Sarajevo has been home to many different religions for centuries, giving the city a range of diverse cultures. In the time of Ottoman occupation of Bosnia, Muslims, Serbian Orthodox,Roman Catholics, and Sephardi Jews all shared the city while maintaining distinctive identities. They were joined during the brief occupation by Austria-Hungary by a smaller number of Germans, Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs and Ashkenazi Jews.
Historically, Sarajevo has been home to several famous Bosnian poets, scholars, philosophers, and writers during the Ottoman Empire. To list only a very few; Nobel Prize- winnerVladimir Prelog is from the city, as is Academy Award-winning director Danis Tanović and multiple award-winning writer Aleksander Hemon. One of the region's most prolific and prominent poets, writers and screenwriters, Abdulah Sidran is also a Sarajevo native. Nobel Prize-winner Ivo Andrić attended high school in Sarajevo for two years. Sarajevo is also the home of the East West Theatre Company, the only independent theater company in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Sarajevo National Theatre is the oldest professional theater in Bosnia and Herzegovina, having been established in 1921.
Museums
The city is rich in museums, including the Museum of Sarajevo, the Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art, Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Museum of Literature and Theatre Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina (established in 1888) home to the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript and the oldest Sephardic Jewish document in the world issued in Barcelona around 1350, containing the traditional Jewish Haggadah, is on permanent display at the museum. It is the only remaining illustrated Sephardic Haggadah in the world. The National Museum also hosts year-round exhibitions pertaining to local, regional and international culture and history, and exhibits over 5,000 artefacts from Bosnia's history
