This article examines the different models of national identification that were present in Bosniak literary periodicals at the eve of the First World War. It is demonstrated that the enhanced mobility of intellectuals, the changing international political constellation (specifically, the consequences of the Annexation and of the Balkan Wars) and the rise of Serbian and Croatian nationalism seriously affected the way in which Bosniak authors, poets, and editors engaged in the discussion on national identity. Some writers, especially those gathered around Behar, declared themselves as Croats, whereas others, connected to the journal Gajret, were closer to the Serbian national movement. A third group of intellectuals, mainly those publishing in the journal Biser, believed that Bosniaks should join forces with the supranational movement of pan-Islam. However, a glance at the discursive construction of national identity in the literary journals Behar, Gajret, and Biser, makes plain that national identity was not perceived as something stable (i.e. as understood and promoted by the Serbian and Croatian national movements), nor was it considered to be of uppermost importance. Whereas the real debates among the Bosnia intellectuals of this time focused on the values of Islam and their compatibility with the modernization of society, national identification (as Serb or Croat) seems to have been to them more a matter of (changing) political orientation
