Baščaršija
old bazaar, part of Sarajevo
Baščaršija (Cyrillic: Башчаршија; pronounced [baʃ.tʃǎr.ʃi.ja]) is Sarajevo's old bazaar and the historical and cultural center of the city. It is also a local community within the Stari Grad municipality. Baščaršija was built in the 15th century when Isa-beg Ishaković founded the city.
Baščaršija is located on the north bank of the river Miljacka, in the municipality of Stari Grad. On Baščaršija there are several important historic buildings, such as the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque and sahat-kula. Today Baščaršija is the major tourist attraction of Sarajevo.
Etymology
The word Baščaršija derives from the Turkish language. The word "baš" which is "baş" in Turkish literally means "head", but in some contexts also means "primary", "main", "capital". "Čaršija" which is "çarşı" in Turkish means "bazaar" or "market".
Although the suffix "ja" (modern Turkish: "(y)a") means "to" in Turkish, implying that the full name of the district literally translates to "to the main bazaar", it is more likely that the ending -ija is a Bosnianism, as many Turkish loanwords have the same ending to conform to Bosnian grammatical rules.
The public source identifies “Baščaršija” as old bazaar, part of Sarajevo. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Baščaršija, bazaar and part.
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This entry incorporates text from “Baščaršija” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.