Sarajevo - spark which set world alight

Ballymoney Borough Arts Committee’s Local History Talks Series continues on Wednesday 26 November with the second of two talks commemorating World War I.
By The Newsroom
Published 22nd Nov 2014, 14:25 BST
IT'S GOOD TO TALK. Pictured is Historian Alex Blair, who gave a talk on WW1 at the Town Hall on Tuesday night.INBM46-14 022SC.IT'S GOOD TO TALK. Pictured is Historian Alex Blair, who gave a talk on WW1 at the Town Hall on Tuesday night.INBM46-14 022SC.
IT'S GOOD TO TALK. Pictured is Historian Alex Blair, who gave a talk on WW1 at the Town Hall on Tuesday night.INBM46-14 022SC.

In this talk, popular local historian S Alex Blair will be focussing on Sarajevo: The Spark Which Set the World Alight.

On the morning of 28 June 1914 an event took place in a remote town in Eastern Europe which provided the spark which set the world alight in what came to be known as the Ist World War. The event was the murder of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia at Sarajevo by a Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip.

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It was an act of extreme violence, shocking many and much condemned when it happened, but few realised it would be an event of such momentous impact as to bring the world to war.

In this talk Mr Blair will deal with the detail of what happened and talk about Sarajevo as a place which seems to have a potent hold upon history. In more recent times it has withstood a siege of 1,400 days in the 1990s, the longest siege in modern European history and today it still struggles with its history and finds difficulty in reconciling its past.

The problems Sarajevo faces are familiar to anyone from Northern Ireland. Names and loyalties may be different but the core issues are very much the same.

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Mr Blair has just returned from a visit to Sarajevo and he will share his experience with his audience.

The talk begins ta 8pm in Ballymoney Town Hall. Admission £2 includes tea and coffee.