page_title: Zenica
section_title: Austro-Hungarian era
hierarchical_section_title: Zenica / History / Austro-Hungarian era
caption_attribution_description: English: A narrow-gauge railway train in Zenica during the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina
context_page_description: Zenica, is a city and an administrative and economic center of the Zenica-Doboj Canton in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located in the valley of river Bosna, about 70 km north of the country's capital Sarajevo. The city is known for Zenica Ironworks and the second heavy industry but also as a significant university center. According to the final results of 2013 population census in BiH, the settlement of Zenica itself counts 70,553 citizens and the administrative area 110,663.
  The urban part of today's city is formed in several phases, including Neolithic, Illyrian, Roman Municipium Bistua Nuova with early Christian dual basilica. Traces of an ancient settlement have been found here as well; villa rustica, thermae, a temple and other buildings were present too. Earliest findings in the place date from the period 3,000–2,000 B.C.; they were found on the localities of Drivuša and Gradišće. Zenica's current name was first mentioned on the 20 March 1436. Medieval church has been unearthed in Zenica, as well as Franciscan Monastery of St. Mary. Time of the independence of the Medieval Bosnia is directly connected to Zenica.
context_section_description: After the Berlin Congress, held in 1878, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was given the rights to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina; armed resistance to occupying troops soon arose. It is believed that exactly Zenica, more precisely the Hadži Mazića house, was the place of negotiations between the representatives of the Ottoman authorities in the Bosnian vilayet, Hafiz-pasha and the commander of the Austro-Hungarian occupying forces, General Filipović, on the conditions of the cessation of the conflict.
  Capital objects of wider social-economic importance were built; they became important for Zenica. They include the railway from Bosanski Brod to Zenica (1879), the coal mine (1880), the paper factory (1885), the ironworks (1892), and the penitentiary (1886). In 1908 a power station was built in Zenica, which enabled the introduction of electric public lighting. State schools were also opened, the first in 1885, and the second in 1910; in this period in Zenica there were also confessional schools, one for the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and for three maktabs, madrasahs and rozdios ('ruždija'); Muhamed Seid Serdarević, the muallim in the Sultan Ahmed Madrasah in Zenica, advocated for the reform of the teaching, where the lectures began to be conducted in the local language and the program modernized in accordance with the requirements of the time. Cultural societies were organized, on a strictly national-confessional basis, such as the Croatian Singing Society, Zvečaj, the Czech Word and others; at the same time, other societies of general character are established, such as firefighters, hunters, mountaineers and others. In 1910 the first cinema, called Helios, was opened in Zenica, which raised the city culture to a new level. This will, aside from other things, cause a series of changes – both qualitative and quantitative shifts in the city's development.
caption: A narrow-gauge railway train
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