115 DOI: 10.5644/PI2019.179.05 THE GREAT SERBIAN THREAT, ZAVNOBIH AND MUSLIM BOSNIAK ENTRY INTO THE PEOPLE’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT Marko Atilla Hoare Abstract From the start of the uprising in summer 1941, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia conceived of the People’s Liberation Struggle in Bosnia- Herzegovina as a specifcally Bosnian-Herzegovinian liberation struggle, waged under Bosnian-patriotic slogans. Nevertheless, the status of Bosnia- Herzegovina within the future Yugoslav state was not defnitely resolved until November 1943. This period – autumn 1943 – witnessed the mass in- fux of Muslim Bosniaks into the People’s Liberation Movement, defnitely transforming it from a movement that was overwhelmingly ethnic-Serb in composition into one that had a large Muslim Bosniak component as well. A decisive catalyst for the mass entry of Muslim Bosniaks in East Bosnia into the NOP was the fear among them that Hitler would cede East Bosnia to Nedić’s Serbia, thereby establishing a Great Serbia in which the Muslim Bosniaks would be subjected to genocide. The KPJ, by championing Bosnian- Herzegovinian self-determination, was able to win over a large part of the Muslim Bosniak population that feared the Great Serbian threat. This paper will look at the relationship between the Great Serbian threat and the infux of Muslim Bosniaks into the NOP during 1943. Chetnik depradations in Bosnia-Herzegovina The year 1943 marked the turning-point for the NOP in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Italian collaboration with the Chetniks and the triumphalist Chetnik genocid- al assault on the Bosnian Muslim and Croat population increasingly discred- ited the NDH and the Ustashas as the latter’s protectors, revealing them to be powerless. The commander of German troops in the NDH estimated in March 1943 that only 2% of the NDH’s population supported the regime, and that * Prof Dr, Associate Professor of History, SSST. E-mail: markohoare@hotmail.com