The shot that wrecked the past century

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/29/shot-that-wrecked-the-past-century

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It is no great surprise that Gavrilo Princip (Report, 27 June) is viewed very differently by Serbs, Muslims and Croats.

To Serbs he was fighting to free our people from state-orchestrated persecution in our own country. Mass sackings, show trials, persecution of the Serbian Orthodox church and attempts to curtail the use of cyrillic alphabet were all daily occurrences for the Serbs of Bosnia. Muslims and Croats were very much the beneficiaries of this policy.

By ending this domination, Princip is widely considered by Muslims and Croats as a fanatic and radical. To understand 1914 it is vital to understand why he pulled the trigger. Dismissing him as a Serb nationalist, a fanatic or an unhinged maniac is shamefully ignorant.Anthony Shelmerdine BoskovicSaddleworth, Yorkshire

• The illegal occupation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by the Austro-Hungarian empire before the first world war was not quite as rosy as you would have it. There were repeated insurrections in the occupied territory that were brutally repressed and gave more than sufficient impetus to drive out the occupiers.

It's sad that Bosnia has now come full-circle in its history and is as split as ever. I've been to the country four times since the end of the war and personally observed the divided towns, destroyed homes, racist graffiti and destroyed churches and mosques – which, together, still provide testament to the fact that nothing is yet resolved there, and that the region may yet become a flashpoint of the kind that ignited the first world war 100 years ago.Dr Michael PravicaHenderson, Nevada