The last two years of World War II were very important for Bosnia and Herzegovina,since the Communist Party of Yugoslavia did not understand its positionor doubted whether it should become an autonomous province or constitutiverepublic in the future socialist federation. At the second session of AVNOJ(Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia) the question ofthe position of Bosnia and Herzegovina was solved. However, throughout thesocialist period the decisions and conclusions from the second session of ZAVNOBiH(State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia andHerzegovina) were referred to, and the date of 25 November 1943 (MrkonjićGrad) is the Statehood Day of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today, though, it isonly celebrated in the parts of the federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina whereBosniak population is in the majority.In the socialist Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina belonged to the groupof underdeveloped republics and depended on the financial resources from theUnderdeveloped Fund (federal fund for providing loans in order to facilitatethe development of economically underdeveloped republics and Kosovo). Untilthe mid-1960s it achieved important progress in all aspects. Furthermore, as the(geographically) central Yugoslav republic, located between Croatia and Serbia,it unavoidably represented a model of preserving the brotherhood and unityof the Yugoslav nations and nationalities due to its multi-national populationstructure. The opinion that Bosnian-Herzegovinian space represented the heartof the defence from any external aggression against Yugoslavia and that it wasthe strongest guard of the communist authorities was also prominent. During the1980s crisis Bosnia and Herzegovina was shaken by a few economic affairs andjudicial processes, but everyday life there was mostly affected by the Yugoslavpolitical and economic disagreements, and its multi-nationality represented anincreasingly severe problem.The political events at the end of the 1980s and in the beginning of the 1990sinvolved the whole of Bosnian-Herzegovinian society, shaped during the socialistperiod, in a four-year war, during which numerous war crimes, genocide anddestruction of the common institutions of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian authoritiesand culture took place. Although aggression against the Bosnian-Herzegovinianterritory began already in September 1991, the war officially started on6 April 1992, on the day of the recognition of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian independence.In only one year (1993) this war developed into a military conflictbetween Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats, and in parts of Bosnia also in a conflictbetween Bosniaks. Until November 1995 (Dayton Agreement) this war claimedaround 100,000 lives, resulted in a large number of persons with disabilities,and displaced the population within Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as beyondits borders. Today Bosnia and Herzegovina, divided into two entities, belongs– depending on the interpretation – among the states of the Western Balkans,which is the newly-coined expression for politically and economically unsuccessfulcountries.From today’s perspective the exploration of the socialist period in the historyof Bosnia and Herzegovina opens many questions, but Bosnian-Herzegovinianhistoriography does not possess well-founded answers for most of them. Eventhough in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian scientific community the idea of writingthe history of Bosnia and Herzegovina has existed since the 1960s, to date thishas not been achieved.