Bosnian Australians are
Australians
Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are the citizens, nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, several (or all) ...
of
Bosnian ancestry. At the 2021 census, 28,246 people stated that they had Bosnian ancestry (whether alone or in combination with another ancestry). At the 2021 census, 26,171 Australian residents were born in
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...
.
History
There have been three major influxes of Bosnians to Australia. The first period occurred in the aftermath of World War II, and the second occurred in the late 1960s/early 1970s following an economic depression and open border policy in the former
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
. Bosnian immigrants who arrived in Australia in the 1960s made important contributions to modern-day Australia through their role in the construction of the
Snowy Mountains Scheme
The Snowy Mountains Scheme or Snowy scheme is a hydroelectricity and irrigation complex in south-east Australia. The Scheme consists of sixteen major dams; nine power stations; two pumping stations; and of tunnels, pipelines and aqueducts that ...
in
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
.
The most recent wave of migration was during the 1990s when many Bosnians sought refuge from the
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War ( sh, Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started ...
. This migration was assisted under the refugee scheme of the
Australian Red Cross
The Australian Red Cross, formally the Australian Red Cross Society, is a humanitarian aid and community services charity in Australia. Tracing its history back to 1923 and being incorporated by royal charter in 1941, the Australian Red Cros ...
. By 1996, a year after the war had ended, almost 14,000 migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina were living in Australia. Most of the new arrivals settled in Victoria – Bosnia and Herzegovina was the fifth-largest source of immigrants to Victoria in 1995-96.
Demographics
Bosnians have predominantly arrived in Australia after 1992, with most of the community living in the south-east of Melbourne and in the south-west of Sydney. There are Bosnian run mosques in
Deer Park,
Noble Park
Noble Park is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 25 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Greater Dandenong local government area. Noble Park recorded a population of 32,257 at the . ...
,
Penshurst
Penshurst is a historic village and civil parish located in a valley upon the northern slopes of the Kentish Weald, at the confluence of the River Medway and the River Eden, within the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England.
The village is situa ...
and
Smithfield.
Media
The
SBS broadcasts a Bosnian-language program on SBS Radio 2 from 3 PM to 4 PM every Sunday. It also broadcasts
BHT 1's Dnevnik news program every Friday morning from 8 AM to 8:30 AM as part of its WorldWatch programming block.
Other community radio stations such as
3ZZZ
3ZZZ (''3 Triple Zed'') is an ethnic community radio station in Melbourne, Victoria that currently broadcasts programs in over 70 languages on 92.3 MHz FM and is licensed to Mount Dandenong.
3ZZZ is Australia's largest community multilingual r ...
(Melbourne),
4EB (Brisbane),
6EBA-FM
6EBA (95.3 FM) is a multicultural broadcast radio station in Perth
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of ...
(Perth),
2000FM (Sydney),
VOX FM
VOXFM 106.9 is a community radio station in Wollongong, New South Wales, broadcasting on 106.9 on the FM band.
The station's broadcast area in the Illawarra includes Helensburgh in the north to Gerringong in the south, and some listeners receive ...
(Wollongong),
1CMS
FM 91.1 CMS (callsign 1CMS) is a multilingual community radio station broadcasting to Canberra, in languages other than English, from studios in the suburb of Holder. CMS is a member of the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters Council ...
(Canberra),
5EBI (Adelaide) also broadcast in Bosnian.
Language
In Sydney there are 5 Saturday schools for Bosnian Australian youths.
*Bosnian Ethnic School Inc located at Amity College – Auburn
*Bosnian Ethnic School Inc located at Australian Bosnian & Herzegovinian Cultural Association – Leppington
*Bosnian Ethnic School Inc located at Liverpool Public School – Liverpool
*Bosnian Ethnic School Inc located at Australian Bosnian Islamic Society Gazi Husrev-beg – Penshurst
*Bosnian Ethnic School Inc located at Australian Bosnian Islamic Society Gazi Husrev-beg – Smithfield
Sport clubs
*
FC Bossy Liverpool
FC Bossy Liverpool is an Australian association football, soccer club based in Lurnea, New South Wales, Lurnea, New South Wales who competed in the New South Wales Super League. The club is currently playing in the New South Wales Regional League ...
*
FC Gazy Auburn
Notable people
*
Amir Alagic, soccer coach
*
Almir Pandzo
Almir Pandzo (born 2 September 1992) is a Bosnian-born Australian handball player.
Personal life
Because of the Bosnian War he migrated to Australia with his parents in the 1990s.
Career
Almir started his handball career at RK Iskra Bugojno ...
, handball player
*
Ajdin Hrustic
Ajdin Hrustic ( bs, Hrustić; born 5 July 1996) is an Australian professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Serie A club Hellas Verona and the Australia national team.
Early life
Born in Dandenong, Victoria Hrustic played ...
, soccer player
*
Azra Hadzic
Azra Hadzic ( bs, Azra Hadžić, ; born 26 November 1994) is a retired Australian tennis player of Bosnian descent.
Hadzic won one singles title on the ITF tour in her career. On 1 April 2013, she reached her best singles ranking of world num ...
, tennis player
*
Andreja Pejic Andreja ( sr, Андреја) is a given name. Notable people with the name include:
*Andreja Apostolović (born 1996), Serbian football midfielder
*Andreja Efremov (born 1992), Macedonian footballer
*Andreja Gomboc (born 1969), Slovenian astrophys ...
, model
*
Bernard Tomic
Bernard Tomic (; hr, Bernard Tomić, ; born 21 October 1992) is an Australian professional tennis player whose career-high ranking was world No. 17. As a junior, Tomic enjoyed a successful career in which he won an Orange Bowl title and two ju ...
, tennis player
*
Ed Husic
Edham Nurredin Husic (born 3 February 1970), commonly known as Ed Husic, is an Australian politician serving as Minister for Industry and Science since 2022. Husic is a member of the Australian House of Representatives, elected to represent the ...
, politician, Member for Chifley
*
Reshad Strik
Reshad Strik (born 22 June 1981 in Canberra, Australia) is a Bosnian-Australian actor and filmmaker.
Biography and career
Strik was born on 22 June 1981 in Canberra, Australia to a Bosnian Muslim father and an Australian mother,Anadolu Agen ...
, actor
*
Husein Alicajic
Husein Alicajic is an Australian filmmaker who writes and directs for film and television, known for award-winning commercials for Foxtel.
Background
Born in Sydney, Australia, to a Bosnian people, Bosnian father and a Scottish people, Scottish ...
, filmmaker
*
Harley Balic
Harley Balic (5 January 1997 – 9 January 2022) was a professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Balic was born in Sandringham, Victoria. His father Eddie was ...
, former AFL footballer
*
Hana Basic, sprinter
*
Katarina Carroll
Katarina Ruzh Carroll (nee Bošnjak) (born 17 November 1963) is an Australian police officer and the Commissioner of the Queensland Police Service since July 2019. She is the first female commissioner of QPS. She was formerly the Commissioner ...
, Commissioner of the Queensland Police Service
*
Dino Djulbic
Dino Djulbic (born 16 February 1983) is a former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. Born in the former SFR Yugoslavia, he made two appearances for the Australia national team.
Club career
South Melbourne FC
Djulbic was si ...
, soccer player
*
Dijana Alic, academic
*
Inga Peulich
Inga Peulich (; née Došen; born 15 October 1956) is an Australian politician. She was a member of the Legislative Council representing South Eastern Metropolitan Region from 2006 to 2018. From 2014 to 2018, Peulich served as the Victorian L ...
, politician
*
Ned Catic
Ned Catic (born 2 August 1978) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s. He played at club level for the Penrith Panthers, Sydney Roosters, Wakefield Trinity, Castleford Tigers and the Barr ...
, former professional
rugby league
Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...
footballer
*
Omar Jasika
Omar Jasika (; born 18 May 1997) is an Australian tennis player. He is the 2014 US Open boys' singles champion defeating Quentin Halys in the final. Jasika along with Naoki Nakagawa also won the 2014 US Open boys' doubles title after defeating ...
, tennis player
*
Mirza Muratovic, soccer player
*
Monika Radulovic
Monika Radulovic; sr, Моника Радуловић, Monika Radulović (born 20 September 1990, in Zavidovići) is a Bosnian-born Serbian Australian model and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss Universe Australia 2015 and repres ...
, model
*
Esma Voloder
Esma Voloder is a Bosnian-Australian actress, model and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss World Australia 2017 and represented Australia at the Miss World 2017 pageant.
Pageantry Miss Supranational 2013
Voloder represented Austra ...
, model
*
Sasa Sestic
Sasa Sestic (born 24 October 1978) is a Bosnian-Australian[barista
A barista (; ; from the Italian/Spanish for "bartender") is a person, usually a coffeehouse employee, who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks.
Etymology and inflection
The word ''barista'' comes from Italian where it means a male ...](_blank)
*
Selma Kajan, middle-distance runner
See also
*
Bosnian diaspora
The Bosnian diaspora consists of Bosnian emigrants of all ethnicities and their descendants in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia and elsewhere. There are an estimated 3 million B ...
*
European Australians
European Australians are citizens or residents of Australia whose ancestry originates from the peoples of Europe. They form the largest panethnic group in the country. At the 2021 census, the number of ancestry responses categorised within Eu ...
*
Europeans in Oceania
Age of Discovery, European exploration and settlement of Oceania began in the 16th century, starting with the Spanish people, Spanish (Crown of Castile, Castilian) landings and shipwrecks in the Mariana Islands, east of the Philippines. This was f ...
*
Immigration to Australia
The Australian continent was first settled when ancestors of Indigenous Australians arrived via the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and New Guinea over 50,000 years ago.
European colonisation began in 1788 with the establishment of a B ...
Notes
External links
SBS Bosnian
{{Ethnic groups in Australia
Bosnia and Herzegovina diaspora
Bosniak diaspora
European Australian
Immigration to Australia