Gavrilo Princip

Gavrilo Princip (Serbian Cyrillic: Гаврило Принцип, pronounced [ɡǎʋrilo prǐnt͡sip]; 25 July 1894 – 28 April 1918) was a Bosnian Serb student who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. The assassination set off the July Crisis, a series of events that within one month led to the outbreak of World War I.

Princip was born in western Bosnia to a poor Serb family. Aged 13, he was sent to Sarajevo, the capital of Austrian-occupied Bosnia, to study at the Merchants' School. He later transferred to the gymnasium, where he became politically aware. In 1911, he joined Young Bosnia, a secret local society aiming to free Bosnia from Austrian rule and achieve the unification of the South Slavs. After attending anti-Austrian demonstrations in Sarajevo, he was expelled from school and walked to Belgrade, Serbia, to continue his education. During the First Balkan War, Princip traveled to Southern Serbia to volunteer with the Serbian army's irregular forces fighting against the Ottoman Empire but was rejected for being too small and weak.

In 1913, following the unexpected success of the Serbians in the war against the Ottomans, the Austrian military governor of Bosnia, Oskar Potiorek, declared a state of emergency, dissolved the parliament, imposed martial rule, and banned Serbian public, cultural, and educational societies. Inspired by assassination attempts against Imperial officials by Slavic nationalists and anarchists, Princip persuaded two other young Bosnians to join a plot to assassinate the heir to the Habsburg Empire during his announced visit to Sarajevo. The Black Hand, a Serbian secret society with ties to Serbian military intelligence, provided the conspirators with weapons and training before facilitating their re-entry into Bosnia.

On Sunday 28 June 1914, during the royal couple's visit to Sarajevo, the then-teenager Princip mortally wounded Franz Ferdinand and Sophie by firing a pistol into their convertible car. Princip was arrested immediately by Austro-Hungarian authorities and tried alongside 24 others, all Bosnians and thus Austro-Hungarian subjects. At his trial, Princip stated: "I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria." Princip was spared the death penalty because of his age (19) and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was imprisoned at the Terezín Fortress. The Serbian government itself did not inspire the assassination but the Austrian Foreign Office and Army used the murders as a reason for a preventive war which led directly to World War I.

Princip died on 28 April 1918 of tuberculosis, worsened by harsh prison conditions, that had already led to the amputation of his right arm. His legacy is viewed as controversial; many Serbs regard him as a hero who stood against colonial oppression and slavery, while Bosniaks and Croats frequently view him as a terrorist.

Gavrilo Princip was born on 25 July [O.S. 13 July] 1894, in the remote hamlet of Obljaj, near Bosansko Grahovo, in western Bosnia. Bosnia was administered by Austria-Hungary, while still formally a province of the Ottoman Empire. He was the second of his parents' nine children, six of whom died in infancy. Princip's mother Marija wanted to name him after her late brother, Špiro, but he was named Gavrilo at the insistence of a local Eastern Orthodox priest, who claimed naming the sickly infant after the Archangel Gabriel would help him survive.

A Serb family, the Princips had lived in northwestern Bosnia for centuries. Their ancestors came from Grahovo, Nikšić in Montenegro, emigrating in the early 1700s, they belonged to the Jovićević clan, and adhered to the Serbian Orthodox Christian faith. Princip's parents, Petar and Marija (née Mićić), were poor farmers who lived off the meager land they owned. They were part of a class of Christian peasants known to the Ottomans as kmetovi (serfs), and were often oppressed by their Muslim landlords. Petar, who insisted on "strict correctness", never drank or swore and was mocked by his neighbours as a result. In his youth, he fought in the Herzegovina Uprising against the Ottomans. After the revolt, he resumed farming in the Grahovo valley, cultivating around 4 acres (1.6 ha; 0.0063 sq mi) of land and was forced to give a third of his income to his landlord. To supplement his income and sustain his family, he resorted to transporting mail and passengers across the mountains connecting northwestern Bosnia and Dalmatia.

Despite his father's initial objections, as he needed a shepherd to tend his sheep, Princip commenced primary school in 1903, at the age of nine. Despite facing challenges in his first year, he excelled in his studies, eventually receiving a collection of Serbian epic poetry from his headmaster in recognition of his academic success. At thirteen, Princip moved to Sarajevo, where his elder brother Jovan initially intended to enroll him at Sarajevo's Austro-Hungarian Military Academy. By the time Princip reached Sarajevo, Jovan had changed his mind following advice from a shopkeeper, who cautioned against sending his younger brother to become "an executioner of his own people." Instead, Princip was admitted to the Merchants' School, with Jovan financing his education through earnings from manual labor, such as transporting logs from the surrounding forests to mills in the city. After three years, Princip transferred to secondary school, the Sarajevo Gymnasium.