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National Day of Bosnia & Herzigovina

Next celebratedWednesday, November 25, 2026

In a former tavern in November 1943, delegates held what their chairman called a parliamentary session no subjugated country in the world can hold. November 25 marks that night; Republika Srpska keeps it off its holiday list.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATENovember 25
OBSERVED INBosnia and Herzegovina
CATEGORYCulture
SUBCATEGORYRegional
ORIGIN

Enacted Law

FOUNDING ENTITY
Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
FIRST OBSERVED
1969
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A 1969 holiday law, rewritten in wartime.

A law published in the gazette of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1969 made November 25 a state holiday of that republic. The wartime Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina wrote its own version in 1995, and that is the text the Federation still applies.

Read the ruling on the statutevia Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina
INTRO

Its own minutes are dated a day late

The record of the meeting behind Statehood Day of Bosnia and Herzegovina is headed with the wrong dates. The minutes of the first session of ZAVNOBiH, the wartime council that met at Mrkonjić Grad, put the sitting on 26 and 27 November 1943. The resolution the delegates adopted that night carries the same wrong dates.

The editors of the 1968 volume that published those papers were blunt about it: "Datum je naveden pogrešno", the date is stated wrongly. They rebuilt the real one from the verification committee's report, which is headed 25 November 1943, and from an article the session's secretary published in Oslobođenje that December.

The reconstructed date now carries legal weight. It is a non-working day in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and appears on no holiday list in Republika Srpska. In December 2016 thirty Republika Srpska legislators asked the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to strike the statute down, and in July 2017 the court refused.

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ORIGINS

Day of Bosnia & Herzigovina history

INTRODUCTION

The delegates reached Mrkonjić Grad in the last week of November 1943, with the war still being fought around them. The verification committee counted 247 people in the room and 193 with the right to vote. The working session opened at nine in the evening.

Their first recorded act was to elect an honorary presidium. They chose Stalin, the British prime minister Winston Churchill and the American president Franklin Roosevelt, alongside Tito. The minutes note that the vote was unanimous and the applause loud.

CHAPTER 01

What the room knew it was doing

The chair closed the sitting by naming what was strange about it. One of the comrades, he said, had remarked that they were holding something no subjugated country in the world can hold: a parliamentary session. They were doing it in the hall of a former Mrkonjić tavern.

CHAPTER 02

A statutory holiday, twice over

The anniversary became a holiday in law in 1969. A statute in the gazette of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaimed 25 November a state holiday of that republic. It held until a new republic wrote its own version.

That replacement was passed while the next war was still running. The Law on Proclaiming 25 November the Statehood Day of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina appeared in that republic's gazette in 1995. Its three operative articles are brief: the day is proclaimed, it is a state holiday, and on it state bodies, enterprises and other legal persons do not work unless the government directs otherwise.

CHAPTER 03

The law that outlived its country

The 1995 statute still names the day after the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the state as it was called in wartime. The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Policy was still citing it when it announced the non-working day in November 2024. The Federation has no holidays law of its own: the state Parliamentary Assembly's 2009 draft recorded that a Yugoslav federal statute from 1973 was what still applied there.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Statehood Day of Bosnia and Herzegovina Matters

COURTS

The same court struck down one date and upheld this one.

In November 2015 the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina held that the provision putting Republika Srpska's Day of the Republic on 9 January was not in accordance with the constitution, and ordered the entity assembly to bring it into line. In July 2017 the same court refused to do the same to 25 November, finding that the date is bound to the history of the Serb people equally as to that of the Croat and Bosniak peoples.

LAW

The state has no holidays law

The Parliamentary Assembly's own 2009 draft records that no holidays law had been passed at state level since the constitution came into force. That draft proposed four national holidays, and 25 November was not one of them.

PLACE

The museum sits in the entity that skips it

The Commission to Preserve National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina listed the museum of the first session, with its permanent exhibition and interior fittings, as a national monument of the state. Its own register records the site's entity as Republika Srpska, which carries 25 November on none of its holiday lists.

TIMELINE

Timeline

First session of ZAVNOBiH

Delegates met through the night of 25 and 26 November at Mrkonjić Grad and adopted the resolution the day marks.

The anniversary becomes a holiday

The Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina put 25 November on its statute book as a state holiday.

A wartime law replaces it

The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina passed its own Statehood Day law, and the 1969 text fell away.

The meeting place becomes a monument

The Commission to Preserve National Monuments listed the museum of the first session at Mrkonjić Grad, in Republika Srpska.

A state holidays law is drafted

The Parliamentary Assembly's draft proposed four national holidays, and 25 November was not among them.

Constitutional Court upholds the date

It rejected a request by thirty Republika Srpska legislators to strike the statute down as discriminatory.

BY THE NUMBERS

Statehood Day of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Numbers

1969
Year it became a statutory holiday
30
Legislators who challenged the holiday law
0
Penalties for working on Statehood Day
15,000 KM
Top fine for working a Republika Srpska holiday
193
Delegates who could vote in 1943
Their land, which is neither Serb, nor Croat, nor Muslim, but Serb and Muslim and Croat, shall be a free and fraternal Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which full equality of all Serbs, Muslims and Croats is assured.
Resolution of the first session of ZAVNOBiHMrkonjić Grad, 25 and 26 November 1943, translated from the Bosnian

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia on 25 November 1943.

The truth

The delegates asked for the opposite of an exit. The resolution recorded that the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina would take part as equals with the others in building a democratic federal Yugoslavia.

The myth

The 1943 meeting at Mrkonjić Grad was ZAVNOBiH's second session.

The truth

It was the first. The 1968 documentary volume publishes the Mrkonjić Grad minutes as the record of the first session, and a separate second session followed later.

The myth

It is a non-working day across the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The truth

Only the Federation treats it that way. The holiday law of Republika Srpska lists five republic holidays and this is not one of them, and the Brčko District statute lists three.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Statehood Day of Bosnia and Herzegovina

EDITOR'S PICK

Check whether the day is non-working where you are

Across the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina the day is non-working for public bodies and for companies. The statute provides no transfer to another date, so it falls where it falls.

VISIT

Visit the museum at Mrkonjić Grad

The museum of the first session of ZAVNOBiH is a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with its permanent exhibition and interior fittings. It stands in Republika Srpska, the entity that does not keep the day.

READ

Read the minutes of the 1943 session

The record is online in the 1968 documentary volume of ZAVNOBiH papers, with the verification committee's report and the full resolution. The editors' notes explain how they fixed the date the minutes got wrong.

COMPARE

Compare the two Constitutional Court rulings

Decision U 22/16 sets out why 25 November survived a challenge, and Decision U 3/13 sets out why 9 January did not. Both are published in full by the official gazette.

SEPARATE

Separate the two Federation holidays

Statehood Day on 25 November and Independence Day on 1 March are different holidays under different statutes. Both are non-working days in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Day of Bosnia?

1 / 9

What did the delegates at Mrkonjić Grad resolve on the night the day marks?

Answer

Yes. Dan državnosti is given in English both as Statehood Day and as National Day, and the statute's own title calls it the Statehood Day of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

12sources
12primary records
8independently dated
Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina2017
Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Decision on Admissibility and Merits, case U 22/16
The 2017 ruling rejecting a challenge to the 25 November holiday, with the statute quoted in full.
View source
Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina2015
Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Decision on Admissibility and Merits, case U 3/13
The 2015 ruling on Republika Srpska's 9 January holiday, reproducing that entity's holiday law.
View source
Institut za istoriju radničkog pokreta, Sarajevo1968
ZAVNOBiH, Dokumenti 1943-1944, knjiga I: minutes of the first session
The 1943 minutes, the attendance report, the resolution, and the editors' note on the wrong date.
View source
Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina2024-11
Dan državnosti Bosne i Hercegovine neradni dan
The labour ministry's annual notice naming the 1995 law and confirming the non-working day.
View source
Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina2024-02
Dan nezavisnosti BiH neradni dan
The separate statute and non-working day for Independence Day on 1 March.
View source
Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina2009
Zakon o praznicima Bosne i Hercegovine i neradnim danima, draft with explanatory memorandum
The 2009 draft state holidays law, its four proposed holidays, and the entity laws it lists.
View source
Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Parliamentary assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1996 until today
The assembly's own history, naming an earlier holidays bill that representatives did not support.
View source
Assembly of Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina2002-11
Zakon o praznicima Brčko Distrikta BiH
The District's holidays statute, listing three holidays and their dates.
View source
Assembly of Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina2022-06
Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o praznicima Brčko distrikta BiH
The 2022 amendment adding fines for working on a District holiday.
View source
Protocol of the Republic of Srpska
Državni praznici
The entity's published lists of republic, working and religious holidays.
View source
Commission to Preserve National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Nacionalni spomenici Bosne i Hercegovine, tabela
The register of national monuments, with each decision number, session, entity and gazette.
View source
United Nations
Member States
Every member state's date of admission, giving Bosnia and Herzegovina 22 May 1992.
View source
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