Post-Ottoman “Capitality”: Making Sofia and Sarajevo in the Late 19th to the Early 20th Century

This article compares the development of two capital cities in Southeastern Europe, paying particular attention to the political context of this process. The two cities examined in this article are Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria, established as an autonomous principality in 1878, and Sarajevo, the main city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the same year. The comparison of these two cases aims to reveal their transformations from towns in imperial borderlands into primary cities of the Balkans in the second half of the 19th century. This article focuses on key planning and architectural projects, instruments that represent ideas about nascent states, and the material legacy of Ottoman times in Sofia and Sarajevo to demonstrate how political conditions influenced the attitudes to heritage and urban development. This article aims to demonstrate that the creation of capital cities is a complex process that impacts the nation-building processes.