Moravian Croats

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As Moravian Croats (Croatian: Moravski Hrvati , Czech: Moravští Charvati ) is a small, established since the 16th century Croatian minority in the Czech Republic called. In a broader sense, they belong to the Burgenland Croats and until 1948 were the northernmost linguistic island in Europe in which the čakavian dialect of Croatian was spoken. Today the ethnic group comprises around 1500 people, of whom only 150 have language skills in Čakavian.

Settlement

Triggered by the expansion of the Ottoman Empire to Croatia and Hungary, parts of the Croatian population migrated in the 16th century. For a long time this was viewed as a pure escape from the Turkish armies, today it is assumed that for the most part it was an orderly resettlement in which individual refugee trains were taken. The Croats were settled in abandoned villages in western Hungary and eastern Lower Austria. The northernmost of these settlements were those of the Moravian Croats in the area of Nikolsburg .

The settlement took place in two phases: as the first village in 1538 Frélichov was founded in the area of ​​the deserted Fröllersdorf. In the second phase around 1570, the localities Neuprerau , Guttenfeld , Guldenfurt (Kolenfurt) as well as Bischofswarth , Ober- and Unterthemenau in full, Weißstätten ( Pasohlávky ), Eisgrub , Grusbach (Hrušovany) and Howoran were partially populated by Croatians.

In the course of the 19th century, the majority of Croatians gave up the language and culture and assimilated to the German, Czech and Slovak majority populations.

Development in the 20th century

At the time of the first Czechoslovak Republic , there were three places in Moravia where Croats still lived, who had preserved their language and cultural traditions: Frélichov , today Jevišovka ( Croat . Frielištof , German: Fröllersdorf), Nový Přerov ( Croat . Nova Prerava , German Neu Prerau) and Dobré Pole (Croatian Dobro Polje , German Guttenfeld). The 1918 census shows that 1,682 people of Croatian origin lived in these villages.

Only Czech was taught in schools. A large part of the population of Croatian origin was Germanized. Most of the folk customs and costumes had also disappeared. Apart from the local association of Národná jednota for southwestern Moravia in Frélichov, the Moravian Croats had no cultural organizations of their own, had no close ties to Croatia and did not read any Croatian books or newspapers.

In the 1930s, the Československo-jihoslovanská liga in Brno tried to strengthen the cultural independence of the Moravian Croats and at the same time their loyalty to the Czechoslovak state. In 1934, with the participation of representatives of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, celebrations were held to mark the 350th anniversary of the settlement of the Moravian Croats, and monuments to commemorate the arrival of the Croatian settlers were erected in all three places. The starting point for this anniversary was the assumption, which was widespread at the time and refuted by research by Adolf Turek in 1937, that Christoph von Teuffenbach on Dürnholz should have founded the first Croatian villages in Moravia in 1584.

Contrary to the attempts of the Czechoslovak government to win the Croats in itself, but the majority gave the Moravian Croats in the elections of 1935 the Sudeten German Party of Konrad Henlein her voice.

As a result of the Munich Agreement in 1938, South Moravia became a part of the German Empire and integrated into the Lower Danube Gau .

After the Second World War, South Moravia came back to Czechoslovakia. After the communist seizure of power in 1948, the new rulers accused the Croats, among other things, of collaborating with the National Socialists during the war. In the course of 1948, the population of Croatian origin in the three villages of Frielištof, Dobro Polje and Prerava were resettled in smaller groups in the northern parts of Moravia. Some of the Croatians evaded resettlement by fleeing to Austria and settled in Burgenland .

Todays situation

The 2001 census showed 1585 people of Croatian nationality, although it is not shown how much of them is due to immigration in the 1990s. In a survey from 2002, 400 people said they had a command of the Moravian variant of the Croatian language, but only 150 said that they actually used it. There are no Croatian lessons in schools, and the language is not passed on to the children within families.

In 1991 the Sdružení občanů chorvatské národnosti v ČR (Association of Citizens of the Croatian Minority in the Czech Republic ) was founded in Brno . Until today it is the only official representation of the minority and sends a member to the Minority Council of the CR. The Kiritov Festival of Croatian Culture , also called “Croatian Culture Day”, is held in Jevišovka every September .

language

The Moravian Croats speak a čakavian dialect, in which folk literature has also been published. Since the Burgenland-Croatian written language is also based on a čakavian dialect, it is well understood.

See also

literature

  • Alfred Bohmann : Population and Nationalities in Czechoslovakia , 1975, p. 427.
  • Josef Breu: The Croatian settlement in Burgenland , 1970, pp. 25, 138-143, 169f (this seems to be essentially a German-language summary of Turek's work)
  • Ivan Dorovský et al .: Charváti ještě žijí mezi námi . Sborník studií a vzpomínek. Brno 1996.
  • J. Húsek: Croatian Colonies in Moravia and Slovakia , in: Prager Presse , 1926, No. 299.
  • Richard Jeřábek (ed.): Moravští Charváti - dějiny a lidová kultura (anthology). Brno 1991.
  • Dragutin Pavličević : Moravski Hrvati - povijest - život - kultura . Zagreb 1994.
  • Othmar Ruzicka: The Moravian Croats . Pictures by Othmar Ruzicka. With contributions by Dragutin Pavličević and Anto Nadj; edited by Barbara Tobler, Kittsee 1996 (Kittseer Schriften zur Volkskunde; 7) ( ISBN 3-900359-71-7 ).
  • Adolf Turek: Charvátská kolonisace na Moravě , in: Časopis Matice moravské 61, 1937, pp. 49–70, 195–212, 363–390.
  • Václav Vážný: Mluva charvátských osad v republice Československé , in: Československá vlastivěda, sv. 3, Jazyk. Praha 1934, pp. 518-523.
  • Eva Večerková: Několik poznámek k interetnickým a interregionálním kontaktům ve společenském a obřadním životě moravských Charvátů , in: Kulturně-historické styky jižní Moravy. XX. Mikulovské sympozium 1990. Mikulov 1991, pp. 51-56.
  • Eva Večerková: K některým faktorům etnického vědomí obyvatel charvátských obcí na jižní Moravě , in: Život a kultura etnických minorit a malých sociálních skupin. Sborník ze stejnojmenné conference k nedožitým 70. narozeninám prof. Oldřicha Sirovátky konané 27.-28. 9. 1995 / Ed .: Jana Pospíšilová. Brno [u. a.], 1996, pp. 44-50; 48-55.
  • Eva Večerková: Moravští Charváti - život a kultura malé etnické skupiny , in: Česká společnost a etnické skupiny. (Sborník k 65. narozeninám PhDr. Jiřího Kořalky, DrSc.). Praha, 1997 [1996], pp. 88-102.
  • Josef Lawitschka: Lipo naše / Our beautiful village , Aequitas publishing house.
  • Nikolaus Wilhelm-Stempin: The settlement area of ​​the Burgenland Croats: in Austria, Hungary, Moravia and Slovakia . Norderstedt: BoD 2008

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/languages/langmin/euromosaic/cz5_de.html#2
  2. ↑ http://www.hrvatskicentar.at/deutsch/geschichte.htm#Ursachen
  3. ↑ Jana Hrabcová: Československo-chorvatské vztahy v období 1918–1938 (bakalářská diplomová práce, Masarykova univerzita v Brně, 2006; Czech), section 2.2: Moravští Chorvati
  4. ↑ http://www.suedmaehren.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=52
  5. ↑ Hrabcová: Československo-chorvatské vztahy v období 1918–1938 , section 2.2: Moravští Chorvati
  6. ↑ http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/languages/langmin/euromosaic/cz5_de.html#2

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