuzla is the most open city today. Nobody should have doubts concerning that. It is due to its citizens, who have always struggled for the common life, for we have not had another choice. The life in Tuzla and the way of living in it can be a link between people of different professional background, political opinion or social origin.
Respected citizens. Today our country, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a big European wall of crying. Today, in a most shameful way, the elementary human norms, rights and positions have been destroyed. Today we turn again towards Europe and world, although we had been that what is called European quality of life for a long time ago.
On behalf of the values that nobody can destroy, but negate, in this time we, people of
Tuzla, see our position position in the way and by the measure worth a man. We want to live with one another and not one beside another. That is Tuzla in its rich tradition of good relationship among neighbours has proved by opening its heart to everybody. Even today, Tuzla has proved with dignity and defiance to the world that the world of power is not a powerful world.
Hence the power of Tuzla comes, it is in its uncommon spirit, in its people and their mutual love of people, in their courtesy which could not be met elsewhere. For the sake of eternal human and life ideals, freedom, brotherhood, unity and mutual respect and accepti

For the sake of it, cheers... Thank you

Ćazim SARAJLIĆ

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THE THINGS WHICH MAKE US CHARACTERISTIC

Tuz, Tuzla, Soli Parish, Memlehaizir, Memlehaibala, Memlehaidiraht, Agac Hisar, Agac Tuzla, Yukari Tuzla, Saliniana , Well-known Saliniana, Suffocating Saliniana, suffocating, but dear to us. A long time ago the science resolved what these complicated and uncommon names mean, so that it could be known also in which times which respective people gave the official names to our salty and beautiful city, which throughout the history was upper and down, wooden and stone, salty and sooty, and only today it has become - even haunted. And again, God willing danger to the snakes and big tails. Time was rushing past and leaving the trails behind itself: in the thin memory of dilapidated people from Tuzla, in the rare graphics and paintings of Tuzla art dreamers, in the yellowish photographs of pedantic Austro-Hungarian photographers, in the records of smooth-spoken chroniclers and relaxed Bosnian calligraphers, Memlehaizir historians and crazy clerks, in songs. Yes. In songs! My dear daughter Boba, mother’s sweetheart, Golden Sun, greet your mother, Down the road the soldiers are walking my father, and hey, hey! always in such a way the debauchee Aljo closed the roads, My friend Hadji -Sulejman, Haze is falling along the Spreca River, and so on, and so on until the snake besieged Donja Tuzla and the green meadow under Tuzla arose.
It used to be like that, the ballad stories about Ajkas, customs and debauches, about wounds and blossom boughs, about parties and Omer-pasha’s mistreating, about snakes and big tails, about changing of faces and streets were told.
The human word was echoing also here from the darkness of the Ancient Ages and the mist of time, the word bigger than any hill and clearer than any spring. Somewhere behind these surrounding hills, in a dilapidated small house, Uskufi’s “Portur-Sahidija” that has become known world wide was painted. Hevaji’s voice tells us that his homeland is Dolno Solan , I am speaking you Bosnian my brethren, I am a bye, but my friend is that who sticks to the truth, Learn, write, work - in order not to be evil! Welcome even today our good day, our good Uskjufi! It were not bad if a wise head, such as yours is for sure, mentioned and warned us from our distant past just as neighbours and human beings!
Time was rushing past, who knows, and it is not important that much after all, if Tuzla girls had ever harvested barley and whispered their secrets about love grieves to the rustle of the ripe ears, if they boosted to Sarajevo girls that they set up fire with their eyes on the mountains and put beauty spots on their face, troubled the Drina with their tears, and captivated the bye with their beauty, and if a bar is beside the Hukica Han , if Mulija made-up her lips, and put the beauty spots on her face, if Tuzla is such as it used to be... The Drina is terribly troubled, it is muddy and bloody. Tuzla youth is going into the war as into the wedding. Herzeg-Bosnia, you will never fall, Mother, mother, if I fall for Bosnia, put the gold lily, the gold lily into my hair.
The new songs are being created with love and passion for this city and this country. As they have always been created.
Time was rushing past and leaving the trails behind itself. The snake besieged Donja Tuzla, it put its head in Dzindic Mahala , and cast its tail on Gradina , and cast its glance on the Old gate! The song was created in the time of menace, when Bosnia was the country of idiots, the country of rebellions and rebels, curved roads and unsafe travelling, in the time of hunger, illnesses and poverty. Just in that year, when notorious Porta’s Commander Omer-pasha Latas was sent to Bosnia with a defined task to calm down the obstinate Bosniaks and bring them to their senses, to establish piece in this unstable part of the Empire, that had always been Sultan’s favourite land. He assigned his powerful hordes on the hills surrounding the town, from Kicelj, over Kojsino and Boric, to Gradina. He stretched out his white tents on the top of Kicelj, on the same place where many many many years afterwards, after Omer-pasha’s Age, a brilliant Tuzla painter Mensur Memo enjoyed looking around and spending evenings with his friends, and not so seldom stretch his painting, dreaming all his life that once on his canvas he would paint the most foolish duellist that has ever existed in this world. Even without the assistance of the man telling you this story, you are able to realise that the most foolish duellist is Budalina Tale .
Well, let’s return just for a while to the one who tried to humiliate and subjugate this city. No sooner had that powerful commander made himself comfortable on Kicelj and no sooner had he started puffing smokes away and looking the city of Tuzla from which he intended to recruit the most notable townsmen, so that they, after having surmounted the fierce rise of Kicelj, should submissively bend to him and report because of being potency, pride, and disobedience, then mass and fear seized the town. But there was need for it because the things did not develop as the head pasha thought it would be: together with the Sun-set, he was also reached by the urgent message: to give up Tuzla and Tuzla masters, and because of some more important job to start in other direction. That is how it happened that a big pasha could not rest on Memaga’s Hill above all worlds, and even not to realise his intention. But to the national poet it was completely enough that the famous army only turned around the city to make the song about how the viper besieged the city in some ancient, ancient times. Today there are neither Omer-pasha nor Memo Dervisevic, but the song that makes this city a city has remained, Memo’s songs due to which this city is special and which has survived in spite of everything and everyone.
The time was rushing past, various snakes and vipers besieged this city and have been besieging it even today. They have been besieging it in vain, in vain have they been hissing with their poisonous tongues and poisonous flames. This town has always been called the city and has always been characteristic for its people and their deeds. In Tuzla there have always been people who have left deep trails with their presence and their work after themselves. Since Tuzla has been mentioned for the first time, since its existing regardless to the names it was called, it has had its Uskufis, Ledas and Leders, Mujos and Ajkunas, Jovanovic Djordjes and Kurt effendis , Divkovic A. Vladimirs and Benkovic Ambrozijes, Dervises and Ismets, Mesas, Gorans and Zorans, its Tihos and Muhameds, its Paganini followers, its Dragisas and workers, its Beslagics and Zaimovics, Pestics and Stankovics, Samardzics and so on. It has also had its common, quite common people, those who have extremely loved their city, those who always used to get up together when malicious winds blew from somewhere. All of them have made the soul of this city, and due to that soul the city has remained the city. And has always been that what it is - the city!
Today we are here, gathered, together: citizens, good Bosnians, all well-intentioned people. And the viper has not besieged only our city, they have been burning also us and our only homeland with their blazing poisonous tongues.
To protect the city, to remain together, to live in harmony and peace. To be heated with life. To return the city to the city, and life to life. And finally, to return us to ourselves and never separate again.

Cheers!

Nijaz Alispahić

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THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF TUZLA

Dear Citizens!

At this time, while the winds of war are destroying our Bosnia and Herzegovina and some dark powers would like to tear down the things mutually created throughout the years, we have gathered here today in order to realise the idea born in many of us and organise a non-partisan, multi-national and multi-cultural association. The aim is preserving and restoring of the way of living in Tuzla, which makes the spirit of Tuzla authentic. As the citizens of this city we have always had our soul, our culture and tradition, as well as our city that has become a European city considering many of the things characteristics for it even a long time ago.
A long time ago, before the others, we had the theatre, health and education institutions, and from our milieu the first academic painter went into the life of arts.
Meša Selimovic enriched European and world’s literature with his literary works and symphony jazz orchestra entertained the Tuzla citizens.
Many different European artists paid visits to our city and enriched our souls. Indeed, the urbane soul of our city has started to die slowly because of some higher force but also because of the subjective weakness common to ourselves. We lost some valuable architectural buildings without the hope for them to be restored, the places where generations of Tuzla citizens used to gather, so that we do not have Musala and Rondo as Mostar or Baš-caršija as Sarajevo citizens today. Besides, we love our city very much and are proud of it for the soul of a Tuzla citizen is indestructible.
In order to prevent somebody wishing to say that our respect for ourselves is not justified, my dear citizens, I should read you a letter written by a citizen from Mostar who spent five years in this city:
“I spent five most beautiful years of my life in Tuzla because I was surrounded by people who have soul - people who made it possible for me not to miss anything in my life. They managed to replace my parents, my brother and sister. I have changed many cities during the life because of my job. I have met many people and realised that people are those who make city and its soul. That is why I think this about Tuzla citizens. Even if I would write for years, I am not sure that I could write everything I would like to. I am proud to have such citizens as friends and brothers. Regardless to the things which life imposed to us in future, I know that in Tuzla I will have friends forever and I shall wait for whole my life for the day to sit with them together and prolong our friendship.”
This is a part of the letter written by Boro Đakovic, a former coach of the Basket-ball Team “Sloboda” Tuzla.
Our city, the city of bright history of all segments of life, even in this bloody and imposed war, has enlightened the dark sky of Bosnia and Herzegovina and showed to the fascism how the freedom and dignity of our Tuzla and our dear Bosnia and Herzegovina should be defended.
We can say with pride that Tuzla is also a turning point in our history. The name Tuzla passed through Europe and the world as tornado. It showed that with courage and love for city and homeland you can resist even much stronger aggressor.
Such a patriotism of Tuzla and Bosnia and Herzegovina is deeply carved in the essence of every Tuzla citizen. It is true that we, Tuzla people, did not appreciate all of the values that make us human beings. That is why we often had confidence in other people. Some of them gave a lot to this city, but there were also many who used this city for their own purposes and misused the courtesy of Tuzla people. Very often I call these other people cross-eyed, the people with different views on life because they looked at Tuzla with one eye and somewhere else with the other, somewhere where they had come from, and just those people have been trying to destroy Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We, the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, will not allow them to do that!

The name Tuzla is often mentioned on all world media. Both our and foreign statesmen take Tuzla as an example of good functioning of the executive, jurisdiction and legacy bodies, as a small example of whole Bosnia and Herzegovina. Those were the reasons of forming of the citizens’ associations, the ones who care of the well-being of Tuzla City.
In short, the Forum consists of the citizens who are individuals, and not the representatives of political, national, religious or social groups. That means that it is open to all Tuzla citizens who care of preserving and developing of the traditional, democratic, urbane, cultural and ethnic values of the city, as a multi-religious environment for all citizens.
The people who initiated it insisted that we should not point out anybody’s name, so that every citizen of Tuzla could recognise himself as a founder of the Forum.
The starting point of all of us here is the love for the city and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As the Forum of Tuzla citizens is founded in the very difficult time, our priority is defending Bosnia and Herzegovina as a democratic, independent, sovereign, ethnically undivided and united country, as well as assisting the soldiers of BH Army because their objectives are also ours.
The important task being in front of us is also to provide the life worthy of man to the refugees and displaced persons temporarily settled in this Town, in the way characteristic only for Tuzla people.
We are aware that the war circumstances dictate depriving somebody of his rights, as well as the suspension of some very important rights and citizens’ freedoms and, of course, as these circumstances are realistic, the Forum of Tuzla citizens will accept them as reality and necessity. However, we shall struggle that all other democratic rights and freedoms are realised, the ones which objectively should not be limited because of the war. The time of freedom, that will hopefully come soon, will offer us the possibility to fight for the realisation of our Program principles and aims.
Briefly, these Program principles and aims are the development of the feeling of patriotism Bosnia and Herzegovina, our homeland, based on positive cultural and ethnic experience in our environment, with one aim: the things that have been happening to us will happen never again together with providing the life worthy of man to the generations that are to come.
As the Declaration on Human Rights from 1948 is the basis of our Program principles we shall do our best for all citizens to be equally treated, regardless of their political opinion, national or social origin, religious belief or gender differences. That implies the democratic actions in all spheres of life of the city of Tuzla.
Being the Forum of Tuzla Citizens, our obligation is to develop the feeling of love, devote and loyalty to the city. That means protecting Tuzla and its traditional spiritual and cultural essence.
For that sake, we, citizens, will have to protect this city from the attempts of using it as a starting point of social and public promotion to the detriment of the citizens and the city of Tuzla.
We shall struggle against black-market and the profiteering it inevitably brings, against usurpation of power and each attempt to endanger human moral and integrity of honest people of this city with non-democratic means; we shall struggle against the power and tyrants, who would like to reach some aims of their own in this time difficult for all of us.
Expressed shortly, we shall try to have the influence in all spheres of life, aiming and wishing to make the Institute of Public Opinion, which in Democratic systems is the best Government controller. We, the Forum of Tuzla Citizens, would like to get close to the civilisation streams because the authorities have wrongly realised that they exist because of the citizens and that citizens do not exist because of them.
We shall not use power, threats, force, blackmail and summon people for lynching, but exclusively democratic methods of influence on the authorities and life in general.
One of the objectives of the Forum is making the conditions for European quality of life and work in all spheres. And we shall not be able to do that without preserving and educating the good personnel, of which this city has not been in lack of, and their full affirmation on the realisation of the Projects which will unite Tuzla and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as bringing it to wider European and world courses and processes.
Respectful citizens, we would like to stress that the Forum of Tuzla Citizens has not had the characteristics of political parties. Regarding the fact that the Forum of Tuzla Citizens consists of the citizens of different political opinions and party affiliations, our Association can not have them at all. The Forum does not have any sort of political attitude towards the leading authorities and opposition and it is not related to the authorities either as a partner or as an opposition.
Of course, depending on circumstances, it is completely possible that we agree with some measures undertaken by the authorities, and even persist in their realisation, but we shall not hesitate to confront the measures that are not good for Tuzla citizens, with democratic methods of course.
The real approach of the Forum will be its approach towards events and happenings, and in that sense we shall be in the position to act also politically because of the circumstances that arose, but, we are emphasising again, not as a political organisation and not as a political party, but as the association of citizens whose acting will certainly meet in this or that way the political attitude of the powers which are present on our political scene.
Especially we would like to stress that the intention of the Forum of Tuzla Citizens is that it becomes real small Citizens Academy in which people of different professions and great capabilities would act. Within the Forum we shall try to work on the Projects which are important for Tuzla Citizens and the development of the town. In that sense we shall try very soon to gather the citizens of Tuzla and start making different Projects which would be important for our milieu and also Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dear Citizens, our slogan is:

“FORUM IS OUR QUORUM”

Tuzla Citizens, we are majority.

Vehid ŠEHIĆ

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THE NOBLE SPIRIT OF TUZLA

In the beauty of living, history is a personal feeling; on the other hand it is a collective tragedy. It seems that one accepts no lessons and learns nothing from history - the old Latin proverb turned to be a general deceit.
I do not intend to interpret Tuzla historically, nor to make historical conclusions. There are more competent people to do that; for this occasion a word about Tuzla can not be more than drawing. A word or two, which will leave numerous questions and maybe just a few answers.
One can not be sure if living in one of the oldest settlements of Bosnia and Herzegovina is advantage or disadvantage (it must be advantage after all). In these wrinkled areas a gift or a mistake of nature seems to predestine human steadiness. At this stage, called mid Miocene, the sea supported by the Volcano destruction has left a result of its roars in an irrelevant lagoon: wells and gorges, instinctively quested by aboriginal man. That is how salt was discovered ones forever, a mineral which many times without a special reason but for need was the objective of fierce fights of Mongols, Germans, Celts and other tribes, whose trace is lost for ever at last.
Experts would try to persuade us that salty wells have always been the place where the civilizations were created and destroyed. That means that Tuzla has not been an exception. The oldest records about the production of the salt on the edge of the Panonian see dated from the age of ancient Greeks - Aristotle and Strabon mentioned the battles for this white pungent lump. Later on, during the large mobs of peoples from 3rd to 7th century A.D., native tribes were pushed out by blond Alovens who came from the wet mountains by the Baltic See and Karpat swamps.
Although from that time on, there are more obvious traces of Tuzla (both ones ) in the sand-glass of time, the marks are not that noticeable that one could recognize all its features in pagan rituals beside gods. The ancient mead mixed with intoxicating flavors of Byzantine and Latin vines, was inconsolably leaking from mugs, in the glory of the Lord and in harmony with nice promises in golden plated chalices of Christian prophecy.
The first mentioning of the settlement Soli , although the confusing one, was found in a record by a man from Byzantium, Constantine Porfirogenit, from 950 A.D. Salenes is a substitute for Latin name Salines used for countries or cities that existed in other areas of the Earth, from the Alps to California. According to linguists, also some other names of our areas were used thanks to the white mineral. The Jala river got its name thanks to “jalos”, which in the ancient Greek meant salt, and Bosnia should be interpreted as a salty country. According to Porfirogenit and priest Dukljanin, chronicler, in both quiet and stormy times that were more clearly announced from 10th century, the life in the district of salt, tided to the hills of the Majevica Mountain, the lowland of the Spreca River and the streaks of the Ozren, the Konjuh, and the Dramesin Mountains, was mainly based on satisfying of the interests of people from the East, and making of the income and rent for treasures and sleeping-chambers of kingdom and aristocracy. In their records one can find Caslav the owner of Soli, and his duel with Hungarian miser Kis along the Drina and the Sava Rivers. After they had killed each other, the districts of Usora and Soli were taken by Arpad’s descendants and given every now and then as gifts to their vassals.
Under the flash of Hungarian scepter, Bosnia was taken apart and united again and again for many times: from the time of not so well-known known civil governor Boric to King Tvrtko and the last Bosnian sovereign Stjepan Tomasevic. Being disturbed by Hungarian attacks, robberies, and devastation on the north borders, Bosnian district- prefects and civil governors were always eager to find allies. They used to find them amongst whited Dubrovnik people who were traveling in caravans to Bosnian mines and markets, having a monopoly over the salt mines from the Drina to the Neretva due to the contract concluded in 1189 with the civil-governor Kulin. According to the chronicles, this was a
hard time for the important Bosnian district. Bosnia had to sacrifice the profit of its own salt production in the Jala valley for the sake of some higher state interests.
The town of salt fell into hands of Osman Empire probably around 1474, and its name was changed by time into the present one. The word t u z means salt in the Turkish language but the old Slavonic name was not easily forgotten. That was proved by the words of Muhamed Hevaija Uskjufi, the author of the first Bosnian-Turkish Dictionary in the first half of 17th century, who said that “Dolno-Solan is his homeland”.
In former settlements of Parish Soli, a new way of living was being created according to the model of islamization, and at the beginning a part of Christian estate-owners were converted, and after that also common villain people. Cooking of salt and craftsmanshift brought from the East caused almost proportional growth of both Gornja and Donja Tuzla. At the beginning of the 17th century, the progress of Gornja Tuzla was slowing down in spite of the salt resources and good incomes. The most vivid area in whole North-eastern Bosnia by that time, with a Muslim monastery and strong-hold of many soldiers, remained on the verge of happenings in former Parish Soli, that became a colony. Donja Tuzla, also registered as Memleha-i-Zir in the records of the Empire, started to spread towards the Jala River and the plains on the East. Sarena Dzamija (Colorful Mosque) rouse on the smooth climb which was a basis of the foundation-stone of the first significant worship building and oriental watch-tower. Surrounded by a wall with four gates opened early in the morning and closed late at the night, the city was living. The life was very attractive even for spies, first for the interests of the Vienna court, especially at the beginning of the nineteenth century when the decay of Ottoman empire became evident... The appetite of the great and the greater ... Erchaus Dynasty... occupation of Bosnia in 1878, resistance of the mixed army of priest Vehbija Semsekadic and Tuzla’s entering of the industrial era.
Thick layers of coal and rich forests had been stirring up the imagination of Austrian and Hungarian stock-holders for many years before; the roulette of capital entered the scene. Opening of the first salt factory in Simin Han in 1885, the pump for salty water in Hukal and Trnovac, the whistle on the rail-road Doboj-Tuzla in April, fashion “a la frank”, telephone and telegraph, “ein Zins-cards” and outdoor concerts, all this meant that the area, obviously without a single factory chimney by then, was caught by colonial maelstrom... About that and 20th century one could tell in details, too - about I World War, stagnation and situation in the time between the wars; partisans’ revolution and patriots, especially about the partisan ethic; about the so called “renovation and reconstruction” in the post-war period; it can be told that Tuzla, as an open and hospitable town, had been welcoming visitors from Triglav to Djevdjelija - the term used until not so long ago. It could be told also about directives and “distribution of personnel” - many of them were to become exemplary inhabitants and citizens. New industry based on salt, sinking and this damn war; exile, refuge, destruction - all these is a new topic and a new lesson. But it seems as if there are no people in this reminding of some facts from Tuzla history. But there is no history without people. There are few chronicles and annals in which the following individuals could be found as companions or alive people: Stojan Utolovic from Djurdjevik, Brajko Verkovic from Tojsici, Hotim Bogosalic from Lipovnica... Turali-bey, the emperor’s principal, Sandzak-bey of Smederevo, who built a field mosque; Stjepan Matijevic, “Smart Seminarist”, author of the book: ”The Confessor” printed in the Slovinski language in church Cyrillic alphabet, erudite Franciscans, captain Husein-Gradascevic, Omer Pasha Latas, the first doctor Mehmed Sami Serbic, Josip Filipovic, alias fon Filipsberg, Salih Tucic, Fran Maselj Podlimbarski, the young Bosnians, Mitar Trifunovic Uco, the famous partisans, post-war constructors, artists: Djordje Mihajlovic, Ismet Mujezinovic, Dragisa Trifkovic, Radoslav Zoranovic, Ahmed Muradbegovic, Dervis Susic, Mesa Selimovic... all of that together is a history and a man in history.
Finally, as an isolated lighthouse, a moral pattern worthy of Helens, the brave act of Mr. Kurt and his followers from 1942 - saving of Serb citizens of Tuzla. Today Muslims are first who should be saved, but also Croats and Serbs, as citizens, and other people also. There are many reasons to believe that humanity, mutual assistance, respect and mutual life in Tuzla has always been a constant and that always survived amongst people, in spite of all difficulties. There must be hope that it will continue also in the future and that this town know how to protect and preserve its civic and noble spirit. Then the lessons on history would be really learnt and one would be able to say that the old Latin proverb: “The history is mother of knowledge” remained infallible.

Vitomir Pavlović