History of Croatia
The history of Croatia begins long before the Slavic conquest in the 7th century and the emergence of the current settlement area of the Croats in south-eastern Europe . Her name appears in the sources from the 9th century.
The area of Croatia was already inhabited around a million years ago, in the Middle Stone Age by Neanderthals (exclusively from the Moustérien around 120,000 to 40,000 years ago), and finally by Cro-Magnon people more than 30,000 years ago. The oldest clay objects found in Croatia were created over 15,000 years ago in the form of figurines.
In the 6th millennium BC With the Neolithic, agriculture and livestock farming began. The new residents who immigrated from the Middle East settled down, many of whom lived from fishing. The villages took on urban structures, especially on the coast. Before the Vučedol culture (3000–2200 BC), copper processing became tangible for the first time. In the 1st millennium BC The coastline was populated by Venetians and Histrians, while Liburnians and Illyrian tribes lived further to the south . The social hierarchies after the 8th century became steeper, the expansion of Celtic tribes displaced large groups southwards who established new empires there. At the same time, Greek colonies emerged along the coast, which had a strong cultural influence on the neighbors.
From the 2nd half of the 3rd century BC The area became Roman after years of revolts, and the militarily secured province of Dalmatia emerged . Since the 3rd century AD, but above all with the onset of the migration of peoples , the urban way of life declined sharply in the north, while the now massively fortified cities shrank in the south. The Roman provincial population was Christianized. Towards the end of the Western Roman Empire, Dalmatia was the last emperor recognized by Ostrom, who was murdered in 480.
Croatia's rural areas were increasingly inhabited by Slavic groups from the end of the 6th century, who were also Christianized in the 8th and 9th centuries. At the time of the conquest, the eastern border of the Croatian lands ran roughly along the border between the Eastern and Western Roman Empire ; in the 9th century along the borderline between the Frankish and the Byzantine Empire . Around 925 a Croatian kingdom was established under Tomislav . In 1102 this came into a personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary . In the centuries that followed, the conflict zone between the then great powers Venice , the Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire ran in Croatia . The Republic of Ragusa took its own path as an independent small state with extensive trade contacts , with today's Dubrovnik as its capital (until 1808).
From 1527 Croatia and Hungary came under the control of the Habsburg Empire until its collapse at the end of the First World War in 1918. Subsequently, it was part of the Serbian- dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia . Croatia became a fascist satellite state under German and Italian occupation under the Ustaša during World War II in 1941 .
After the war ended, it became part of the newly formed communist and socialist Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980). After Tito's death and the emerging conflicts within Yugoslavia, the country achieved its present independence as a democratic republic in the Croatian War from 1991 to 1995 .
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Early history
The oldest archaeological finds in Croatia date from the Paleolithic and the New Stone Age . In Krapina there are internationally famous Neanderthal -Fundstellen.
antiquity
Illyrians, Greeks, Celts and Romans
The first settlers known by name in the area of today's Croatia were Illyrians who lived here from the 8th / 7th centuries. Century BC BC settled. Archaeological finds show that the Greeks in the 6th century BC Maintained shipping traffic with the Illyrians. Greek colonies emerged on the Adriatic coast , the most important of which were Pharos (today's Stari Grad on the island of Hvar ) and Issa (founded in 386 BC - today's Vis / Lissa on the island of the same name). However, the Greeks did not penetrate inland because of the hostile population and the unproductive Dalmatian hinterland. In the fourth century BC, Celts also invaded the area.
In the 3rd century BC The Illyrians founded their own state under King Agron . Illyria was founded in 168 BC. Subjugated by the Romans . After the victory of Emperor Augustus (35 BC) over the Illyrians, today's territory of Croatia became part of the Roman province of Illyria. The Romans divided Illyria into two zones: in Pannonia with the capital Petovium Ptuj and Dalmatia with the capital Salona ( Solin ). Numerous Illyrians entered Roman services, Diocletian even achieved the Roman imperial title.
The most monumental monuments from Roman times in Croatia are the Diocletian's Palace in Split and the amphitheater in Pula . Emperor Diocletian had Diocletian's Palace built six kilometers south of Salona as a retirement home. The core of the city of Split later developed from the palace grounds. The amphitheater in Pula is the sixth largest Roman arena. At gladiator fights , up to 26,000 spectators could watch the goings-on on the 68 by 42 meter battlefield.
Great Migration
When the Roman Empire was divided (395 AD), the territory of Croatia was added to the Western Roman Empire , and Istria and Dalmatia fell to the East after the fall of Western Rome in 476 . The area often changed hands in the storms of the Great Migration . It covered, among other Sarmatians , Goths , Alans , Vandals , Gepids and Lombards through and settled here partly down. After 489 the area was part of the Ostrogoth Empire .
After the fall of the Ostrogoths in 553, some areas of today's Croatia were part of the Byzantine Empire with interruptions until 1270.
middle Ages
Slavic conquest
In the 7th century, Croats settled in the former Roman provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia as part of the conquest of the Slavs in the Balkans . The legendary report says that the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII. Porphyrogennetos has handed down, they were Slavic tribes in the 7th century by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius from their homes in what is now Galicia , on the Vistula River and north of the Carpathian Mountains as protection against the Avars into the country called.
According to a theory of Slavists , however, the ethnogenesis of the Croats only took place after the Slavic colonization of the country. The origin of the popular name " Croats " (in the self-name Hrvati ) has not yet been clarified with certainty, but it has no Slavic roots, but probably goes back to an Iranian origin. as a foreign name for Slavs.
The Croatians were Christianized as early as the 7th century. The Croatians adopted Christianity from Roman messengers of faith. This is confirmed by the letters of Pope John X from 925.
During this time there were sporadic attacks by the Arabs on the Adriatic coast. While the pre-population, if they had not fled, was quickly Croatized in the interior, the Romansh population was able to maintain itself particularly on the islands and in the coastal towns . In possession of the sea coast, the Croatians built a large fleet with which they first pirated and then traded.
The sources in the early Middle Ages and especially under the Avar rule are extremely poor, that some information about this period is based on speculation, but also on the very detailed chronicle of the Byzantine emperor Constantine VIII Porphyrogennetos (between 948 and 952) written centuries later, see above that sometimes skepticism is called for here.
Principalities
Prince Višeslav (until 803) is mentioned for the first time in 799 on the occasion of an ultimately unsuccessful attack by Frankish troops on Rijeka .
In 806 Pannonia and Dalmatia fell under the rule of the Frankish Empire after the victory of Charlemagne .
During this time there were two principalities in what is now Croatia:
- one in the coastal area under Prince Borna (810–821) and
- one in the Pannonian region of Posavia under Prince Ljudevit .
From 812, Ljudevits principality was under Frankish suzerainty, Bornas under Byzantine.
In 819, Ljudevit led an uprising against the Franks and defeated the Margrave Kalodach . A second war against the Franconian margrave Balderich of Friuli ended in a draw. On the Kupa River , Ljudevit also defeated Prince Borna of Dalmatia and Liburnia , his uncle. In 820, the Franks invaded northern Pannonian Croatia again, but were repulsed.
Borna was referred to in a report for 919 as "dux Guduscanorum" ( leader or duke of the Guduskaner ), for 920 as "dux Dalmatiae" ( Duke of Dalmatia ).
Prince Mislav (835–845) moved his main residence to Klis near Split.
In 838 the Bavarian Duke Ludwig sent his forces against the Pannonian Prince Ratomir and was repulsed.
Prince Trpimir I (845–864) was the founder of the Trpimirović dynasty . He called the Benedictine order into the country and offered refuge at his court to Gottschalk von Orbais, who was persecuted in Franconia .
In a document from 852 he describes himself as "dux Chroatorum" (Duke of the Croats), his territory as "regnum Chroatorum" (Kingdom of the Croats). It is the first written mention of Croatians in Dalmatia.
Prince Domagoj (864–876) fought so intensely against Venice that Byzantium, in whose possession Venice was at the time, tried to eliminate him through a conspiracy. He was described by the Venetians as "the worst prince of the Slavs" ( Latin : pessimus dux Sclavorum ), by Pope John VIII as the "glorious prince of the Slavs" (Latin: gloriosus dux Sclavorum ).
The Romanesque cities in Dalmatia, which until then paid tribute to Byzantium, paid tribute to Prince Branimir (879–892). After the defeat at Makarska in 887 (when the Doge Pietro Candiano fell), the Venetians paid taxes for the passage along the Croatian coast.
Prince Branimir received from Pope John VIII on June 7th, 879 the recognition of the "worldly power" over the "regnum croatorum", "Empire of the Croats", actually "Kingdom of the Croats", (which did not exist yet) so Dalmatia .
Tomislav (910–928) united Croatia into one kingdom.
Independent Kingdom (925–1102)
Domagoj's grandson, Tomislav , became the first king of Croatia in 925. Originally this country was called Chorbatia . Pope John X immediately recognized this title. During his rule the Magyars invaded the Pannonian Basin. Tomislav successfully defended his kingdom, which consisted of central Croatia , Slavonia and parts of Dalmatia and Bosnia , against the Hungarians. Through an alliance with Byzantium, Croatia was granted the Adriatic islands and the cities of Split, Trogir and Zadar , which until then had been formally under Byzantine rule. Tomislav's state thus encompassed all of today's Croatian areas except for Istria. In 928 Tomislav disappeared without a trace. Under King Stefan Držislav (969–997) Byzantium confirmed Croatia's sovereignty over Dalmatia.
After that, Croatia came under pressure from Venice and Hungary . In May 1000, a Venetian navy defeated Croatia. Zadar, Trogir and Split were temporarily placed under Venetian administration. A contract was signed between Venice and Dubrovnik . King Krešimir III. lifted Venice's only formal obligation to pay tribute and recognized the Venetian Doge Peter Orseolo as Prince of Dalmatia.
Under Petar Krešimir IV (1058-1074) Croatia's power was weakened. Favored by internal disputes, the Romanesque coastal cities made themselves independent and looked for a connection with Venice .
King Zvonimir (1075-1089) was married to the Hungarian princess Jelena the Fair , but died without leaving a male heir to the throne. After the already aged Stjepan II was crowned the new king after fifteen years of exile in the monastery, the last representative of the Trpimirović ruling dynasty died with him after only two years of reign. In the course of this, Hungary raised hereditary claims to Croatia, so that in 1091, after a successful campaign to Croatia, Ladislaus I installed his nephew Álmos as the new ruler. After the summer of 1091, however, his area of dominion was limited to eastern Croatia
In 1093 Petar Svačić was elected king. He died in 1097 in the battle of the Gvozd against the Hungarian king Koloman .
The Koloman connected by kinship relations with the Croatian ruling dynasty of the dynasty of Árpád recognized the unity of the Croatian kingdom from the Drava to the Adriatic and was called the "pacta conventa" in personal union King of Croatia. The rights of the Croatian nation were also secured in the “pacta conventa”. The administration of Croatia was taken over by Ban , a Croatian representative. The state insignia and attributes of the Croatian kingdom remained valid.
Personal union with Hungary (1102–1526)
The personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary remained in various forms until 1918 , with restrictions during the Turkish wars in the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries and some other interruptions.
By the end of the 15th century, the Ottomans had conquered Serbia , Bosnia , Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Greece and Albania . The hurriedly assembled crusader army of the Hungarian King Sigismund was defeated by the Turks in 1396 in the Battle of Nicopolis . The only buffer between the Ottomans and the Christian West was the barely defended Croatian territory. In 1463 Bosnia came under Ottoman rule and after the battle on Krbavsko Polje in 1493 the resistance of the Croatian nobility collapsed. The Turks conquered the areas south of the Gvozd and eastern Slavonia. Croatia shrank to a narrow strip between the Danube and the Adriatic Sea.
In 1519 Pope Leo X called the Croats " Antemurale Christianitatis ", the "bulwark of Christianity", because they were the last bulwark to resist the expansion of the Ottoman Empire to the west. The Turkish units advanced into the region of today's Karlovac . After the Christian Hungarian army was wiped out by the Turks in the battle of Mohács in 1526, the situation also threatened the rest of Europe. The result of the Croatian defense efforts in the 15th century were 30 military campaigns and 70 destroyed cities.
Ladislaus of Naples sold Dalmatia to Venice for 100,000 ducats in 1409. The Venetians were then able to expand their area of influence and ruled over most of Istria apart from Dalmatia until 1797. The Venetians granted the occupied Croatian cities a certain degree of autonomy , but the heads of the cities could only be Venetian nobles. The oligarchic and colonialist policy of Venice led to resistance and uprisings.
Only Dubrovnik ( Ragusa ) was able to maintain its political and economic independence as a city-state through clever policies from the 14th century to the Napoleonic period . In the 16th century, Dubrovnik's merchant fleet was the third largest in the Mediterranean with over 300 ships . It was not until the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte ended the rule of Venice over most of the Croatian coast.
Modern times
Under the Habsburgs (1527-1918)
The 16th century in the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia was largely marked by armed conflicts against the Ottomans. After the battle of Mohács in 1527 the Croatian nobility recognized Ferdinand I von Habsburg as king of Croatia and Hungary, also in return for leading the defense against the Turks.
The part of Slavonia conquered by the Ottomans was heavily devastated, the number of inhabitants and the associated tax payments fell significantly during the 150-year rule. The military border was created to defend against the Ottomans . The Slavonian and Croatian military borders were established in Croatia . Mainly Serbs were settled there, from which the Krajina Serbs emerged. Between the border defense systems on both sides, a large unpopulated forest area developed for about a hundred years at the end of the 16th century.
During the 17th century, the Ottomans suffered several defeats. The defeat of the Turkish army in 1683 in front of Vienna and the ensuing liberation of part of the Croatian territories under Ottoman rule finally brought peace to Croatia after the long Turkish wars. In the Peace of Karlowitz in 1699 the Ottomans had to give up Hungary and today's Slavonia. Ottoman was still called Turkish Croatia or Turkish-Croatia in the west of Bosnia. The depopulated areas of Slavonia were repopulated again by Croatian returnees, but also by Serbian and German colonists.
With the Croatian Pragmatic Sanction in 1712, the Croatian Sabor recognized the inheritance right of the female line of the Habsburgs. Out of consideration for the Hungarian nobility, this decision was never officially confirmed by Vienna , instead Croatia was declared an indissoluble part of the Hungarian St. Stephen's Crown in 1723 .
From 1756 Varaždin , a town north of Zagreb , rose to become the de facto capital of the Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia . In 1776 large parts of the city were destroyed by fire, after which the Croatian royal council moved to Zagreb.
Emperor Joseph II repealed the Hungarian constitution and centralized the empire. When, under pressure from the domestic opposition, Hungary and Croatia were given back their constitutional rights, the Croatian parliament in Zagreb in 1790 passed a resolution that the Croatian counties should come under the power of the Hungarian government until the Croatian territory also included those areas that like Dalmatia and Istria were under Venetian rule.
Croatian historiography was born as a scientific discipline in the Franciscan Josephinian era . The extensive source editions and overall representations contributed to a comprehensive appraisal of the national past and met with broad public approval. This provided a means of mobilization for future national disputes, the direct consequence of which was the demand for political action for a free political life for the Croats.
Napoleon took up the name Illyria, which was used for Croatian and Slovenian areas, again by establishing the "Provinces Illyriennes" from 1805 and 1809 to 1813. After his decree of 1811, Slovenian and Croatian areas such as Carniola , Carinthia , Istria, civil Croatia , Dalmatia, Dubrovnik and the military border were under one administration for the first time . The French Marshal Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont campaigned for the introduction of the vernacular, which he called Illyrian, into the public service.
After the great, if short-lived, changes of the Napoleonic era, Croatian-Magyar relations were marked by a growing conflict. The Croats settled win against the Hungarian nationality policy, because it is a fight against the Austrian Emperor in 1848 Magyarization saw in the Kingdom of Hungary.
The Croatian Ban Josip Jelačić von Bužim fought for the idea of an empire in which all peoples live equally, and on April 19, 1848 declared relations with Hungary to be over. In 1848 he took part in the bloody suppression of the bourgeois revolution in Vienna and thus enabled the rise of neo-absolutism .
After the suppression of the Vienna Revolution , Croatia continued to be treated as a Hungarian sub-country . As a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the Hungarian-Croatian Compromise followed , which granted the Croats limited autonomy in the lands of St. Stephen's Crown. Dalmatia, Istria and the Austrian Riviera remained administratively in the Austrian half of the empire , although the majority of Croats wanted reunification.
In the first Yugoslavia (1918–1941)
During the First World War in 1917, the Yugoslav Committee , which was founded by South Slavic politicians who emigrated from Austria-Hungary , and the government-in-exile of the Kingdom of Serbia agreed in the Corfu Declaration to establish a common state of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
After the defeat of the Central Powers , the newly formed National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs of Austria-Hungary, to which the last Croatian Sabor had delegated its powers, declared on October 29, 1918 in Zagreb the separation of the South Slavic countries from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. These countries then formed the state of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs . However, the National Council did not succeed in reaching an agreement; rather, there was practically anarchy in large parts of its territory . In addition, Italian troops began to occupy areas along the east coast of the Adriatic, in anticipation of the annexation of large parts of Dalmatia promised by the Allies in the London Treaty of 1915 . In view of this, the National Council decided in November 1918 to unite with the Kingdom of Serbia immediately.
Aleksandar I. Karađorđević , heir to the throne and Prince Regent of Serbia, then proclaimed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on December 1, 1918 ( Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca , also SHS state for short ).
In the peace negotiations, the first foreign minister of the new state, the former chairman of the South Slavic Committee from Dalmatia, Ante Trumbić , succeeded in preventing Dalmatia from joining Italy. Only the city of Zadar and the former Austrian coastal country , which also included Istria, came to Italy. Rijeka was initially declared a free city , but was then occupied by irregular Italian troops. The dispute over the city's affiliation was settled in 1924 by a treaty that left Rijeka with Italy. The city of Sušak immediately to the east , however, was assigned to the SHS Kingdom.
In the elections for the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes , in which universal suffrage for men was applied for the first time in Croatia, the Croatian Peasant Party founded in 1904 under Stjepan Radić won in Croatia-Slavonia , which played only a minor role before the war had an absolute majority. In Dalmatia, bourgeois groups from the environment of the former South Slavic Committee initially retained the majority.
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The Croatian Peasant Party rejected the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in the form in which it had taken place and, citing the right of peoples to self-determination proclaimed by US President Woodrow Wilson , demanded the recognition of a separate right of self-determination for Croatia and the other South Slav peoples. In addition, they rejected the monarchical form of government and demanded the establishment of a republic .
Since the procedure of the constituent assembly did not provide for a veto right of the individual peoples, and also the monarchical form of government could not be questioned, it was boycotted by members of the Croatian Peasant Party. Instead, they drew up the constitution of the “Peasant Republic of Croatia”, which was to become part of a future confederation of South Slavic peasant republics. However, because of the real balance of power, the idea was simply wasted .
Because of the boycott of the Croatian Peasant Party and the absence of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia , which was banned as "subversive" shortly after the elections, the constituent assembly had shrunk. In 1921 it passed a constitution with a narrow majority, which provided for a centralized state organization and the dissolution of the historical provinces, which in fact ensured the predominance of the Serbs as the numerically largest people .
As a result, the Croatian Farmers' Party was very popular and also became the strongest party in Dalmatia and among the Croatians in Bosnia-Herzegovina . After she had not succeeded with a mere boycott policy, she gave up the boycott of the central parliament and the rejection of the monarchy, and took part in the central government for a time. However, there was no permanent agreement between the various political forces on the future state order of the South Slav kingdom.
On June 20, 1928, the member of the Serbian Radical People's Party Puniša Račić shot dead four members of the Croatian Peasant Party in a parliamentary session and fatally injured party chairman Stjepan Radić . Thereupon King Aleksandar had all political parties outlawed and declared a dictatorship. A new constitution was proclaimed and the country renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . The Croatian nationalist Ustaše movement swore vengeance and called for armed struggle against "the Serbian oppressors". During this struggle, King Aleksandar I was assassinated in Marseille in October 1934 .
Satellite state in World War II
After Yugoslavia joined the Tripartite Pact , there was a British- backed coup by Serb officers against the Serbian Prince Regent Paul. Although the new Yugoslav government tried to come to an understanding with the German Reich , Germany responded on April 6, 1941 with an attack on Yugoslavia . Within four weeks, the army of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was defeated by the Axis powers , the Yugoslav government surrendered and King Petar II Karađorđević fled into exile in Great Britain.
After the Croatian Peasant Party refused to collaborate with the German occupying power, it handed power in Croatia to the fascist Ustaša movement under the leadership of Ante Pavelić . On April 10, 1941, the Ustaša proclaimed the "Independent State of Croatia" (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska). This formally independent state was politically and militarily supported by Germany, especially in the fighting against the Yugoslav partisans led by the Croatian Josip Broz Tito and initially against the monarchist-Yugoslav-oriented Chetniks that began in 1942/43 . From 1942, individual Chetnik associations in Croatia fought alongside the Ustasha against the communist partisans and received financial support from the NDH state. Large parts of the Dalmatian coast including the cities of Split (Spalato) and Šibenik (Sebenico) with the islands off it were ceded to Italy. During this time Serbs and other minorities in the NDH state were brutally persecuted with the aim of exterminating and completely annihilating Christian Orthodox Christians. One of the most notorious concentration camps was the Jasenovac concentration camp .
In 1942, still under German occupation, the communists had recognized the active and passive right to vote for women . Full legal, economic and social equality between the sexes was first guaranteed in the 1946 constitution. Another source mentions the introduction of active and passive voting rights as August 11, 1945.
The National Committee of the “Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia” (AVNOJ), which was founded as a provisional government in the Bosnian Jajce on November 29, 1943 , claimed leadership because of its role in the liberation of Croatia from fascism. As a result, in 1943 the “Antifascist Council for the Liberation of the People of Croatia” (ZAVNOH) was founded as the highest representative body of Croatia. The partisans managed to expand and consolidate their power in large parts of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina through broad support from the population, but also through clever tactics with the allies .
Contemporary history
In the second Yugoslavia (1945–1991)
After the end of the war, in accordance with the resolutions of the second AVNOJ conference, Croatia became one of six republics of the newly founded “Federativna Narodna Republika Jugoslavija”, which from 1963 was called the “Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” (Socijalistička Federativna Republika Jugoslavija). As in the other constituent republics and “autonomous provinces”, socialism was introduced in Croatia . Political opponents and especially former supporters of the Ustaše were persecuted and executed in the first few years, after which many fled the country and continued their activities in the diaspora . Private property of the upper class was confiscated, companies , buildings and land were expropriated and nationalized.
The once large German-speaking minority in the east of the country, in Slavonia , Baranja and Syrmia , was almost completely expropriated and expelled on charges of collective collaboration with the fascist occupiers. Mostly Serbs were settled in their homes. Likewise, the majority of Italians in Istria and coastal cities such as Rijeka, Zadar and Split were expelled . In contrast to the German speakers, however, the Italians who remained in the country were recognized as a national minority and received minority rights that were also guaranteed internationally within the framework of the treaties between Yugoslavia and Italy regulating the Trieste question.
After the break between Tito and Stalin in 1948, and especially after the reforms of the 1960s, political practice in Yugoslavia developed on its own. To be emphasized are an increasing opening to the west, the tolerance of private family businesses and agricultural goods up to a maximum size of 20 hectares and the relative non-interference of the state in private affairs. Political opponents who appeared in public had to reckon with repression.
The extensive opening of the country to the west allowed tourism to develop on the Adriatic coast. Until the collapse of Yugoslavia, tourism was one of the most important sources of foreign currency , alongside the posting of guest workers (Croatian gastarbajteri ). Industry was also able to develop in the greater Zagreb, Rijeka and Osijek areas , while Dalmatia , the Lika and the Croatian islands remained underdeveloped in this regard and were marked by massive rural exodus. Croatia was one of the wealthiest republics of Yugoslavia, mainly because of tourism and the comparatively high productivity of its economy. The fact that Croatia had to transfer a large part of its foreign exchange income to the central government and consequently the necessary investments in Croatia were not made, led to resentment.
At the end of the 1960s, the so-called Croatian Spring ( maspokret ) began, a reform movement that was founded and supported by intellectuals and soon afterwards also reached the Zagreb party leadership. The Croatian Spring representatives called for a range of economic, democratic and national measures such as greater autonomy for the republics, the reduction of payments to the central government and poorer republics and the construction of the Zagreb-Split and Zagreb-Rijeka motorways.
At the beginning of the Croatian Spring there was, among other things, the language dispute over the position of the Croatian language in Yugoslavia. Officially, as the “western variant” of the Serbo-Croatian language , this was on an equal footing with the “eastern variant”, Serbian , but de facto the Serbian variant predominated, especially in state usage and in public, while the use of specifically Croatian forms as a “nationalistic deviation “Was viewed. In response, numerous Croatian intellectuals, including scientists and writers such as Miroslav Krleža , signed a "Declaration on the Name and Status of the Croatian Literary Language" on March 17, 1967, in which they demanded the official recognition of the independence of the Croatian language.
Favored by the liberalization of the political public in Yugoslavia after the overthrow of Interior Minister Aleksandar Ranković , other economic and political issues were increasingly and critically discussed in public for the first time since the Communists came to power. The leadership of the League of Communists of Croatia under Savka Dabčević-Kučar supported the liberalization and adopted parts of the publicly raised demands. Although the leadership role of the Communist Party was not questioned, social organizations such as the traditional cultural association “Matica Hrvatska” and the student association of the University of Zagreb led by Dražen Budiša broke away from the party's influence and began to act independently. The displeasure in Croatia ultimately resulted in demonstrations .
The party leadership at the federal level was initially cautious about developments in Croatia, especially since the person of Tito was not directly criticized in the Croatian public; instead, Tito's support was sought. However, the circles of the Yugoslav army and the Yugoslav secret service increasingly called for action against the development in Croatia, which was allegedly threatening the unity of Yugoslavia. Finally, on November 29, 1971, Tito forced the entire leadership of the Croatian Communist League to resign. It was replaced by a new party leadership loyal to the line, which immediately put an end to political liberalization. By mid-1972 550 people had been arrested in this connection and a total of 2,000 people were convicted.
The demand for greater economic independence for the constituent republics of Yugoslavia was partially met by the new constitution of 1974, but political liberalization was not permitted until the second half of the 1980s. In the deep political and economic crisis in which Yugoslavia found itself in the late 1980s, there was a growing contradiction between centralistic and Greater Serbian tendencies on the one hand and the reawakening Croatian national consciousness on the other. With Tito's death in 1980, an important stabilizing factor had also ceased to exist.
With the end of the socialist era in Europe, Slovenia and Croatia began calling for Yugoslavia to be transformed into a confederation and a reorientation towards parliamentary democracy and a market economy . The President of the Republic of Serbia Slobodan Milošević campaigned for a centralized Yugoslav state and agitated against Albanians , Croats and Slovenes in order to prevent their aspirations for independence.
War and independence
In May 1990 the first elections were held in Croatia. The Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) led by Franjo Tuđman emerged as the election winner. The HDZ advocated a Croatia independent of Yugoslavia, which was rejected by the Serbian minority in Croatia and by the Yugoslav central government in Belgrade.
In mid-August 1990, during the so-called tree trunk revolution, roads on the borders of the areas claimed by Serbs were blocked in order to block traffic to and from the tourist areas on the coast. A referendum organized in the Knin area at the end of August led to the proclamation of the “Autonomous Region of Serbian Krajina” on September 2, 1990. Intervention by the Croatian police was prevented by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) . At the same time, the expulsion of non-Serb residents from these areas began.
The Croatian government declared Croatia's independence on June 25, 1991, after which the Yugoslav People's Army supplied Serb paramilitaries with weapons and military equipment. Several Croatian cities such as Vukovar , Osijek , Karlovac , Split , Zadar , Šibenik and Dubrovnik were massively attacked by the JNA.
On October 7, 1991, a JNA fighter plane fired an air-to-surface missile into the Zagreb government building where President Tuđman and other members of the government were staying. No one was seriously injured in this attack. The following day, the Croatian Parliament ( Sabor ) broke off all links under state law with the SFRY.
This was followed by mass expulsions of Croats and other population groups as well as Serbs from the border area with Bosnia-Herzegovina. In many places the population was expelled from Serbia by the JNA, which mostly consisted of Serbian and Montenegrin soldiers, the Croatian army and by irregulars from Serbia as part of “ ethnic cleansing ”. The number of displaced people was estimated at over 170,000. With attacks on Osijek and Dubrovnik, the JNA besieged and bombed cities that were inhabited by a small Serbian minority. The battle for Vukovar broke out in the border town of Vukovar , in which most of the city was devastated and most of the population had to flee. The city was captured by Serbian troops in November 1991.
On December 19, 1991, the Republika Srpska Krajina , which was not recognized under international law, was proclaimed in the Krajina areas controlled by Serbs . It was joined by the Serb-controlled areas in eastern Slavonia and in the Baranja .
On December 23, 1991, the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher , was the first country to single-handedly recognize the national independence of Croatia and Slovenia. Austria followed, and by the end of January 1992 the majority of the international community of states, which had previously acted on hold.
With the mediation of the United Nations , several armistices were reached and repeatedly broken by the warring parties. The Yugoslav federal army gradually moved its arsenal from Croatia to Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the next war broke out.
From 1992 to 1993 around 700,000 Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats sought protection and refuge in Croatia from the war in Bosnia , which corresponds to a population increase of over 15%.
At the beginning of 1995 the Z4 plan , a proposal for the peaceful reintegration of the Republika Srpska Krajina into the Croatian state, with guarantees of far-reaching autonomy close to sovereignty, was presented. This was rejected by the Krajina Serbs and instead sought a union with the Republika Srpska and Serbia . As a result, the willingness of western states to support the Croatian side in recapturing their national territory grew. In May 1995 the Blitz military operation started , with which a Serb-controlled part of western Slavonia was regained. In retaliation, the then President of the Republika Srpska Krajina, Milan Martić , ordered rocket attacks with cluster bombs against Zagreb ( rocket fire on Zagreb ), Sisak and Karlovac , killing seven civilians and wounding 176.
After the genocide in Srebrenica became known , the Croatian army conquered further areas in southern Bosnia in Operation Summer '95 at the end of July 1995 and thus surrounded the southern part of the Krajina, which was under Serbian rule, from three sides. As a result, during the negotiations on the Z4 plan in Geneva on August 3, the Prime Minister of the Serbian Republic of Krajina , Milan Babić, told Peter W. Galbraith , the US ambassador to Croatia, that he would accept the Z4 plan. This declaration was not accepted by Croatia as Milan Martić refused to accept the plan at all.
On August 4, 1995, the military operation Sturm began , which within a few days brought almost the entire Republic of Serbian Krajina under the control of the Croatian state. This led to a mass exodus of the Serbian population. More than 200,000 Serbs fled shortly before, during and after the military operation. Among the refugees were 35,000 to 45,000 soldiers from the Army of the Republic of Srpska Krajina . The Belgrade military expert Aleksandar Radic, who comes from Croatia, assumes that the Croatian side has reached an understanding with Belgrade on a withdrawal without lengthy Serbian resistance. Shortly beforehand, Belgrade had installed an appropriately instructed commander in the Krajina. Milošević, the actual driver of the Croatian Serbs, sacrificed them because he had to concentrate on Bosnia. In September, the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina were pushed back a long way in the Maestral military operation .
In the Erdut Agreement of November 12, 1995, the Croatian governments and a Serbian delegation agreed the peaceful reintegration of the remaining part of Croatia in the east. The Dayton Agreement followed a few days later .
On November 6, 1996 Croatia became a member of the Council of Europe . In 1996 and 1997 the country's economic situation recovered significantly.
The areas of Eastern Slavonia , Baranja and Western Syrmia designated in the Erdut Agreement were initially under the administration of UNTAES and were formally incorporated into Croatia on January 15, 1998.
President Tuđman died on December 11, 1999. The parliamentary elections that followed on January 3, 2000 saw the first change of government in 10 years. A broad coalition of six parties led by the SDP took over the government. Stjepan Mesic was elected president , Ivica Racan the Prime Minister elected.
Croatia has been a member of the WTO since November 30, 2000, and has had the status of an EU candidate for accession since October 2003 .
In the November 2003 elections, the HDZ was again the strongest party. In December it formed a minority government with the support of the HSU pensioners' party and other small parties as well as most of the representatives of the national minorities. Ivo Sanader became the new Prime Minister . Croatia is now pursuing an active campaign for the return of Serbian refugees.
On October 3, 2005, accession negotiations for Croatia's full EU membership began. Croatia was certified by the International Criminal Court ( International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia ) "full cooperation" in the tracking down of the fugitive General Ante Gotovina , which was also a criterion required by the EU for the start of accession negotiations. In the past, accession negotiations were postponed due to the question of extradition. On December 7, 2005 Gotovina was arrested on the Spanish island of Tenerife and transferred to the Hague Criminal Court. There he was acquitted on November 16, 2012 on appeal.
Croatia actually wanted to become a member of the Union before the 2009 EU elections. At the EU summit on December 8, 2011 in Brussels, July 1, 2013 was set as the country's accession date.
Croatia was and is a transit country for migrants who want to get to Austria, Germany or another Western European country on one of the Balkan routes (→ refugee crisis in Europe since 2015 ). Croatia is not part of the Schengen area ; the land border with neighboring Slovenia is 670 km long. Hungary has built a border fence on its 329 km long border with Croatia .
See also
- List of rulers of Croatia
- List of Bane of Croatia
- List of Presidents and Prime Ministers of Croatia
- History of Yugoslavia
- Yugoslav Wars
literature
- Holm Sundhaussen: Croatia (Middle Ages, Modern Times) . In: Holm Sundhaussen, Konrad Clewing (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of Southeast Europe . 2. advanced u. updated edition. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-78667-2 , pp. 543-547 .
- Vjekoslav Klaić: Povijest Hrvata [The story of the Croatians] . tape 1-5 . Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske, Zagreb 1981 (Croatian).
- Neven Budak: Croatia: Regional Studies - History - Culture - Politics - Economy - Law (= Österreichische Osthefte . Special Volume 13). Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 1995, ISBN 3-205-98496-X .
- Ludwig Steindorff : Croatia: From the Middle Ages to the present (= Eastern and Southeastern Europe: history of countries and peoples ). 2. updated and exp. Edition. Pustet, Regensburg et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-7917-2100-2 .
- Claus Heinrich Gattermann: Croatia: Two thousand years of history on the Adriatic . Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2011, ISBN 978-3-487-14706-2 .
Web links
- Ludwig Steindorff : A short walk through the history of Croatia. Federal Agency for Civic Education , April 16, 2013, accessed on October 28, 2018 .
- Overview of Croatian history (English)
- Croatia: Myth and Reality (English) ( online version of a book by C. Michael McAdams, a Croatia specialist and director at the University of San Francisco )
Individual evidence
- ^ Edgar Hösch: History of the Balkan countries. Beck, Munich 1968, ISBN 3-406-57299-5 , p. 387.
- ^ Mirjana Sanader: Croatia in antiquity. Zabern's illustrated books on archeology. Von Zabern, Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-8053-3740-3 , S. 54. Edgar Hösch: History of the Balkan countries. Beck, Munich 1968, ISBN 3-406-57299-5 , p. 23.
- ↑ Dieter Timpe: Central Europe in the eyes of the Romans. In: Bonner Jahrbücher. Volume 207, Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Böhlau, Cologne / Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-8053-4064-9 , pp. 5–32, here: p. 12.
- ^ Ivo Goldstein: Croatia. A history. Hurst, London 1999, ISBN 1-85065-388-7 , p. 9.
- ^ Heinrich Kunstmann: The Slavs, their name, their migration to Europe and the beginnings of Russian history in a historical and onomastic view. Steiner, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-515-06816-3 , p. 39.
- ↑ Gerhard Herm : The Balkans. The powder keg of Europe . Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf 1993, ISBN 3-430-14445-0 , p. 283.
- ↑ Friedrich Jäger: Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs. A guide to their history. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-631-37503-4 , p. 53.
- ^ Karl Kaser: Free farmer and soldier. To the customer of Southeast Europe. Böhlau, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-205-98614-8 , p. 29ff.
- ^ Hannes Grandits: Family and Social Change in Rural Croatia (18th – 20th Century). (= To the customer of Southeast Europe 2/32) Böhlau, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-205-99486-8 , pp. 68f.
- ↑ Wolfgang Kessler: On the history of book printing in the inland Croatian. Space until the beginning of the "Illyrian Movement". In: Detlef Haberland, Tünde Katona (Ed.): Book and Knowledge Transfer in East Central and Southeast Europe in the Early Modern Age. Contributions from the conference at the University of Szeged from 25.-28. April 2006. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-486-58541-X , pp. 215-280, here pp. 216f.
- ^ Marie-Janine Calic : History of Yugoslavia in the 20th Century, Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60645-8 , p. 167
- ^ Marie-Janine Calic : History of Yugoslavia in the 20th Century, Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60645-8 , p. 216
- ^ Mart Martin: The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics. Westview Press Boulder, Colorado, 2000, p. 95.
- ↑ a b c d Filip Slavkovic: Ten years after the end of the Croatian war: memory of the decisive offensive , Deutsche Welle from August 4, 2005, accessed on November 18, 2012.
- ↑ Continuities and turning points in the history of Croatia - focus on the 20th century. Brief summary of the lecture on April 14, 2008. Prof. Dr. Ludwig Steindorff (University of Kiel)
- ^ Raymond Bonner: Serbs Said to Agree to Pact With Croatia , New York Times, August 4, 1995 (English), accessed November 18, 2012.
- ↑ Norbert Mappes-Niediek : A General in front of the court in Die Zeit from December 15, 2005, accessed on November 18, 2012.
- ↑ No “criminal enterprise” , orf.at of November 16, 2012, accessed on November 16, 2012.
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