Greater Croatia
Greater Croatia (
Background
The concept of a Greater Croatian state has its modern origins with the
The foundations of the concept of Greater Croatia are laid in late 17th and early 18th century works of Pavao Ritter Vitezović.[3] He was the first ideologist of Croatian nation who proclaimed that all South Slavs are Croats.[4] His works were used to legitimize expansionism of the Habsburg Empire to the east and south by asserting its historical rights to claim Illyria.[5][6] "Illyria" as Slavic territory projected by Vitezović would eventually incorporate not only most of the Southeastern Europe but also parts of Central Europe such as Hungary.[7] Vitezović defines territory of Croatia which, besides Illyria and all Slavic populated territory, includes all the territory between Adriatic, Black and Baltic seas.[8]
Because the Kingdom of Hungary was so large, Hungary attempted processes of
An early proponent of Croatian-based Pan-Slavism was the politician, Count Janko Drašković. In 1832, he published his Dissertation to the joint Hungarian-Croatian Diet, in which he envisioned a “Great Illyria” consisting of all the South Slav provinces of the Habsburg Empire.
Likewise, the influential Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer, although a supporter of the Habsburg monarchy, nonetheless advocated merging the Kingdom of Dalmatia with Croatia.
The concept of a Greater Croatia was developed further
Cvetković–Maček Agreement
Amid rising ethnic tensions between Croats and Serbs in the 1930s, an autonomous state within Yugoslavia, called the Banovina of Croatia was peacefully negotiated in the Yugoslav parliament via the Cvetković–Maček Agreement of 1939. Croatia was united into a single territorial unit and was provided territories of parts of present-day Vojvodina, Posavina, and parts of Herzegovina and Central Bosnia, which had Croatian majority at the time.
Independent State of Croatia
The first modern development of a Greater Croatia came about with the establishment of the
The Ustaša, an
Bosnian War
The most recent expression of a Greater Croatia arose in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia. When the multiethnic Yugoslav republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in 1992, Bosnian Serb political representatives, who had boycotted the referendum, established their own government of Republika Srpska, whereupon their forces attacked the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At the beginning of the
The leaders of Herzeg-Bosnia called it a temporary measure during the conflict with the Serb forces and claimed it had no secessionary goal.[21] The Croatian Defence Forces (HOS), a paramilitary wing of the Croatian Party of Rights, supported a confederation between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina,[22] but on the basis of the NDH.[23] Over time, the relations between Croats and Bosniaks worsened, resulting in the Croat–Bosniak War,[24] which lasted until early 1994 and the signing of the Washington Agreement.[25]
Croatian President Franjo Tuđman was criticised for trying to expand the borders of Croatia, mostly by annexing Herzegovina and parts of Bosnia with Croat majorities.[26] In 2013, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ruled, by a majority, that the Croatian leadership had a goal to join the areas of Herzeg-Bosnia to a "Greater Croatia", in accordance with the borders of the Banovina of Croatia in 1939.[27] Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti, the presiding judge in the trial, issued a separate opinion in which he disputed the notion that Tuđman had a plan to divide Bosnia.[28] On 29 November 2017, the Appeals Chamber concluded that Tuđman shared the ultimate purpose of "setting up a Croatian entity that reconstituted earlier borders and that facilitated the reunification of the Croatian people".[29]
Lands of Greater Croatia
Most commonly encompassed regions include:[1][30]
- Croatia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bačka region (Serbia)
- Syrmia region (Croatia and Serbia)
- Boka Kotorska region (Montenegro)
- Sandžak
See also
- Croatian state right
- Proposed Croat federal unit in Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Anti-Croat sentiment
- Greater Bosnia
- Greater Serbia
References
- ^ a b Čanak, Nenad (1993). Ratovi tek dolaze. Nezavisno društvo novinara Vojvodine. p. 12.
- ^ Gow, James (2003). The Serbian Project and Its Adversaries: A Strategy of War Crimes. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 229.
- ISBN 978-0-87436-935-9. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
The concept of Greater Croatia...It has its roots in the writings of Pavao Ritter Vitezovic,...
- ISBN 978-0-8014-9493-2. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
...was the first Croat national ideologist to extend the Croat name to all the Slavs, ...
- ISBN 0-8014-9493-1.
- ^ V. A. Fine 2010, p. 486.
- ^ Trencsényi & Zászkaliczky 2010, p. 364
By Slavic territories, Vitezović meant the Illyria of his dreams (Greater Croatia) which, in its boldest manifestation, would have incorporated Hungary itself.
- ^ V. A. Fine 2010, p. 487.
- ISBN 978-0-914710-05-9. Retrieved 23 December 2011.
- ^ ISBN 9780295803609.
- ISBN 9781134583287.
- ^ Biondich, Mark (2006). "Chapter 2. "We Were Defending the State": Nationalism, Myth, and Memory in Twentieth-Century Croatia". Open Edition Books.
- ^ "Ustasa (Croatian political movement)". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2011-12-22.
- ISBN 978-0-415-18595-0. Retrieved 23 December 2011.
- ISBN 978-1-55753-455-2. Retrieved 23 December 2011.
- ISBN 9789639241824.
- ISBN 9781576079409.
- ISBN 978-1-55753-455-2.
- ^ Christia 2012, p. 154.
- ^ Marijan 2004, p. 259.
- ^ Malcolm 1995, p. 318.
- ^ Hewitt 1998, p. 71.
- ^ Marijan 2004, p. 270.
- ^ Christia 2012, p. 157-158.
- ^ Tanner 2001, p. 292.
- ^ Goldstein 1999, p. 239.
- ^ Prlic et al. judgement vol.6 2013, p. 383.
- ^ Prlic et al. judgement vol.6 2013, p. 388.
- ^ "Summary of Judgement" (PDF). ICTY. 29 November 2017. p. 10.
- ^ Kolstø, Pål (2016). Strategies of Symbolic Nation-building in South Eastern Europe. Routledge. p. 45.
Sources
- ISBN 978-1-13985-175-6.
- ISBN 978-1-85065-525-1.
- Hewitt, Dawn M. (1998). From Ottawa to Sarajevo: Canadian Peacekeepers in the Balkans. Kingston, Ontario: Centre for International Relations, Queen's University. ISBN 978-0-88911-788-4.
- ISBN 9783895470820.
- Marijan, Davor (2004). "Expert Opinion: On the War Connections of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1991–1995)". Journal of Contemporary History. 36. Zagreb, Croatia: Croatian Institute of History: 249–289.
- "Prosecutor v. Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić, Berislav Pušić – Judgement – Volume 6 of 6" (PDF). International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. 29 May 2013.
- Tanner, Marcus (2001). Croatia: A Nation Forged in War. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09125-0.
- Trencsényi, Balázs; Zászkaliczky, Márton (2010). Whose Love of Which Country?: Composite States, National Histories and Patriotic Discourses in Early Modern East Central Europe. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-18262-2. Retrieved 31 August 2013.
- V. A. Fine, John Jr. (2010). When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans: A Study of Identity in Pre-Nationalist Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-02560-2.
External links
- "Croatia: New Government Alters Position of Diaspora". Transnational Communities Programme. Economic & Social Research Council. Archived from the original on 6 February 2012. Retrieved 23 December 2011.
- Janez Kovac (15 February 2000). "Mesic Spurns Greater Croatia". BCR Issue 116. Archived from the original on January 12, 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2011.