Podrinje (Serbian Cyrillic: Подриње) is the Slavic name of the Drina river basin, known in English as the Drina Valley. The Drina basin is shared between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, with majority of its territory being located in Eastern Bosnia, entire Upper Drina course and majority of the Middle course, while the Lower Drina course is shared between two countries,with the river representing border. The part of the Drina basin located in Bosnia and Herzegovina is also called Eastern Bosnia.
In 1941 Yugoslav Partisans liberated the large western part of the German occupied territory. In this territory they proclaimed the Republic of Užice (Uzička Republika) with Užice city as the centre of the Republic. This large free territory was an island of freedom in Nazi occupied Europe. The Republic of Užice was short-lived. German troops occupied the territory again, while the majority of Partisan forces escaped towards Bosnia.[citation needed] During the WWII Genocide of Serbs by the Croatian fascist Ustaše regime, many Serbs were executed along the Drina Valley for months, especially near Višegrad.[1]Jure Francetić's Black Legion killed thousands of defenceless Bosnian Serb civilians and threw their bodies into the Drina river.[2]
According to the Sarajevo Research and Documentation Centre (RDC/IDC) Bosnian Atlas of the Dead Project, the Podrinje was the area of Bosnia which suffered the highest number of casualties. In 2007, Mirsad Tokaca, the RDC/IDC's director, reported that 28,666 deaths of a total of 97,207 recorded by June 2007, had occurred in the Podrinje.[4]
^Levy, Michele Frucht (2009). ""The Last Bullet for the Last Serb": The Ustaša Genocide against Serbs: 1941–1945". Nationalities Papers. 37 (6): 807–837. doi:10.1080/00905990903239174. S2CID162231741.