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Department of Geography

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Historical development of the Department of Geography

A very significant event in the institutional organization of geographers in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the legal-formal establishment and foundation of the Department of Geography as part of one of the six teaching and scientific departments of the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, which was established by Decree of the Government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina No. 120 of February 14 in 1950.

The first head of the Department of Geography and its registrar was Prof. Dr. Tvrtko Kanaet. In addition to him, the teaching staff of the Department consisted of: Academician Miljenko Filipović, Husein Brkić, Milan Jokanović, Savo Šiniković, Jovanka Đurišić, Borivoje Petrović, Milan Vemić, Ismet Aganović, that is, after the defense of their doctoral dissertations and the acquisition of the teaching title, the teaching staff was supplemented by the following teachers: Miloš Bjelovitić, Natalija Mastilo, Orhan Zubčević, Ibrahim Bušatlija and Ratomir Gašparović.

Terenska nastava Odsjeka za geografiju: ispred studenata prof. dr. Muriz Spahić, prof. dr. Samir Đug i prof. dr. Nusret Drešković

Through historical development

The beginnings of the development of university geography were based on school geography and related to the transfer of knowledge to geography students. The development of education in the initial period was based on the self-education of teachers and associates of the Department of Geography, which resulted in doctorates in geographic sciences obtained in various regional and European university centers.

After that, higher degrees of academic and scientific education was organized at the home Department of Geography of the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo – first postgraduate and then doctoral studies. This organizational concept has resulted in a new educational and scientific potential for the Department of Geography expressed through the education of its own scientific staff at the level of masters and doctors of geographical sciences.

The aforementioned group of university professors represents the first group of geographers who were involved in the development of general geography, and especially mathematical geography with mathematical cartography, climatology and regional geography.

During the first decade of work, the professors of the Department of Geography, in cooperation with the Geographical Society of Bosnia and Herzegovina, organized a large number of educational seminars for geography teachers and thus made a full contribution to the realization of their first essential task – the improvement of all aspects of the implementation of geography lessons in primary and secondary schools.

In parallel with the above, a number of initial complex and component studies were started and realized in different regions, with which our geographers completely took over the primacy in the geographical study of the area of ​​Bosnia and Herzegovina.

During the work in the first decade, professors and associates of the Department of Geography participated in the presentation of their own scientific research results at the first four congresses of geographers of Yugoslavia held in Ljubljana (1947), Skopje (1951), Sarajevo (1955). and Belgrade (1959).

A new qualitative breakthrough in the institutional organization of geographers in Bosnia and Herzegovina is represented by the formation of the Sarajevo Faculty of Science and Mathematics. The Department of Geography began as one of five separate departments. The organization of the teaching process is realized through teaching-scientific subjects in three units:

  • Department of Geology,
  • Department of Physical, Social and Regional Geography,
  • Cabinet for geography teaching methodology.

In accordance with the already established teaching concept, the education of geography students was realized at all three levels of education: undergraduate (professional title: professor of geography), postgraduate (scientific title: master of geographical sciences), and doctoral studies (scientific title: doctor of geographical sciences).

In parallel with the basic educational mission, the teachers and associates of the Department of Geography continued and intensified their scientific research work on the component and complex geographical study of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the general and regional levels.

At the same time, during this period, one can observe intense scientific and professional involvement in getting to know modern theoretical methods of geographical studies and knowledge and their practical application.

The results of their own scientific research work were published by the teachers and associates of the Department in numerous domestic and international scientific journals and proceedings from numerous domestic and international scientific gatherings, including the remaining eight congresses of geographers of Yugoslavia.

A particularly significant aspect of institutional support for the scientific research work of teachers and associates of the Department of Geography was the formation of the Geographical Institute of the Faculty of Science, Sarajevo, which grew out of the Institute of Geography of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The significant contribution of the engagement of scientific and professional personnel within the Institute is visible through the implementation of a large number of scientific research projects that had both a theoretical and applied character.

Particularly important among them are projected in the field of complex and component physical-geographical, social-geographical and regional-geographical studies of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its individual regions. A large number of scientific research projects included geographical studies at the level of catchment areas with special emphasis on recent processes and phenomena, existing and potential forms of valorization of natural and social resources, conflicts related to their exploitation, etc.

A special place in the activities of the Institute projects in the field of identification of pollution at the level of geographical spheres, their impact on the environment, protection measures, etc.

University professors who established the mentioned concept of systemic component geographical study make up the second galaxy of geographers. These are mainly teachers and associates of the Department of Geography who have acquired a basic geographic education through the regular academic program and, in connection with that, adequate academic titles and academic titles.

The following professors of the Department of Geography have a special place in the presentation and implementation of teaching content from the component geographic disciplines in the educational process at the university level, scientific research engagement, and published scientific works in domestic and international geographical and related scientific journals: Tvrtko Kanaet, Ratomir Gašparović, Alija Salihović, Miloš Bjelovitić, Sulejman Bakaršić, Fabijan Trubelja, Miodrag Atanacković, Ibrahim Bušatlija, Orhan Zubčević, Miloš Mišković, Natalija Mastilo, Krešimir Papić, Sulejman Smlatić, Novak Zubić, Radmilo Milosavljević, Ante Markotić, Jasmina Čehajić, Bajo Krivokapić, and others. The mentioned second period of development of geographical thought in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended with the aggression against the sovereign and independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.

After the end of the aggression, in the very difficult circumstances of post-war reconstruction and construction, the third, contemporary, period of development of the Sarajevo School of Geography begins. At the beginning of this period, tendencies appeared and guidelines for the further development of geography were determined, from the fundamental-theoretical study of objective reality to the application of geographical scientific knowledge, especially in the areas of valorization of natural and social resources for the needs of economic development, spatial development, and environmental protection.

More specifically, geographical applications were incorporated through the innovative educational system at the university level in the areas of regional and spatial planning, tourism, and environmental protection, which in the post-war period represented one of the strategic bases of the economic development strategy of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The beginning of this period belongs to the reform Bologna process, during which, in addition to the regular and up-to-date educational program for teachers, the Department of Geography introduced completely innovative applied study programs expressed through the following study areas: tourism and environmental protection and regional and spatial planning.

The innovative curriculum and program harmonized with the Bologna system of study in the regular teaching process in the first and second cycle of study and in all three mentioned study directions began in the academic year 2005/2006. year. The first cycle lasts four study years or eight semesters.

At the Department of Geography, according to the pre-Bologna curriculum, since the academic year 2003/2004. 2008, he is realizing a postgraduate study in the field of geographical basis of regional and spatial planning. The study program lasts two years or four semesters.

The study program of the III cycle of studies also in all three study areas started in 2013/2014. year

The Geography in Education study program in the third cycle of studies is structured in accordance with the concept of the joint third cycle “Natural and Mathematical Sciences in Education”. Compulsory subjects in the field of the general methodology of scientific research, pedagogy, didactics, and teaching methodology are incorporated into the curriculum in the first, second and third semesters. In the curriculum during the II and III semesters, teaching-scientific subjects from different areas of geographical science in education are incorporated. In accordance with the adopted guidelines, during the III, IV, V, and VI semesters, students are mainly engaged in scientific research activities and the preparation of doctoral dissertations.

The basic educational goals of study programs of the III cycle of geography studies in the field of tourism and environmental protection and regional and spatial planning and the competence of doctoral students in these fields are:

  • systemic understanding of the essence of geographical space and its valorization for strategic and development purposes,
  • building a networked and complex understanding of the environment as a medium of development of spatial, regional, touristic and general geographic importance,
  • synthesizing, explicating, and implementing acquired fundamental and applied knowledge in strategic development programs, the most important of which is the tertiary economic sector,
  • qualification for independent and original scientific research in the field of fundamental geographical research for educational, tourism, geoecological and regional planning significance,
    training for independent component and complex geographical research in order to solve problems arising from the irrational use of natural geographical resources, depopulation, deagrarianization and deruralization of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
  • the ability to prepare, present, revise and review strategic documents concerning the geographic regionalization of Bosnia and Herzegovina, respecting the European Charter on Regions and Regionalization of the European Union,
  • qualification for expert analysis of tourism development, regional and spatial distribution of economic development of the state, regions, and socio-political communities, as well as numerous other goals and competencies in the aforementioned areas.

With the aforementioned educational concept, the contemporary Sarajevo School of Geography has implemented the aforementioned applied geographic orientation, i.e. made a full contribution to the education of experts in the field of tourism, environmental protection, regional and spatial planning, and geographic information system.

Also, by implementing this concept of the study, the current generation of geographers at the Department of Geography has concretized the essence of the introductory words of prof. Husein Brkić on the occasion of the publication of the first issue of the Geographical Review (1957), in which he hinted at the “saturation of schools with geography teaching staff and the unemployment crisis”, and in “recognizability of the breadth of the geography profession according to other types of life practice: tourism, traffic, culture, native museums and similar.” recognized the possibilities for the application of geography in various areas of the economy and the development of society in general.

Among the recent, third constellation of geographers, which laid the foundations for the new scientific applied geography, Muriz Spahić and Safet Nurković have a special place with other younger followers such as Rahman Nurković, Nusret Drešković, Ranko Mirić, Alma Pobrić, Ševkija Okerić, Mevlida Operta, Emir Temimović, Haris Jahić, Aida Korjenić, Senada Nezirović, Aida Bidžan-Gekić, Haris Gekić, Lejla Žunić, Marija Misilo, Edin Hrelja, Boris Avdić, Amra Banda, Amina Sivac and numerous teachers – external collaborators, among whom Snježana Musa stands out.

Geographical science has gained a particularly significant contemporary expression through the application of a geographic information system, which fully optimized various aspects of modeling spatial phenomena and processes, as well as solving growing conflicts in space.

By abandoning Heitner's horological geographical regionalism with its emphasis on its basic traditional model of descriptive understanding of spatial reality, the future development of geography in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be based on research into the functional organization of space and resolution of spatial conflicts, recent natural and social processes, rational use of natural resources and protect the environment.