WWI anniversary focuses on peace

Exhibits in the Sarajevo museum marking the start of World War I include portraits of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia von Hochenberg. Photo / AP

Artists and diplomats declared a new century of peace and unity in Europe in the city where the first two shots of World War I were fired 100 years ago.

On June 28, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian crown prince Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, where he had come to inspect his occupying troops in the empire's eastern province.

The shots fired by Serb teenager Gavrilo Princip sparked the Great War, which was followed decades later by a second world conflict. Together the two wars cost some 80 million Europeans their lives, ended four empires - including the Austro-Hungarian - and changed the world forever.

Visiting the assassination site, Sarajevan Davud Bajramovic, 67, said to hold a second of silence for every person killed during World War I in Europe, "we would have to stand silently for two years".

A century later, Sarajevans again crowded the same street along the river where Princip fired his shots. And the Austrians were also back, but this time with music instead of the military.

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was scheduled to perform works of European composers reflecting the century's catastrophic events and conclude with a symbol of unity in Europe - the joint European hymn, Beethoven's Ode To Joy.

The splurge of centennial concerts, speeches, lectures and exhibitions at the weekend were mostly focused on creating lasting peace and promoting unity in Bosnia Herzegovina, a country that is struggling with similar divisions to those it faced 100 years ago.

- AP