Republic of Croatia

REPUBLIC OF CROATIA

HOMELAND

INTRODUCTORY PART

Flag of the Republic of Croatia

The coat of arms of the Republic of Croatia

1. The oldest Croatian coat of arms

2. The coat of arms of the Republic of Dubrovnik

3. The coat of arms of Dalmatia

4. The coat of arms of Istria

5. Coat of arms of Slavonia

The Republic of Croatia is a European country, in geopolitical terms a Central European and Mediterranean country, and geographically located in the southern part of Central Europe and in the northern part of the Mediterranean.

It borders Slovenia and Hungary to the north, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the east, Montenegro to the south, and Italy to the west of Italy across the Adriatic Sea.

The land area is 56,578 km², and the coastal sea area is 31,067 km², which places Croatia among the medium-sized European countries.

The capital is Zagreb, which is the political, cultural, scientific and economic center of the Republic of Croatia.

During Croatian history, the most significant cultural influences came from the Central European and Mediterranean cultural circle.

The history of Croatia in the present area dates back to the 7th century, ie from 626, when the Croatian people subjugated the Roman provinces of Dalmatia, Pannonia and Illyricum and founded two independent principalities: Pannonian and Coastal Croatia.

Adriatic Croatia, next to the Frankish Kingdom, is the first permanent and organized state in Central Europe. During the reign of the Trpimirovic dynasty, Croatia became a single principality.

June 7, 876, during the reign of Prince Branimir for the first time and an independent state.

In 925, under the leadership of King Tomislav, Croatia became a kingdom.

The last Croatian king was Petar Snacic, and after him Croatia entered into a personal union with Hungary on the basis of a treaty known as the Pacta conventa concluded in 1102. With this treaty, Croatia retained all the features of the state, only the king was common.

In 1527, due to the Ottoman attack on Croatia, the Habsburg dynasty came to the Croatian throne. Throughout the Habsburg rule, Croatia also retained all the legal features of the state, which is mostly reflected in the Pragmatic Sanction of 1712 and the Croatian-Hungarian settlement of 1868.

At the end of the First World War, in 1918, Croatia severed ties with Austria-Hungary and participated, against the will of the majority of Croats, in the founding of the State of SHS. Shortly afterwards, Croatia (within the State of SHS) was included in the Kingdom of SHS (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), although the Croatian Parliament never ratified that decision.
At the beginning of World War II, due to the historical aspirations of the Croatian people for independence, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was founded, which became a puppet state of Nazi Germany due to political circumstances. Unfortunately, it had to pay for its independence by providing natural resources, Croatian soldiers going to the battlefields under Nazi command, and extraditing Jews and Roma to Nazi Germany's concentration camps.

At the same time, after the severance of the alliance between Germany and Russia, the communist movement strengthened in Croatia and Serbia. Before the end of World War II, a large part of the members of the Serbian Chetnik movement Draza Mihajlovic, who tried to create the so-called Greater Serbia in the territory of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was joined by partisans led by the Stalinist-oriented Josip Broz Tito. Tito and the partisans were accepted and supported by the allies, especially the British and the Russians, with the aim of crushing Nazi Germany and its allies.

After the Second World War, in 1945, the regime of the Serbian king replaced the communist regime, which had a bloody showdown with the Croats, retaliating against NDH soldiers and numerous Croat and Bosniak civilians and various minorities in Croatia and Bosnia their property.

At that time, Croatia became a socialist republic and as a federal unit formed SFR Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, under the leadership of dictator Tito and the Communist Party, Croatia's natural resources were systematically depleted, and due to the communist dictatorship, many Croats emigrated from Croatia.

In 1990, the first democratic multi-party elections were held after 45 years of a one-party system, and on May 30 of the same year, a democratically elected multi-party state parliament was constituted in Croatia. On June 25, 1991, the Republic of Croatia became an independent state by a constitutional decision of the National Assembly.

Using the former federal army and local rebels, Serbia and Montenegro attacked Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1991 with the aim of retaining the conquered territories in the truncated Yugoslavia.

Under the leadership of Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia tried to realize the project of the so-called "Greater Serbia" by occupying part of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was conceived by Serbian intellectuals in the early 20th century.

The war ended in 1995 with the victory of Croatia and the liberation of most of the occupied territories.

With the help of the international community, the only remaining part of occupied Croatia was peacefully reintegrated: Eastern Slavonia.

At that time, the allied Croat-Bosniak successes also led to the peace process in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In Croatia, the Croatian language and the Latin alphabet are officially used.

The largest part of the population (91.36%) is of the Christian faith, while among Christians the majority are believers of the Catholic faith (86.28%).

According to the political structure, Croatia is a parliamentary democracy, and in economic terms it is oriented towards a market economy. Due to its numerous natural beauties, rich historical heritage and the Adriatic Sea, Croatia is a famous tourist destination.

According to the 2011 census, Croatia has 4,284,889 inhabitants. Croats make up 90.42% of the population, and the largest national minority is Serbs, who make up 4.36% of the population, while each of the other national minorities makes up less than 1% of the population.

The Republic of Croatia is one of the high-income countries, but still lags far behind the most developed countries in the world. According to the calculation of the human development index (a composite index that takes into account data on life expectancy, quality of education and national income) at the United Nations, in 2015 Croatia was 45th out of 188 countries observed; It should be noted that most EU member states perform slightly better than Croatia - but non-EU European countries are generally ranked lower than Croatia.

Croatia became a member of the United Nations on May 22, 1992. Croatia is a member of the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

On April 1, 2009, Croatia became a member of NATO. As of 1 July 2013, the Republic of Croatia becomes a member of the European Union.

The biggest problems are: Corruption, slow and biased judiciary, huge and inefficient bureaucracy, employment of unprofessional staff through family and political ties, and demographic emigration of the educated younger population to richer countries.

HOMELAND

STRUCTURE AND POTENTIALS OF CROATIA

St. Mark's Square in Zagreb

Seat of the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the Croatian Parliament

Counties in the Republic of Croatia:

1 - Zagreb County

2 - Krapina-Zagorje County

3 - Sisak-Moslavina County

4 - Karlovac County

5 - Varazdin County

6 - Koprivnica-Krizevci County

7 - Bjelovar-Bilogora County

8 - Primorje-Gorski Kotar County

9 - Lika-Senj County

10 - Virovitica-Podravina County

11 - Pozega-Slavonia County

12 - Brod-Posavina County

13 - Zadar County

14 - Osijek-Baranja County

15 - Sibenik-Knin County

16 - Vukovar-Srijem County

17 - Split-Dalmatia County

18 - Istria County

19 - Dubrovnik-Neretva County

20 - Medimurje County

21 - City of Zagreb

POLITICAL STRUCTURE

Since the adoption of the new Constitution in 1990, Croatia has been a parliamentary democracy. In the Republic of Croatia, state power is organized on the principle of three divisions of power into legislative, executive and judicial.

The Constitution of the Republic of Croatia is the highest legal act in the Republic of Croatia. It was adopted on December 22, 1990, following the first democratic multi-party parliamentary elections in the spring of 1990.

The Constitution was revised in November 1997, November 2000, March 2001 and June 2010. The amendment of the Constitution in November 2000 abolished the semi-presidential system and introduced a parliamentary system with a stronger role for the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the Prime Minister. the County House of Parliament was abolished and the Croatian Parliament became unicameral. The amendment of the Constitution in 2010 enabled the completion of accession negotiations and the entry of the Republic of Croatia into the European Union, and a fixed quota of representatives from the diaspora was determined. Also, with the last change of the Constitution, the preamble on a just, liberating and defensive Homeland War was included in its preamble.

The Constitution defines Croatia as a sovereign, unified, democratic and social state.

Power comes from the people and belongs to the people as a community of free and equal citizens.

The highest values of the constitutional order of the Republic of Croatia are: freedom, equality, national equality, peace, social justice, respect for human rights, inviolability of property, preservation of nature and the human environment, rule of law and a democratic multi-party system.

The Constitution is divided into several parts:

- Source basics

- Basic provisions

- Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms

- The structure of state power

- Constitutional Court

- Local, local and regional self-government

- International relations

- European Union

- Changes to the constitution

- Final provisions

- The structure of government

- Legislature

The Croatian Parliament is the representative body of citizens and the holder of legislative power in the Republic of Croatia.

According to the Constitution, the Croatian Parliament is a unicameral representative body that can have at least 100 and at most 160 deputies who are elected directly, by secret ballot, on the basis of universal and equal suffrage.

Deputies are elected for four years, have no binding mandate, and have immunity.

Among the current deputies are eight representatives of national minorities, elected in a special constituency (covering the whole country). Members of national minorities may also be elected on party lists.

Croatian emigrants also have the right to elect representatives in a special constituency, by applying a non-fixed quota, which means that the number of diaspora representatives will depend on the turnout of diaspora voters.

The Parliament used to consist of the House of Representatives and the County House, but the latter was abolished.

The county home had three deputies from each of the 21 counties. Given that the County House had no practical power over the House of Representatives, it was abolished in 2001.

Parliament meets in public sessions in two periods each year, from January 15 to July 15 and from September 15 to December 15. The Croatian Parliament convenes extraordinarily at the request of the President of the Republic, the Government or a majority of deputies. The President of the Croatian Parliament may, with the previously obtained opinion of the clubs of members of parliamentary parties, convene the Croatian Parliament for an extraordinary session.

Croatian Parliament:

- decides on the adoption and amendment of the Constitution,

- enacts laws,

- adopts the state budget,

- decides on war and peace,

- adopts acts expressing the policy of the Croatian Parliament,

- adopts the National Security Strategy and the Defense Strategy of the Republic of Croatia,

- exercises civilian control over the armed forces and security services of the Republic of Croatia,

- decides on the change of the borders of the Republic of Croatia,

- calls a referendum,

- conducts elections, appointments and dismissals, in accordance with the Constitution and the law,

- supervises the work of the Government of the Republic of Croatia and other holders of public office responsible to the Croatian Parliament, in accordance with the Constitution and the law,

- grants amnesty for criminal offenses,

- performs other tasks determined by the Constitution.

Decisions are made by a majority vote if more than half of the members are present, except in matters of national rights and constitutional issues (so-called organic laws), which are taken by a two-thirds majority.

The President of the Republic also has a representative and executive function. He represents the Republic of Croatia in the country and abroad. He is responsible for the defense of the independence and territorial integrity of the Republic of Croatia, as well as for the stable, normal and coordinated operation of the state government.

The President is elected on the basis of universal and equal suffrage in direct elections by secret ballot for a term of five years. No one may be elected President of the Republic more than twice.

The President of the Republic calls elections to the Croatian Parliament, calls a referendum, entrusts the mandate to form the Government to a person who, based on the distribution of seats in the Croatian Parliament, enjoys the trust of the majority of all deputies, grants pardons, awards and other duties.

In cooperation with the Government, the President participates in the formulation and implementation of foreign policy, decides on the establishment of diplomatic missions, appoints and recalls heads of Croatian diplomatic missions abroad, issues credentials and receives credentials of heads of foreign diplomatic missions.

The President is the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Croatia, appoints and dismisses military commanders, declares war and concludes peace on the basis of a decision of the Croatian Parliament, in accordance with the law. During a state of war, it may issue decrees with the force of law.

The President of the Republic, in cooperation with the Government, directs the work of the security services. The President of the Republic and the Prime Minister co-sign the decisions on the appointment of the heads of the security services, after obtaining the opinion of the competent parliamentary committee.

The President, under precisely defined conditions, may dissolve the Croatian Parliament if a vote of no confidence is cast in the Government, or if the state budget is not adopted within three months of being proposed.

The Government of the Republic of Croatia proposes laws and other acts to the Croatian Parliament, proposes the state budget and final accounts, implements laws and other decisions of the Croatian Parliament, adopts decrees for law enforcement, conducts foreign and domestic policy, directs and supervises state administration, cares for economic development , directs the operation and development of public services and performs other tasks determined by the Constitution and the law.

The Government of the Republic of Croatia consists of the President, one or more Vice-Presidents and Ministers. Without the approval of the Government, the President and members of the Government may not perform any other public or professional duties. Members of the Government are nominated by a person to whom the President of the Republic has entrusted a mandate for the composition of the Government. Immediately after the formation of the Government, and no later than within 30 days from the acceptance of the mandate, the mandator is obliged to present the program of the Government and the Government to the Croatian Parliament and request a vote of confidence.

The government takes office when it is trusted by a majority of all members of the Croatian Parliament. The President and members of the Government take the solemn oath before the Croatian Parliament. The text of the oath is determined by law. Based on the decision of the Croatian Parliament to express confidence in the Government of the Republic of Croatia, the decision on the appointment of the Prime Minister is made by the President of the Republic with the co-signature of the President of the Croatian Parliament, and the decision on the appointment of members of the Government is made by the Prime Minister.

The government is accountable to the Croatian Parliament. The President and members of the Government are jointly responsible for decisions made by the Government, and are personally responsible for their area of work.

In the Republic of Croatia, judicial power is exercised by misdemeanor courts, municipal courts, county courts, commercial courts, the High Misdemeanor Court of the Republic of Croatia, the High Commercial Court of the Republic of Croatia, the Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia and the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia.

The Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia is the highest court in the country. Sessions of the court are open to the public and verdicts are rendered publicly, except in matters of the privacy of defendants. Judges are appointed for a term of eight years.

The State Judicial Council, in accordance with the constitution and the law, appoints, dismisses and decides on the disciplinary responsibility of judges. It has eleven members from the ranks of prominent judges, lawyers and university law professors, with the majority of members of the State Judicial Council being from the ranks of judges. Court presidents cannot be elected as its members.

The State Attorney's Office of the Republic of Croatia is an independent judicial body authorized and obliged to act against perpetrators of criminal and other criminal offenses, take legal action to protect the property of the Republic of Croatia, and submit legal remedies to protect the Constitution and law. This body, therefore, is not a judicial authority and has the status of a party before the courts. The State Attorney's Office is headed by the Chief State Attorney.

The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia decides on the constitutionality of laws and has the right to repeal laws it deems unconstitutional. He can also accuse the president of the state. It consists of 13 judges, who elect their president for a term of 4 years. The Constitutional Court is the so-called the fourth lever of power since its existence and work are conducted exclusively under the Constitution and the Constitutional Act on the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia.

According to the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, citizens are guaranteed the right to local and regional self-government. Citizens exercise this right through local or regional representative bodies composed of members elected in free and secret elections on the basis of direct, equal and universal suffrage.

Local self-government units are municipalities and cities, and regional self-government units are counties. Their area is determined in the manner prescribed by law. The capital Zagreb has the status of a county.

The municipality, city and county are legal entities that have their own statute and coat of arms and flag. The Statute regulates their self-governing scope, characteristics, public recognitions, organization, powers and manner of work of the body, manner of performing tasks, forms of consulting citizens, conducting referendums on issues within their scope, local self-government, organization and work of public services, forms of cooperation regional self-government and other issues of importance for the exercise of rights and obligations.

A county is a unit of regional self-government whose area represents a natural, historical, traffic, economic, social and self-governing unit, and is organized for the purpose of performing activities of regional interest.

Croatia is divided into 20 counties and one city, Zagreb. These are the counties and their headquarters:

- Zagrebačka, Zagreb

- Krapinsko-zagorska, Krapina

- Sisak-Moslavina, Sisak

- By Karlovačka, Karlovac

- By Varaždinska, Varaždin

- Koprivnica-Križevci, Koprivnica

- Bjelovarsko-bilogorska, Bjelovar

- Primorje-Gorski Kotar, Rijeka

- Lika-Senj, Gospić;

- Virovitica-Podravina, Virovitica

- Požega-Slavonia, Požega

- Brod-Posavina, Slavonski Brod

- By Zadarska, Zadar

- Osijek-Baranja, Osijek

- Šibenik-Knin, Šibenik

- Vukovar-Srijem, Vukovar

- Splitsko-dalmatinska, Split

- By Istarska, Pazin

- Dubrovnik-Neretva, Dubrovnik

- By Međimurska, Čakovec

- City of Zagreb

A municipality is a unit of local self-government that is established, as a rule, for the area of several populated places that represent a natural, economic and social whole, and which are connected by the common interests of the population.

There are 429 municipalities in Croatia. Municipal bodies are the municipal assembly and the mayor.

The city is a unit of local self-government in which the county seat and each place has more than 10,000 inhabitants, and represents an urban, historical, natural, economic and social whole. Exceptionally, the city may determine a place that does not meet the previous conditions, where there are special reasons (historical, economic, geo-traffic).

There are 127 cities in Croatia.

The Croatian Constitution provides every citizen of the Republic of Croatia who has reached the age of 18 with universal and equal suffrage. Passive suffrage is also acquired at the age of 18.

The right to vote is exercised in direct elections by secret ballot.

Citizens of the Republic of Croatia at the national or state level elect their representatives, ie members of the Croatian Parliament (minimum 100 and maximum 160), as a rule every 4 years, for the duration of the mandate of members of the Croatian Parliament.

Elections for the President of the Republic are held every five years.

At the local level, citizens elect members in the representative bodies of local and regional self-government units, ie members of municipal and city councils and county assemblies.

SOCIAL POTENTIALS, CULTURE AND SPORT

According to the 2011 census, there were 4,284,889 inhabitants in Croatia, of which 2,218,554 were women and 2,066,335 were men.

In the second decade of the 21st century, the number of emigrants from Croatia is higher than the number of immigrants. Thus, in 2018, 39,515 people emigrated and 26,029 people immigrated from abroad.

Among emigrants, 92.2% were Croatian citizens and 7.8% foreigners, and most persons emigrated to Germany (55.0%). Among immigrants, 33.1% were Croatian citizens and 66.9% foreigners, and most persons immigrated from Bosnia and Herzegovina (39.8%).

The vast majority of the Croatian population are Croats (90.42%). The main national minority is Serbs (4.36%), while the other twenty or so national minorities make up less than 1% of the population.

In Croatia, the official language is Croatian, which is the mother tongue for 95.60% of the population, with the Latin alphabet, and in the Istria County, the official language is Italian, which is the mother tongue for 18,573 inhabitants.

In Croatia, the autochthonous language is the Croatian language and the language of the pre-Venetian autochthonous Romanesque inhabitants of the Istrian peninsula (Istrian).

Other languages are immigrant peoples: Albanian, Bosniak, Bulgarian, Montenegrin, Czech, Hebrew, Hungarian, Macedonian, German, Polish, Romani, Romanian, Russian, Ruthenian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Italian, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vlach.

Croatian culture is based on a long, turbulent and diverse history from which many monuments, works of art and science have been preserved.

Croatia has seven world heritage sites and eight national parks.

The tie, a popular item of clothing, originates from Croatia.

Croatia has given the world heritage many greats: from writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, architects, scientists, philosophers and warriors. The three most important winners of the Nobel Prize can be mentioned: Ivo Andrić for literature, Vladimir Prelog and Lavoslav Ružička for chemistry.

The beginnings of Croatian literacy date back to the Middle Ages. Croats write in Glagolitic, Bosnian and Latin. The symbol of the beginning of Croatian literature is the Baška tablet. The Glagolitic Record of Pope Martinac is also important.

In the 14th century, lyrical poetry of a mostly religious character also developed. The bearers of literary life are mostly priests and Glagolitics. The oldest Christmas song is At the time of year translated from Latin. One of the oldest records in Latin is the pious Šibenik prayer, written around 1347.

Hrvoje's missal is the most beautiful and richest illustrated Glagolitic manuscript of the Croatian Middle Ages. The Missal according to the law of the Roman court printed in 1483 is the first Croatian print printed 28 years after Gutenberg's forty-two-line Bible and is the first missal in Europe not printed in Latin letters.

Humanism was most pronounced in coastal cities. The most important Croatian humanists are Ivan Česmički, Juraj Šižgorić, Antun Vrančić and Ilija Crijević.

The richness of Croatian Renaissance literature can be seen in the number and variety of literary forms. Marko Marulić is called the father of Croatian literature with the most important works of Judith in Croatian and Davidijada in Latin. Petar Hektorović wrote the travelogue Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje, and Petar Zoranić wrote the first Croatian novel Planine.

The most important poets are Šiško Menčetić, Džore Držić, Mavro Vetranović, Brne Karnarutić and Hanibal Lucić with a song. The most important Renaissance comedian is Marin Držić, and his most famous comedies are Dundo Maroje, Novela od Stanca and Skup.

In the Baroque, conditioned by the Turkish conquests and the fragmentation of the country, there are four regional literary circles.

The main and most fruitful is the one from Dubrovnik. The most important representative is Ivan Gundulić with the works Tears of the Prodigal Son, Dubravko and Osman. Other representatives are Ivan Bunić Vučić, Junije Palmotić and Ignjat Đurđević. The Dalmatian literary circle and the literature of Banska Hrvatska and Slavonia follow. Nikola Zrinski, Fran Krsto Frankopan, Katarina Zrinska, Juraj Habdelić and Antun Kanižlić are the most important representatives.

Croatian literature of the 18th century was dominated by Baroque, Enlightenment and Classicism, and some features of pre-Romanticism also appeared. The Pleasant Conversation of the Slovenian People by Andrija Kačić Miošić is extremely popular. Matija Petar Katančić, Matija Antun Reljković and Tituš Brezovački should be mentioned from that period.

Romanticism occurs during the Croatian literary revival, which lasted from 1813 to 1860, and is characterized by a national awakening.

Ljudevit Gaj becomes the leader of the revival efforts, and the other representatives are Pavao Štoos, Stanko Vraz, Dimitrija Demeter, Ivan Mažuranić and Petar Preradović.

Protorealism is also called the age of Shenoy after the most important person of that period, August Shenoy. Its appearance symbolizes the penetration of Croatian word art into the wider readership. Croatian realism lasted from 1881 to 1890, and the most important representatives were the right-wingers Eugen Kumičić and Ante Kovačić and Ksaver Šandor Gjalski, Josip Kozarac, Vjenceslav Novak and Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević.

Croatian modernism lasted from 1892 to 1916. The most important writers of that period were Antun Gustav Matoš, Ivo Vojnović, Dinko Šimunović, Fran Galović, Dragutin Domjanić, Vladimir Vidrić, Ivan Kozarac and Vladimir Nazor.

In 1900, the Society of Croatian Writers was founded in Zagreb. The most important representatives of Croatian literature in the period from 1914 to 1929 were Ivo Andrić and Antun Branko Šimić.

The most important writer of the 20th century is Miroslav Krleža. Representatives of the new generation are Tin Ujević, Dobriša Cesarić, Dragutin Tadijanović, Ivan Goran Kovačić.

The most important representatives of the second modern are the writers gathered around the magazine Krug called krugovaši such as Slobodan Novak, Josip Pupačić, Vlatko Pavletić and Vlado Gotovac, and Jure Kaštelan and Vesna Parun also joined them.

Ivo Brešan, Ivan Aralica and Pavao Pavličić work in the postmodern.

Many important scientists and inventors come from Croatia.

Slavoljub Eduard Penkala is the inventor of the mechanical pen, and Nikola Tesla invented the alternator, transformer and rotating magnetic field. Tesla is often called the man who invented the twentieth century.

Faust Vrančić invented the parachute, and Ivana Lupis-Vukić is the inventor of the torpedo. Ivan Vučetić is the inventor of dactyloscopy, a fingerprint identification system.

Antun Lučić is credited with inventing the first oil well.

The most important scientists are Ruđer Bošković, Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger, Andrija Mohorovičić and Milutin Milanković. Ivan Lučić is called the father of Croatian historiography, and other important historians are Juraj Rattkay, Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski, Franjo Rački, Tadija Smičiklas, Vjekoslav Klaić and Ferdo Šišić.

Croatia has produced significant sculptors such as Juraj Dalmatinac and Ivan Meštrović, painters Vlaho Bukovac, Mato Celestin Medović, Ivan Generalić, Julij Klović, Jozo Kljaković, Edo Murtić, Krsto Hegedušić, Ivan Rabuzin, writer Marija Jurić Zagorka and many others ...

Croatia has many top athletes. Ball sports such as football, handball, basketball and water polo have particularly good results and great popularity. The greatest success of Croatian football was achieved by the national football team by winning a silver medal at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Luka Modrić won the Golden Ball as the best player.

NK Dinamo is the only Croatian club that managed to win a European trophy, the Fair Cities Cup in 1967, the forerunner of the UEFA Cup and the European League. The second most popular football club is Hajduk Split, which is the most successful of the Croatian clubs in the most elite football competition in the Champions League, where it reached the quarterfinals.

The Croatian national handball team is a two-time Olympic winner in Atlanta and Athens. The handball players were world champions in 2003, and they also won three world silver medals in Iceland, Tunisia and Croatia. To this must be added European silver and bronze. Ivano Balić was considered the best handball player of his generation. RK Zagreb is a two-time, and Bjelovar a one-time European champion.

The Croatian national basketball team played the finals with the United States, whose national team was named the Dream team at the Olympic Games in Barcelona. Dražen Petrović is considered the greatest European basketball player of all time, who opened the way for Europeans in the NBA. Other great basketball players are Krešimir Ćosić, Toni Kukoč, Dino Rađa and coach Mirko Novosel, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. Croatian clubs have been European champions five times, Split three times, and Cibona twice. Cibona has twice won the Cup Winners' Cup. Split won the Radivoje Korac Cup twice, and Cibona once. The third popular club is BC Zadar. Zadar calls it the city of basketball because of the popularity of sports in that city and the fanaticism of the fans.

The Croatian water polo team is the current world champion. The water polo players also won an Olympic bronze and two European silver medals. Mladost is a seven-time European champion and has been named the Best Club of the Twentieth Century by LEN. The trophy of the European champion was won by three other Croatian clubs: Three times Jug from Dubrovnik, and twice Jadran, and once POŠK from Split.

Sandra Perković is a five-time European discus throw champion, but she is also a two-time Olympic champion, a two-time world discus throw champion and Sandra has won the Diamond League title six times.

The Croatian national tennis team won the Davis Cup in 2005. Goran Ivanisevic won Wimbledon in 2001. Other famous tennis players are Ivan Ljubičić, Mario Ančić and Iva Majoli.

Skier Janica Kostelic is the best Croatian athlete. She is the only skier to have won four Olympic gold medals in total and three gold medals at one Olympics. In total, with four gold and two silver medals, she is the most successful skier in the history of the Olympics. She is a three-time World Ski Cup winner and winner of five world gold medals. Ivica Kostelic achieved remarkable results.

The high jumper, Blanka Vlašić, is the best Croatian athlete and current world champion.

The best swimmers are Duje Draganja, Sanja Jovanović and Đurđica Bjedov.

Zeljko Mavrovic and Mate Parlov are the best boxers.

Branko Cikatić and Mirko Filipović are the most famous fighters in mixed martial arts.

Tamara Boroš is the best table tennis player.

The Croatian national football team has achieved one of the greatest successes in the history of Croatian sport; she won a bronze (1998) and a silver medal (2018).

HOMELAND

GEOGRAPHY OF CROATIA

Croatia encompasses an area that stretches from the vast Pannonian Plain through the narrow area of the Dinaric Alps to the Adriatic coast, one of the most indented in the world.

The interior therefore has the characteristics of a temperate continental climate, while the Mediterranean coast prevails on the Adriatic coast. Croatia is half of its territory in the Pannonian-Peripannonian area, a third in the coastal or Adriatic part, while the rest is mountainous or Dinaric area.

The 5,835 km long coast consists of 1246 islands, islets, cliffs and reefs, as well as numerous bays, islets, bays and peninsulas, the largest of which are Istria and Peljesac.

The fertile Pannonian Plain provides wealth and opportunities for agricultural development, while the Adriatic coast allows the development of fishing, shipbuilding, and especially tourism.

Mountainous Croatia does not have as many development opportunities as lowland or coastal Croatia, but in addition to traditional activities related to the region, such as forestry and animal husbandry, winter and rural tourism has been developing recently. The highest mountain in Croatia, which partly forms the natural border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, is the Dinara with the peak Sinjal (or the peak of Dinara) of 1831 m.

Croatia borders Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro and borders Italy by sea. Croatia is territorially and administratively divided into 21 counties, including the City of Zagreb with county status.

There are several historical regions that make up Croatia, but Slavonia, central Croatia, Istria and Dalmatia stand out in terms of significance.

Croatia is located in the northern hemisphere between 42 ° 23 ′ and 46 ° 33 ′ north latitude, and 13 ° 30 ′ and 19 ° 27 ′ east longitude. With an area of 56,594 km², Croatia belongs to the lower part of the scale of medium-sized European countries, ie it ranks 124th in the world.

The distance from Štrigova (extreme northern point) to Cape Oštro (extreme southern point on the mainland) is 490 kilometers, and from Savudrija (extreme western point) to Ilok (extreme eastern point) is 464 kilometers. The southernmost point of Croatia is the island of Galijula in the Palagruža archipelago.

The total length of land borders is 2028 km, and sea coastlines 5835.3 km. The distance from Savudrija to Cape Oštro is 527 km, which makes it one of the most indented coasts in the world. Out of 1246 Adriatic islands, islets, cliffs and reefs, 1185 are located in Croatia. Of that number, 718 are islands, of which 66 are inhabited. The largest island is Cres with an area of 405.8 km², followed by Krk with an area of 405.78 km².

Croatia consists of three basic natural units that complement each other, ie they form the complementarity of space.

- Lowland or Pannonian natural region (covers 55% of the territory and 66% of the population)

- Coastal or Adriatic natural region (covers 31% of the territory and 31% of the population)

- Mountain or Dinaric natural region (covers 14% of the territory and 3% of the population)

According to the new classification, the lowland or Pannonian-Peripannonian region consists of Continental Croatia. The coastal and mountainous regions make up Adriatic Croatia.

Different natural, socio-geographical and other characteristics of its individual parts are the reason for the analysis of Croatia into several smaller regional units:

- Central Croatia

- Eastern Croatia (Slavonia and Baranja)

- Northern Croatian coast (Istria and Kvarner with islands)

- Mountain Croatia (Gorski Kotar and Lika)

- Southern Croatia (Dalmatia)

A more recent analysis of Croatia is into two contemporary European regions: Continental Croatia and Adriatic Croatia. These changes in the size and significance of individual centers indicate that in addition to the older large centers, Zagreb, Split, Rijeka and Osijek, today Zadar, Varaždin and Slavonski Brod stand out in regional development.

The structure and composition of the Croatian relief are determined by a long geological past. From the earliest Precambrian to the present Cenozoic (ie Holocene), the relief of Croatia was influenced by endogenous forces and exogenous processes in the area of the triangle Asia - Europe - Africa.

All three basic groups of rocks are represented in the Croatian relief: sedimentary or sedimentary rocks (they make up 95% of the Croatian relief), transformative or metamorphic rocks (make up 2-4% of the Croatian relief) and igneous rocks (make up about 1% of the Croatian relief).

Of the sedimentary rocks, the most common are clastic (sandstones, conglomerates, marls, breccias) and organogenic rocks (limestones and dolomites). Of the metamorphic rocks, the most common are marbles, shales, gneisses, while in igneous andensites and granites.

According to the distribution and age of the rocks, the oldest rocks are located in the cores of the "island" mountains of Papuk, Psunj and Moslavačka gora. From the Mesozoic, carbonate rocks (dolomites and limestones) predominate in the karst, mostly in Banovina, Kordun, Gorski kotar, Velebit, Lika and Dalmatia. The youngest rocks are of Cenozoic age (clastic sediments) in the area of the Pannonian and Peripannonian area.

Caves and pits are important karst phenomena. So far, 49 pits deeper than 250 m have been explored in Croatia, of which 14 are deeper than 500 m, and three are deeper than 1000 m (Lukina jama-Trojama cave system, Slovak pit and Velebit cave system). The deepest Croatian pits are mostly located on the mountains Velebit and Biokovo.

Mountainous Croatia is a relatively high karst region built mostly of limestone and distinctly separated from the Mediterranean and Peripannonian area. It is highest on the edges (Risnjak, Velebit, Plješevica, Mala and Velika Kapela), while in most of the interior, especially in Lika, the lower valleys in Polje in the karst are separated by a mutually separated highland. The large mountain ranges of Croatia have risen under the influence of the convergence (underlining) of the African lithosphere plate under the Eurasian lithosphere plate. Tertiary or alpine orogeny raised the Dinarides, the most important mountain range in Croatia.

Areas above 1,500 meters make up only 0.11 percent of the total Croatian territory.

Croatia is mainly a lowland area (up to 200 m is 54% of the total territory). Most of low-lying Croatia is located in the lowland Pannonian and hilly Peripannonian area. The rest of low Croatia consists of karst plateaus and flysch valleys in Istria, Ravni kotari and some islands.

The coast of the Adriatic Sea was formed by the transgression (rising) of the sea level by almost 100 meters. Thus the synclines (depressions) became sea channels, and the anticlines (elevations) islands. The uniqueness of the shape of the resulting coastline in which the island relief structures are parallel to the coast, is called in professional terminology, the Dalmatian type of coast.

Croatia is known for its maritime tradition, which it owes to the Adriatic Sea. Since their arrival in these areas, the Croats immediately took advantage of the advantages provided by the sea. Among other things, Croatia is known for its blue sea, tourism, shipbuilding, fishing and maritime affairs.

The surface of the Adriatic Sea is 138,595 km², of which 31,067 km² is the coastal sea under the administration of Croatia. With the proclamation of the Protected Ecological-Fishing Zone, the provisions of which do not currently apply to EU countries, Croatia has managed another 23,870 km² of sea area.

The length of the Adriatic Sea is 783 km, and the average width is 170 km.

The Adriatic Sea runs parallel to the direction of the Dinarides, ie in the northwest-northeast direction. The Adriatic Sea is actually a large bay of the much larger Mediterranean Sea. Two thirds of the Adriatic Sea is not deeper than 200 meters, and represents an area of shallows. Its average depth is 252 meters, and the greatest depth of 1233 m was measured in the southern Adriatic bay.

The temperature of the Adriatic Sea ranges from 22 and 25 ° C in summer and 5 to 15 ° C in winter. The transparency is much higher than in other seas, and is up to 56 meters.

Tides have intensified due to the tidal wave from the Mediterranean Sea, which takes 12 hours to travel around the entire Adriatic. Sea currents are of low intensity and move along the Greek, Albanian, Montenegrin, Croatian coast, and return along the Italian. At their entrance to the Adriatic, the sea currents along the Croatian coast are warm, while along the Italian coast they are cold.

High, above-average oxygen concentrations are responsible for marine life.

The Adriatic Sea is rich in flora and fauna. Numerous species of fish, mammals, mollusks, plankton, algae, crustaceans, sponges and many other species. Due to all this, the Adriatic Sea provides opportunities for the development of tourism and fisheries.

Croatia is rightly called the "land of a thousand islands". Of the 1233 Adriatic islands, islets, cliffs and reefs in the Croatian part of the Adriatic coast, there are 1185. Of these 1185 islands, islets, cliffs and reefs, 718 are islands, of which 66 are inhabited.

Rivers in Croatia belong to two basins: the Black Sea and the Adriatic.

About 62% of Croatia's rivers belong to the Black Sea, while the remaining 38% belong to the Adriatic basin.

The border between these two to the left is a watershed or watershed that goes to the tops of the Dinaric mountains.

The Danube is the second longest European river that springs in the Black Forest (Black Forest) in Germany and flows into the Black Sea. In addition to Croatia, the Danube connects 9 other countries and is one of the main river waterways in Europe. The main Croatian river port on the Danube is Vukovar, which after the interruption of work during the Homeland War again increases the volume of traffic.

According to the total length of watercourses in the Republic of Croatia, the Sava is the most important and longest Croatian river. It is characterized by a rainy or pluvial river regime, and due to the high flow of almost 2,000 m³ / s, it is suitable for navigation from Sisak downstream. To improve the Croatian river waterway, the already planned Sava-Danube canal between Šamac and Vukovar should be built.

The Drava connects Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary from its source in the Italian Dolomites. It has a snow-rain or nival-pluvial river regime. Due to its richness in water, it is used to supply the power system with energy from several hydroelectric power plants. It is navigable from Donji Miholjac, and the main port is Osijek. At its confluence with the Danube, the Drava created the Kopački rit nature reserve, which is the habitat of many bird species.

The most important rivers in the Adriatic basin are the Neretva and the Cetina. The Neretva is known for its fertile delta, which is agriculturally valorized, so southern fruits thrive in it, while the Cetina is known for its numerous hydroelectric power plants, the most famous of which is HPP Peruča with its artificially created Peručka Lake. Other rivers are in Istria (Dragonja, Mirna, Raša and Boljunčica) and Dalmatia (Zrmanja, Krka, Čikola, Jadro).

The river Trnava flows through Međimurje and flows into the Mura.

A special phenomenon are the rivers of the abyss (Pazinčica, Lika, Gacka, Krbava) which sink into the karst underground in the abysses.

There are not many natural lakes in Croatia. However, numerous artificial lakes have been created for fishing (ponds) or the use of hydropower. The most famous fishponds are Jasinje or Jelas near Brod (20 km²), Sišćani near Čazma (18 km²), Končanica near Grubišno Polje (about 14 km²) and Borovik near Đakovo.

The largest artificial lake is the Peruća reservoir (about 13 km²). Other well-known artificial lakes are Butoniga in Istria, Lokvarsko and Fužinsko lakes in Gorski kotar, Krušćičko in Lika, Dubravsko lake on the Drava.

The largest natural lake is Vrana Lake near Biograd (30.7 km²). An important natural lake on Cres is Vrana Lake with an area of 6 km². Other significant natural lakes are Prokljansko Lake, Visovačko Lake, Veliko and Malo Lakes on Mljet, Baćinska Lakes near Ploče, Red and Blue Lakes near Imotski.

The most beautiful and most famous lakes are Plitvice Lakes, which is the oldest national park in Croatia, and is included in the UNESCO World Natural Heritage.

Croatia is located in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere. Due to this position, the climatic conditions are favorable and temperate without any temperature extremes. It is a correct change of all four seasons, and the main factors that affect the climate of Croatia are the Atlantic Ocean, westerly winds, air masses, cyclones and anticyclones.

We single out 3 basic climatic-vegetation zones. These are: 1. Mediterranean climate-vegetation and ecological zone, 2. Pannonian and Peripannonian climate-vegetation and ecological zone, 3. Mountain climate-vegetation and ecological zone.

Icelandic and Genoese cyclones form in autumn and winter, bringing wet and unstable weather, while in summer, Azores and Siberian anticyclones cause stable weather.

The positions of mountain ranges have an important influence. The Alps and the Dinarides prevent further penetration of air currents from the south inland. Therefore, the parts along the very foot of the mountain ranges receive the highest amount of precipitation.

The annual course of air temperatures in Croatia varies from region to region. The temperate climate is the result of not so cold winters and not too hot summers. The coldest month is January with average temperatures ranging from -2 in mountainous to 5 ° C in coastal Croatia. The warmest month is July with average temperatures of 15 in mountainous to 24 ° C in coastal Croatia.

Croatia is one of the few countries with a rich and diverse forest fund that covers 37% of the total territory. Mountain Croatia has the highest percentage of forests per unit area. According to the basic vegetation species, the largest part of Croatian forests consists of deciduous forests or deciduous forests (about 80% of all forests), a smaller part consists of conifers (about 13% of all forests), while the smallest part consists of mixed forests (about 7% of all forests). In coastal Croatia, degraded forest cover is characteristic, so most of the areas are under macchia, gargoyle, thickets and rocks.

Zagreb is the economic, cultural, social, educational, scientific center of Croatia. Other macro-regional centers are Split, Rijeka and Osijek

The regional centers of the Zagreb macro-region are Karlovac, Varaždin, Sisak and Bjelovar, and the more important cities are Čakovec and Kutina.

The Split or southern macro-region covers the area of Dalmatia, and occupies 26 percent of the territory and 21 percent of the population. The macro-regional center is Split, and the regional centers are Zadar, Šibenik and Dubrovnik.

The Rijeka or western macro-region with its center in Rijeka covers 18 percent of the total territory and 13 percent of the total population. Along with Rijeka, the regional center of Pula stands out. This macro-region is one of the most vital Croatian regions.

Osijek or the eastern macro-region includes Slavonia, ie it occupies 21 percent of the total territory and 20 percent of the population. Apart from Osijek as a macro-regional center, other regional centers are Slavonski Brod, Požega, Vinkovci and Vukovar.

There are a total of 423 municipalities and 123 cities in Croatia, which are grouped into 20 counties and the City of Zagreb.

Throughout history, Croatia has always been a marginal part of Central European countries. Therefore, it developed faster than Eastern European countries, but due to its margins, it never managed to use its own capacities.

The development of the Croatian economy throughout history can be divided into five periods: the period of the initial transformation of crafts (guilds) until the 1870s, the manufacturing-industrial (railway) development stage until the First World War, the interwar period from 1918 to 1945, the period of real socialist development from 1945 .to 1990 and the restructuring or transition period from 1991 to the present.

The structure of energy production and consumption in Croatia is generally diverse, with oil and natural gas being the most prevalent, followed by hydropower, coal, wood and nuclear energy. Oil and natural gas deposits are numerous in Podravina, Slavonia and Moslavina. The gas was also discovered in the seabed of the northern Adriatic, where platforms have been set up to exploit this potential. The Krško NPP nuclear power plant is also important for Croatia, in which Croatia has the same share as Slovenia.

Croatia is not rich in ores, but non-metallic deposits are more important (gravel, sand, cement marl, kaolin, refractory clay). On the coast, salt pans in Pag, Nin and Ston are important for the production of sea salt. Granite, sandstone and limestone (Brač stone) are mined in the quarries. The most important raw material in Croatia, apart from stone, is wood, which is found in vast and vast forests that occupy 37 percent of the total territory. The most important forests are located in Gorski kotar and Slavonia.

Important economic branches in Croatia are agriculture and tourism. More than 90 percent of tourism takes place in coastal Croatia, and individual branches have developed: coastal, mountain, cultural, transit, religious, nautical, nudist, ski and rural (rural) tourism, and spa and city tourism. Tourism to some extent covers the large trade deficit realized in international trade.

Croatia's position on Earth

Croatia's position in Europe

The position of the largest cities

The capital Zagreb

Pannonian Plain of Croatia

River Drava

National park Plitvice Lakes

The town of Krk on the island of Krk

City of Dubrovnik

HOMELAND

HISTORY OF CROATIA

THE AREA OF CROATIA BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF CROATS

The area of today's Croatia has always been very rich in fauna and flora, and consequently suitable for human life. In the north are fertile river valleys, consisting of the rivers Drava, Sava, Danube, Kupa, Una, and in the south numerous karst fields and indented coastline full of islands and bays suitable for natural harbors and navigation.

The area known today as Croatia was first inhabited in the middle of the Paleolithic, and later in the Neolithic. History also records the colonization of the Illyrians, Celts and Greeks in the first millennium BC.

The Illyrian tribes founded several states that were conquered one after the other by the Romans in the second and first centuries BC.

Therefore, traces of human presence date back to the earliest periods, to the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age.

On a European scale, the site of a Neanderthal man (paleantrope) in the cave of Hušnjakova brijega near Krapina (Homo krapiniensis) is known. There are numerous remains and periods of the Neolithic in the Sava, Drava and Danube basins known as the Starčevo, Vinča and Sopot cultures, and by the sea the Hvar culture. In the Eneolithic period, the Vučedol culture along the Danube is known, with the remains of beautiful ceramics (Vučedol dove), the oldest find of its kind in Europe, and in the Bronze Age, the most pronounced is the so-called Vinkovci culture.

The Iron Age left behind numerous finds of Illyrian tribes; Liburna, Japoda and Delmata from Istria to Dalmatia and Herzegovina. In the 4th century BC, the Celts left their traces, whose findings belong to the La Tène culture (La Tene).

Simultaneously with the Celts on the Adriatic islands and estuaries are finds that testify to the Greek colonies on Vis (Issa), Hvar (Pharos), in Trogir (Tragurion) and elsewhere.

Two centuries after the Greeks, the Romans came to the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, but they conquered these areas only with the collapse of the uprising under Baton (6 to 9 AD). They soon established their provinces, such as Dalmatia by the sea and in the area of today's Bosnia and Pannonia in the Danube region. The first had its center in Salona near today's Split, and the second in Ptuj (Poetovio).

Istria was part of the Italian region (Venetia et Histria). As trade and traffic developed, roads and ports were built, the then Roman Illyricum developed well economically. Numerous cities sprang up, such as Pole (Pula), Parentium (Poreč), Jadera (Zadar), Scardone (Skradin), Narona at the mouth of the Neretva and in the continental part: Siscia (Sisak), Cibalaea (Vinkovci), Sirmium (Mitrovica), Murse (Osijek) and many others that still exist today along the former Roman roads and waterways.

ORIGIN OF CROATS

The national name of the Croats is probably of Iranian origin. Its meaning and existence have not yet been explored. After all, as well as the names and origins of many other peoples. It is mentioned for the first time as a personal name on two Greek inscriptions found at the confluence of the Don and the Sea of Azov (Horoathos, Horuathos).

The Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote in the 10th century that Croats came from White or Greater Croatia (today southern Poland) in the 7th century under the leadership of five brothers and two sisters, and one of the brothers was called a Croat. At the same time, the emperor was the first to try to interpret the name of the Croats as those who have a lot of land. There are many other interpretations, one of which is related to the Carpathian Mountains, then to the verb to fight, to fight, etc.

In addition to the names Hrvat and Hrvatska, the name Slavonija, Slavonac is also mentioned in the past, which probably originated from the common name Slaven, similar to Slovakia, Slovak and Slovenija, Slovenac. Similar names such as Sklavinija, Slovinje, Slovin were also used in the Middle Ages.

In the southern, coastal part of Croatia, the name Dalmacija, Dalmatinac, was also used, but during the 19th century, after the Croatian national revival and national integration, the common name Hrvat and Hrvatska prevailed. Croatia as a kingdom (regnum) also bore three names, ie the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia, and in its common coat of arms it had the coats of arms of these Croatian historical provinces. Today, names such as Slavonian, Dalmatian, Istrian are considered provincial, regional names.

Croats, like some other peoples, came from the east, from Asia and today's Russian-Ukrainian areas, and settled in the area of southern Poland and northern Bohemia, where White Croatia was located. From there, at the beginning of the 7th century, they moved to the Danube region, to the area from the Drina River to the Adriatic Sea and northern Italy. Since the Croats were an organized, warrior tribe and were in alliance with the Avars, they systematically inhabited the area of the former Roman Illyricum, first Pannonia and then Dalmatia.

They conquered the prosperous city of Sirmium in 582, and Salona in 614, and then Epidaurum (Cavtat). The former inhabitants, the Romanized Illyrians, withdrew from these two cities to Diocletian's Palace (Spalato, today Split) and to Ragusium (today Dubrovnik).

Apart from today's Croatian area, Croats inhabited the area of today's Herzegovina and Montenegro, which historical sources call Red Croatia, then Bosnia, Istria, and the eastern parts of today's Slovenia, southern Hungary and southeastern Austria, but they are not numerous in all these peripheral areas. held.

The old Romanesque population retreated to Byzantine cities and islands, such as Split, Zadar, Trogir, Rab, Osor, Krk, and the Illyrian and Romanesque to the mountains, where they were later known as Vlachs - cattle breeders.

In Illyricum, the Croats inherited a rich Roman culture, buildings, roads, but also a church organization with dioceses in the mentioned and other cities. They soon embraced Christianity as well, mostly from the West, and became partakers of Roman and Western Christian civilization.

THE ARRIVAL OF CROATS IN CROATIA AND THE PEOPLE'S RULERS

Croats arrived in today's Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 7th century. It is also believed that other, smaller Slavic groups immigrated, which the Croats assimilated very quickly.

The Croats founded several principalities: Posavina Croatia in the north and Coastal Croatia in the south and west (the terms Pannonian Croatia and Dalmatian Croatia can also be found in the literature). These two were called White Croatia.

Southeast of them, there were four states, sclavinije: Neretva principality or Paganija, Zahumlje, Travunja and Duklja. The collective name for them was Red Croatia.

Croats were baptized from two directions: from the side of the Franks (in the north and west) and from the side of Byzantium (in the south and east). For the most part, the Christianization of Croats ended in the 9th century, but some areas (the Neretva principality, for example) retained pagan beliefs for another four centuries, as evidenced by the preserved names for pagan deities, most often in geographical names (Perun hill near Split, for example).

At the end of the 8th century, the first Croatian areas are mentioned. In 812, the French (Charlemagne) and Byzantium shared spheres of interest, so some parts of Croatia belonged to the Frankish, and the cities by the sea to the Byzantine administration. The consequence of this division was the uprising of Ljudevit, prince of Posavina Croatia against the Franks and Borna, prince of Dalmatian Croatia who supported the Franks. A real war broke out in which Louis repulsed a dozen Frankish armies and defeated Borna, as that warfare was described by contemporaries in the Frankish Chronicle.

After the collapse of Ljudevit's uprising (822), Posavina Croatia did not strengthen. The focus of Croatian statehood was transferred to Primorska or Dalmatian Croatia, where the Croats built their first port cities (Šibenik, Biograd, Nin), built a navy and had the first capitals (Knin, Bijaći). Among the princes, Trpimir (845-864), Domagoj (864-876) and Branimir (879-892) stand out.

Prince Trpimir successfully fought against the Bulgarians, the Byzantines in Dalmatia, brought the Benedictine order to Croatia, issued the first charter in which he is mentioned as the first Croatian prince ("dux Chroatorum").

In the defensive conflict, Prince Domagoj severely defeated Venice at sea, together with the French, and conquered Bari in Italy from the Arabs.

Prince Branimir established excellent relations with Pope John VIII. and received from him the 879th recognition of Croatia as an independent state - the first in the history of the Croats. In his time, the Croats - Neretvans fiercely defeated Venice and imposed a tax on free navigation along the Croatian coast. Thus, the Croats took control of the eastern, navigable part of the Adriatic Sea, which later historical sources call "our", ie the Croatian sea.

In the time of Prince Branimir, priests, students of the Slavic apostles Cyril and Methodius, came to Croatia and brought church books in the Old Slavic language and the Slavic Glagolitic alphabet. Since then, the service of God has been performed among Croats in that language and script, church books have been written, so this is the beginning of literacy among Croats in their language and script. Thus the Croats were the only European people to have Holy Mass in their own language, instead of Latin or Greek. Today, on the other hand, Croats are the only people in Europe who have the right to serve God on two Croatian idioms, ie on standard Croatian and Burgenland Croatian (Burgenland) in Austria.

Croatian princes left stone-carved testimonies that only the oldest peoples in Europe have. These are mainly inscriptions with the names and functions of the rulers, eg "pro duce Trepim (ero)" - for Prince Trpimir. Branimir left several inscriptions as "dux Croatorum" - prince of the Croats, Višeslav a special baptistery that symbolizes the accession of the Croatian people to the Roman church, and thus Western culture, and there are also records of Croatian stone sculpture, special Croatian churches (Nin) and elsewhere.

During the reign of Tomislav (910-928), Croatia, along with Bulgaria, became the strongest state between the Roman-German Empire and Byzantium. He formed a strong army and navy, defeated the Hungarians first and expelled them across the Drava. Since then, that river has been the century-old border of these two peoples. He united Posavina Croatia with his state between the Drava, Sava and Kupa, which would later be called Slavonia, ie the land of the Slavs, Slovenia. It was the unification of two Croatian principalities.

As an ally of Byzantium, he defeated Tomislav and the Bulgarian army and gained control of coastal cities (Zadar, Split, Trogir, the so-called Byzantine Dalmatia) and thus rounded off his country from the Adriatic Sea to the Drava and from Raša in Istria to Bosnia and Neretva.

At the height of his power, Tomislav was crowned king (925), and then at two national church assemblies in Split he regulated relations between the Croatian dioceses of Split, Latin and Nin, thus strengthening internal and ecclesiastical circumstances.

After Tomislav, Croatia was ruled by several kings from the national dynasty, of which Držislav should be pointed out, who was the first to receive the crown from Byzantium as the king of Dalmatia and Croatia (969-97), then Petar Krešimir IV. when Croatia was territorially at its peak (1058-1074) and Dmitar Zvonimir when it advanced most economically and politically (1074-1089). All of them carried the recognized title of kings of Dalmatia and Croatia, ruled rich Dalmatian cities, ruled the waterways at sea, and resisted Venice and Byzantium.

After the reign of Dmitar Zvonimir, a charter was carved in stone, the so-called Baška plaque with the king's name and royal title which has been preserved. It was the first monument written in the Croatian language and Glagolitic alphabet, so since then not only the beginning of literacy, but also Croatian literature has been counted.

Zvonimir was crowned king by the envoy of the great Pope Gregory VII. and handed him a sword, scepter, and flag as symbols of authority. He was the first and last Croatian king to be crowned according to the European customs of the time. He also took an oath of allegiance to the pope, which states that he is the ruler of Croatia and Dalmatia.

CROATIAN-HUNGARIAN UNION

Since the Croatian national dynasty of Trpimirović (named after the founder, Prince Trpimir) became extinct, a struggle for the Croatian throne followed at the end of the 11th century. The Hungarian party gathered around King Zvonimir's widow, Jelena, and the people's party, the Croatian party, gathered around the newly elected King Peter. In these turmoils and conflicts, the Hungarian kings, according to feudal custom, tried to inherit the Croatian crown. Namely, Jelena was from the Hungarian Arpadović dynasty. They sought to gain Croatia militarily and politically, so in 1094 they founded the Zagreb diocese and appointed their confidant as bishop.

In 1097, the Hungarian king Koloman penetrated Croatia with his army and defeated the last Croatian king Petar, who was killed in battle, at the battle of Gvozd (Petrova gora). As he nevertheless failed to gain Croatia "on the sword", the Hungarian king concluded a treaty with Croatia called Pacta conventa in 1102.

It was a treaty between Croatian nobles and the Hungarian king Koloman of the Arpadović dynasty. He undertook to respect the special position and privileges of the nobility and the Croatian kingdom and to crown the Croatian crown as a confirmation. Indeed, in 1102 he was crowned Croatian-Dalmatian king in Biograd near Zadar.

According to the Pacta conventi, the Kingdom of Croatia and the Kingdom of Hungary were connected only by the person of the ruler, which means that there was a classical personal union between them. So Croatia preserved its internal administration, taxes, its parliament, its ban, and even minted its own money, which means that it retained the basic elements of its state identity. The land was ruled on behalf of the king by his governors, the ban or the duke.

In 1113, Koloman crowned his son Stjepan with the Croatian-Dalmatian crown. During these periods of coup, Duklja occupied the border areas in the east of the Kingdom of Croatia, ie parts of today's eastern and central Bosnia.

After entering into a personal union with Hungary, another type of feudalism was introduced. Over time, the importance of the old Croatian tribes that elected the Croatian king weakens, and Croatian noble families such as the Frankopans and Šubići appear on the stage of significant nobility. Later kings sought to regain influence by giving privileges to Croatian cities. The governor of the Croatian provinces was called the ban.

The Hungarian-Croatian state was a very significant factor in the area between the Roman-German Empire and Byzantium and a competitor to the strengthened Venice at sea. Together, the Croats and Ugrians resisted all the surrounding enemies, and in the middle of the 13th century they managed to survive the great Tatar invasion. After it, numerous fortifications began to be built, the local high nobility was strengthened and the first free royal cities were proclaimed, among which Zagreb became more and more prominent as the political, ecclesiastical and economic center of Slavonia, and from the 16th century the whole of Croatia.

Among the feudal nobles, the princes of Krk, later called Frankopans, and Šubići Bribirski, later Zrinski, were in the lead.

The Babonićs ruled Slavonia, while the Bribir princes from the Šubić lineage gained the greatest influence, ruling over a large part of Croatia, Dalmatia and Bosnia. Their large manorial estates in southern Croatia, real states, were almost independent of the king, often they were the ones who decided the fate of Croatia and the entire kingdom.

From the 12th century, under the rule of the Croatian-Hungarian crown, the eastern border was established as a vassal banovina, at the end of the 14th century, under Company I, and by extending the borders to the surrounding kingdoms outside the Croatian-Hungarian state, it was also called a kingdom. although it will not receive confirmation of that title until 1461. It is a western-oriented, Catholic banovina which, by expanding, becomes a defensive zone towards Greek-eastern Serbia.

During almost 3 centuries of existence, the banovina oscillates in size, and the oscillations are related to the attitudes of the local, Croatian, nobility and the attitude towards the Croatian-Hungarian king.

In the second half of the 13th century, this banovina disappeared as a separate entity and came under the central rule of the Croatian bans of Šubić.

With their fall in the first half of the 14th century, the banovina was restored. A Catholic heresy (Christians) appears in Bosnia, which the pope and the Croatian-Hungarian rulers consider heretical and organize military actions against it.

In the area of southern Dalmatia, which the sources also called Red Croatia, another Croatian state, supported by trade and maritime affairs, was formed, strengthened and expanded. It is the Republic of Dubrovnik, which originated on the site of ancient Ragusi. For centuries, it has recognized the supreme authority of Byzantium, the Croatian-Hungarian crown and, since the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire. The people of Dubrovnik pay an annual tax for their freedom and trade from the Mediterranean to Britain. Dubrovnik as a city-state is an important center, in fact the focus of Croatian culture, literature, art, which is why it was later pictorially called "Croatian Athens".

From 1102 to 1301, the Croatian and Hungarian crowns were worn by rulers from the Arpadović dynasty, and when it became extinct, the struggle for inheritance began. At that time, Šubići Bribirski ruled in Croatia like kings, and the honor of "ban of the Croats" was held by Paul I. Bribirski, who since 1299 has been called "the master of the whole of Bosnia".

His brother Mladen I went to Naples in 1300 and from there brought to Zagreb Karl Robert, son of Karl Martel from the Anjou dynasty. Soon Slavonian nobles sent him to Ostrogon in Hungary where he was crowned king of the crown of St. Stjepan, and from 1301 to 1409 the Croatian-Hungarian throne was ruled by the Anjouans, of French origin.

The Anjou dynasty produced two powerful rulers, Charles Robert (1301-1342) and his son Louis I (1342-1382). Although the Šubići Bribirski brought the Anjouans to the throne, Charles Robert, with the help of other Croatian nobles, broke the power of the Bribir princes who almost restored the Croatian state as in the time of the Croatian people's kings from 925 to 1089.

After the defeat and detention of Ban Mladen II. Bribirski (1322), who titled himself "Ban of the Croats, Bosnia, Prince of Zadar and the Principle of Dalmatia", Bosnia began to strengthen under Stephen II. Kotromanić, who received her as a vassal of King Karl Robert. Stjepan extended his rule to the then Croatian lands: Završje (Livno, Duvno, Glamoč) and Hum (with the Neretva region) and began to expand Bosnia to the west, which was later continued by Tvrtko and the Ottomans.

During the reign of Louis I, the Croatian-Hungarian crown strengthened and became the leading power in Central Europe. First, Ludovik broke the power of Croatian noble families (Nelipić and Šubić Bribirski), and then led three wars against Venice for the Croatian coast.

With the Peace of Zadar in 1358, he repulsed the Venetians from the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea and protected Croatian Dubrovnik, then a trading competitor of Venice. He fought with the Serbs around Hum, and then forced the Bosnian ruler Tvrtko I. Kotromanić to return to him the lands taken by Stjepan II. Kotromanić (Završje, Hum).

Louis also became king of Poland, so his rule stretched from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea.

After Louis' death (1382) came a period of feudal anarchy, which would last about forty years. Against the so-called. the women's government of Ludovic's successors, who also wanted to rule centrally, the Croats, the three brothers Horvat and Ivan Paližna, rose up and began an anti-centralist movement with the help of Bosnian King Tvrtko I. who used these struggles to expand his power.

However, the Ottoman Turks are also trying to take advantage of this, and after the defeat of the Serbian army in Kosovo in 1389, they are increasingly invading Bosnia, and the Venetians are threatening from the sea, wanting to annul the Zadar peace of 1358.

When Sigismund (Sigismund) of Luxembourg became King of Croatia and Hungary in 1387, and Tvrtko I, in fact the restorer of the old Croatian state, died in 1391, the Croatian resistance was doomed.

The Horvat brothers were defeated by Sigismund near Dobor in Bosnia in 1394 and again in 1408 they defeated the Bosnian army at the same place.

Dynastic struggles were used by Venice and in 1409 it "bought" the Croatian right to Dalmatia from the pretender to the throne. In vain did the Croatian nobleman Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić call for the help of the Turks and defeat Sigismund's army in 1415 near Doboj in Bosnia. The Ottomans took advantage of this and penetrated for the first time as far as Celje in Styria, plundering the whole of Croatia.

THE BEGINNING OF DEFENSE FROM THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

In 1433, King Sigismund realized that great danger threatened his kingdoms from both the Ottomans and the Venetians. That is why he set up three defense camps - areas, the first in Central Europe; First, Croatian, which was to defend Croatia and Dalmatia, second, Slavonian, towards the river Una and third, Usor, for the defense of northern Bosnia and the Danube.

It was the beginning of the organized defense of the area, which in later centuries would develop as the Military Frontier, the border (Militärgrenze).

From 1458 to 1490, Croatia and Hungary were ruled by King Matthias Corvinus, who made an alliance with the Bosnian kings against the Ottomans, and was supported by the Holy See.

However, in the summer of 1463, Sultan Mehmed II. penetrates Bosnia, and as Matijaš could not help it then, Bosnia "fell in a whisper", ie without resistance.

Already in the fall, King Matthias penetrated to Jajce, liberated several cities. He again rebuilt the defense system, the so-called banovina, Jajačka along the Vrbas River and Srebrenička in eastern Bosnia.

In the Neretva valley, Croatia was defended by the Počitelj fortress. Since the Ottomans conquered Bulgaria as early as 1393, occupied Constantinople in 1453, and Serbia in 1459, Herzegovina, Croatia, and Hungary were next in line.

In the second half of the 15th century, the Ottomans from occupied Bosnia continued to attack Croatia. They are, in fact, led by predominantly local, Islamized beys, many of whom until recently were Catholics. It was a constant small war on the border between Turkey and Croatia.

Thus, as early as 1465, the Turks conquered Blagaj na Buni, once the town of the Croatian nobles Babonić and the seat of Duke Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić. In 1471 they occupied Počitelj on the Neretva, and in 1482 Herceg-Novi, the last free part of Herzegovina, fell.

In vain was Nikola Iločki, a Croatian nobleman appointed king of Bosnia (1471), and King Matijaš Korvin in 1480 penetrated into Bosnia as far as Sarajevo.

In these difficult times, the Croats managed in 1491 to defeat the Turkish army returning from the campaign in Carniola.

But everything seemed lost when the Croatian nobility was severely defeated in 1493 on the neighboring Krbavsko polje. However, the defeat of the Croats on Krbava was the announcement and the beginning of a hundred-year defensive war in which the Croats bravely defended every step of their country.

And while the Ottomans conquered Constantinople from 1453 to 1482, overthrew the Byzantine Empire and conquered numerous kingdoms, the Croats lost about fifty kilometers in the depths of their territory in a hundred years. They preserved the narrow belt of their state, which they called the "remnants of the remnants" of the once famous Croatian kingdom.

In 1494, the Croatian Parliament met in the Croatian city of Bihać and asked the German-Roman Emperor Maximilian and Pope Alexander VI. for help in defense, because otherwise the Croats would have to move out or settle with the Turks.

The help that arrived was not enough. But the war continued, especially when Petar Berislavic became Croatian ban. In 1513, with the Pope's help, he defeated the Turkish army near Dubica and thus gave new hope. He repeated this in 1518, when he penetrated Croatian Jajce with his army and supplied it with food and ammunition. He did the same the following year, and in 1519 Pope Leo X gave Croatia the honorary title of the wall of Christianity (Antemurale Christianitatis). However, the following year, Berislavić, who was called the father and defender of the homeland, was killed in a Turkish ambush on "Vražja gora" (Plješivica).

From 1521 to 1566, when Sultan Suleiman II ruled, both Croatia and Hungary suffered the heaviest defeats in their history and lost numerous cities and provinces.

First, in 1521, Belgrade fell, then a Hungarian city, picturesquely called the "golden key of Hungary", as well as Croatia and Slavonia.

The Ottomans occupied Srijem, and their forces from Bosnia invaded Dalmatia and conquered Knin, Sinj and Skradin.

In vain, in 1522, Prince Bernardin Frankopan Ozaljski in Nuremberg asked for help from the German National Assembly, but it did not arrive. In 1525, his son Krsto Frankopan saved Jajce for the last time from falling in a daring campaign that was admired by the then Europe.

After Croatia, it was Hungary's turn. Sultan Suleiman II. he led the bulk of his army across Vukovar and Osijek to the north. They built the famous bridge on the Drava and directed their attacks over it towards Habsburg Vienna. King Louis II Jagelović prepared poorly for the defense, he received only help from Slavonia, and he did not wait for the Croatian army, but entered the battle and in 1526 suffered a terrible defeat at Mohač on the Danube. After that catastrophe, which meant the collapse of Jagelović and the reorganization of the Croatian-Hungarian kingdom, the Ottomans had an open road to Buda and Vienna. Both Croats and Hungarians then turned to Europe for help. The first in this direction was Habsburg Austria, backed by the Holy Roman Empire, also under Charles V of Habsburg.

CROATIA UNDER THE HABSBURG CROWN

Since the last Jagelović, Louis II, King of Hungary and Croatia, was killed near Mohács, and the Habsburgs had been promised that crown before, and they were the only real force that could somehow organize the defense, it was natural that the Croats elect them as their rulers. In addition, the Habsburgs had previously helped defend Croatia because it paved the way for the conquest of Austrian hereditary lands (Styria, Carniola, Carinthia).

Because of all this, the Croats on the Cetina in 1527, of their own free will and independently of Hungary, chose Ferdinand I of Habsburg as their king, but on the condition that he help defend Croatia and respect all its old rights and freedoms. In this way, they confirm the elements of their statehood and the status of a free kingdom.

However, part of the Slavonian nobility chose, as well as part of the Hungarian nobility, Duke Ivan Zapolje as their king of Transylvania.

Due to that, a civil war broke out which would last until Zapolje's death in 1540.

During this time, the Ottomans from Bosnia constantly attacked and captured Jajce in 1528 as the first line of defense of Croatia, and in 1532 the majority of the army moved towards Vienna. They were stopped near Kiseg in western Hungary by a Croat, Nikola Jurišić.

In 1536, Požega, the main pillar of the defense of Slavonia, fell, and the following year Klis, a hitherto invincible fortress in the defense of southern Croatia and Dalmatia.

In the Habsburg Monarchy, the Croats preserved their self-government, ie the Parliament as a representative of the state-legal individuality of the Croatian kingdom, the ban at the head of the government, but in constant wars they lost a large part of their historical, national territory, especially in eastern Slavonia and Danube region. Lika, Krbava and its former capitals, eg Knin.

Venice occupied the cities of Split, Zadar, Šibenik and others, so only Dubrovnik was free, but in 1526 he also had to recognize the Ottoman supremacy and pay an annual tax.

At that time, Croatia, together with Hungary, was a outpost, a defender of Central Europe, and a part of its territory on the border was called the Military Border, or the border under direct military administration from Graz and Vienna.

Hundreds of thousands of Croats were taken by the Turks and sold as slaves in the East, and a large number of Croats fled to Austrian lands: to Hungary, Italy, the Czech Republic, and even today their remains live there as Burgenland, Hungarian, Slovak, Moravian, Romanian and Italian. (Molise) Croats. At their hearths, first the Ottomans, and then the generals of the Military Frontier, settled thousands of non-Slavic Vlach cattle breeders and a small number of Serbs.

Thus, Croatia lost parts of its territory and more than half of its population.

The former parts of Croatian territory then belonged to the three great powers of the time, Habsburg Austria, then the part occupied by the Ottomans and the coastal belt ruled by the Venetians.

Thus, the Croatian state territory was under the administration of Constantinople, Venice and Vienna, which managed the Military Border through its generals, but still recognized Croatia's status as a kingdom.

The Habsburgs gathered a large army and in 1537 sought to liberate Slavonia, but their general Ivan Katzianer was severely defeated by the Gorjani.

The Ottomans continued their invasions and by 1552 conquered Moslavina, Virovitica, Čazma and reached the westernmost point, the river Česma. Here the border stabilized.

The Croats built the fortress of Sisak for defense, and the Uskoks who left Klis were fortified in the sea in Senj.

In 1556, the Ottoman Turks captured Kostajnica, called the "Gate of Croatia". In the next two decades, Croatia loses Banovina and instead of the Una, the last line of defense passes to the Cup, where the Sisak fortress dominates.

In these anti-Turkish wars, all the weight of the fight was borne by Croatian nobles and nobles, especially Zrinski, Frankopani, Erdődyji and others. With their perseverance and heroism, they often surprised both the Turkish and Austrian sides and achieved notable victories that gave strength for new battles.

However, the heroic resistance of Nikola Šubić Zrinski in Siget (in Hungary) when he held and exhausted a huge Ottoman force in 1566 and saved Vienna, amazed Europe at the time. Therefore, he was given the flattering name "Croatian Leonidas", and today both Croats and Hungarians consider him their national hero.

In 1573, a peasant revolt broke out on the neighboring Stubica estate due to the increase in rents and terror of Franjo Tahi, led by Matija Gubac, who was suffocated in blood.

The Bosnian Sandzak-beg Ferhad Pasha began to conquer the areas between the Una and the Kupa and in the Glina river basin. He won at Budački in 1575 and in 1577 he captured Croatian towns - fortifications: Kladuša, Ostrožac and Zrin, and immediately afterwards Gvozdansko. This is exactly the area that is most incised in central Croatia in the direction of Karlovac, which was immediately built for defense. Only Bihać and its surroundings remained in Croatian hands in the background.

From 1584, the Croatian army also won several battles and announced the end of the Ottoman conquest tide.

When Bosnia became a pashaluq in 1580, the Ottomans tried to expand further on Croatian soil. This was attempted by the Islamized Hasan-pasha Predojević, who decided to occupy Sisak, then the "key to Croatia". He first conquered Bihać, and then built a new Petrinja on the Kupa, to bypass Sisak. The remaining 16,800 km2 of territory was called "the remnants of the remnants of the once glorious Croatian kingdom" (reliquiae reliquiarum olim inclyti regni Croatiae).

However, Predojević failed to take Sisak in 1592 or 1593, but, on the contrary, suffered a catastrophic defeat with his large army at the confluence of the Kupa and Sava rivers, on the "island of Sisak".

It was the greatest victory of the Christian army and a "year of doom" for the Ottoman Turks, especially Islamized Bosnians, and the greatest success of the Croatian ban Tomo Erdődy, who was celebrated by the whole of Catholic Europe.

Sisak then saved central Croatia, especially Zagreb, from conquering and cutting off its territory.

To defend Croatia and Slavonia from constant Ottoman incursions, captaincies were established in Senj, Ogulin, Bihać, Hrastovica, Žumberak, Ivanić, Križevci and Koprivnica, thus covering the area from the sea to the Drava. While the Croats fortified Sisak for defense, the Habsburgs built Karlovac for these purposes (1579). All captaincies in Croatia were soon established as Karlovačka or Hrvatska krajina, and in Slavonia as Varaždinska krajina. Their administration and financing were taken over directly by the Habsburgs, and their generals managed them from Graz and later from Vienna.

It was a whole series, a real system of military fortifications, watchtowers (čardaks) that had a defense, but also a intelligence service. The same is arranged in southern Hungary and Transylvania.

Between Croatia and Slavonian Krajina, in Pokuplje, a belt of fortifications was left under the direct rule of the Croatian ban, so it was called Banska Krajina or today Banovina. Later, there were regiments or regiments of Glina and Petrinja.

The main problem of the Military Frontier was financing, arming, but also the settlement of desolate areas.

Since the military-Krajina administration excluded these areas, more precisely took them away from the power of the Croatian Parliament and the ban, it settled the Vlachs there from the end of the 16th and during the 17th century, to whom it had to give some privileges. Vlach law for Varaždin region. The Vlachs, who were nomads of the Orthodox faith, often protested, and the Austrian administration also used them to put pressure on Croats who sought to preserve their class rights.

Budući pokušaji s prelaskom Vlaha na grkokatoličku vjeru nisu uspjeli, te budući da se Vlasi nisu uklopili u hrvatsko društvo, ostali su "strano tijelo" na području hrvatske države.

Poslije turskog poraza pod Siskom nastavljen je dugogodišnji rat između Habsburgovaca i Osmanlija u kome su djelatno sudjelovali i Hrvati pod svojim banovima. Prvi put su kršćanske snage održale ravnotežu, izborile nekoliko pobjeda, a Žitvanskim mirom 1606. Hrvatskoj su vraćeni Čazma, Petrinja i Moslavina.

Počelo je povlačenje Bošnjana i regresija osmanlijskih napadaja. Bio je to, ujedno, znak Vlasima, koji su dotada masovno sudjelovali u njihovim pohodima, da napuste stranu koja je počela gubiti i počnu brojnije seliti na kršćansku, habsburšku stranu, na hrvatski povijesni prostor.

The lull on the eastern border was used by the Habsburgs for wars in Europe where Croatian nobles, soldiers and frontiersmen had to take part in the Thirty Years' War from 1618 to 1648.

The Zrinski brothers stood out in particular, then the most powerful Croatian nobles and Croatian bans. They, like the whole of Croatia, demanded an offensive in the east and the return of the still occupied Croatian territories, especially after the defeat of the Turks at St. Gothard in 1664. Then the Habsburgs, as victors, made an unfavorable peace with the Ottoman Empire.

Since the peace in Vasvar was signed without the knowledge and participation of the Croats, it was an occasion for the Zrinski brothers to ally with the Hungarian nobles and resist the illegal and centralist actions of the Habsburgs.

So they asked for help from France, Poland, Venice, Turkey, but they were betrayed, soon declared conspirators, and in 1671 Ban Petar Zrinski and Prince Fran Krsto Frankopan, who came to Vienna at the ruler's word, were executed in Wiener Neustadt. (Wiener Neustadt) as traitors, and their vast estates were looted and confiscated. It was the collapse of famous Croatian nobles, as well as the end of their family.

The Ottomans last gathered a huge army in 1683 and surrounded Vienna, but this time it was saved by the Poles. The Turkish army retreated in disorder, followed by Austrians, Hungarians, Croats and others.

The great war for liberation began, in which the entire Croatian people took part, and in the next 15 years the whole of Slavonia, Banovina, Lika, Gacko and Krbava was liberated.

Some military leaders carried out incursions to Sarajevo in Bosnia, and even to Skopje, but had to withdraw due to French attacks on Habsburg possessions in Germany.

Inside the former Ottoman possessions, uprisings of conquered peoples, numerous bandits, and outside the Croatian and Imperial armies broke out.

In these battles, the Franciscan Luka Ibrišimović and in Lika the priest Marko Mesić stood out. They led not only an uprising, but gathered and settled the people in the liberated areas.

In 1699, the whole of Hungary was liberated in Srijemski Karlovci.

The Croatian army returned the occupied part of Slavonia and Srijem, as well as the previously mentioned Banovina-Lika area. Croatia, which temporarily lost four-fifths of its historical territory during the Ottoman conquests, then more than doubled to about 40,000 km2.

At the same time, many Muslims and Islamized Catholics, as well as Greek-Eastern Vlachs, fled to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and from there tens of thousands of Catholic-Croats, the so-called The Šokacs crossed the Sava and settled in Slavonia and the Danube region.

Despite the fact that Venice, as a participant in the war, managed to expand its possessions to the detriment of Croatian historical and ethnic territories in Dalmatia, the opinion of the participants in the event, Pavle Ritter Vitezović, was accepted as "Croatia revived".

Since Charles VI. The Habsburgs did not have a male descendant, there was a possibility of dividing his state. Wanting to prevent this, he sought to secure the throne for his daughter Maria Theresa. The dynasty was assisted in this by the Croatian Parliament, which passed an act called the Pragmatic Sanction which, independently of Hungary, recognizes the female lineage on the throne.

In this way, the Croats, as in 1102 and 1527, acted independently, as a kingdom, and by their own will, not by force, elected a ruler.

The Ugras opposed this, believing that only they could do so on behalf of the Croats. However, in 1715 they still had to admit that the Hungarian Parliament could not interfere in the affairs of the Croatian Parliament.

Maria Theresa waged the Austrian hereditary war against Prussia in which the Croats stood out under the leadership of Baron Franjo Trenk, and then the Seven Years' War. Croatian frontiersmen took an active part in both wars.

In order to draw as many soldiers as possible from the Military Border, Maria Theresa had the Croatian-Slavonian Military Border (Krajina) reformed during the hereditary war (1746) and reorganized them into regiments and companies. According to historical law, it had to return Slavonia, liberated from the Ottomans, to the rule of the Croatian Parliament and Ban (1745) and restore the ancient Croatian county system.

In domestic politics, Maria Theresa sought to implement the measures of the so-called enlightened absolutism, but it also carried out violent centralization, did not convene the Croatian or Hungarian parliaments, and managed, like her son Joseph II, patents or interim orders.

Although it did a lot in the field of education, economy, and even introduced urban planning through which peasant feudal obligations were regulated and facilitated, the Croatian Parliament did not accept Habsburg centralization and Germanization, especially in the time of her son Joseph II. (1780-1790).

CONNECTING CROATS WITH THE KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

After ten years of centralization, Germanization and absolutism of Joseph II. who sought to create a European and German Austria and to deny all the class rights of both Croatia and Hungary, the Croats decided at their parliament to unite as strongly as possible with the Hungarians and thus jointly resist these efforts from Vienna.

The consequence of this was a joint government to which the Croats transferred part of their rights until they liberated themselves from the Ottomans and Venice and thus united all Croatian lands (1790).

It was a temporary move that they took advantage of in Hungary and wanted to impose their language, laws and administration on Croatia soon.

Since then, the political struggle of Croats has begun on two sides: against Hungarian hegemony and Austrian centralism and Germanization. The Croatian people found themselves in the strait between Vienna and Pest and will be so until the collapse of the Austrian Empire (since 1867 the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy) in 1918.

After the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars began, which also affected Croatia. In them, Venice disappeared in 1797, and its possessions on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea were taken over by Austria, so that under the rule of the same crown, Croatia and Slavonia were united with Dalmatia.

In 1805, the French kidnapped these areas from Austria, and in 1809, in a new war, they also occupied Croatia south of the Sava and created the so-called Illyrian provinces that existed until 1813.

Napoleon's army entered Dubrovnik in 1806 to protect it from the plunder of the Russians and Montenegrins, and in 1808 declared that the Republic of Dubrovnik had ceased to exist. After the defeat of Napoleon, all these areas, together with the Bay of Kotor, became part of Austria, so that almost all Croatian lands were part of the same - the Habsburg crown.

Under the influence of the weakening of feudal society after the French Revolution, but also due to the pressures of Germanization and Hungarianization and internal development, rich culture and state-legal tradition, the Croats accelerated their national revival from 1830 to 1848.

Thanks to the efforts of Ljudevit Gaj, and especially Janko Drašković, and the preliminaries of the Bishop of Zagreb Maksimilijan Vrhovec, Croats standardized their literary language and script, started newspapers, modern magazines, established national institutions, rejected official Latin, did not accept the imposed German and Hungarian languages. took into official use only their own - Croatian language.

In this way, they gathered all Croatian lands around Zagreb, influenced the revival of Croats in Dalmatia, Istria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bačka.

The Slovenes partially accepted the ideas of the Illyrian movement, but the Serbs also rejected the neutral Illyrian name and spoke only under the Serbian name and the idea of creating an independent Serbia, and soon the so-called Greater Serbia at the expense of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania.

The revolution of 1848 also affected the Habsburg Monarchy, especially Vienna, Hungary and Croatia.

The Croatian people brought their "Demands", in fact a political program, and Colonel Josip Jelačić was appointed ban. He severed all relations with Hungary, especially rejected the decision on a joint government from 1790, abolished serfdom, and formed an independent Croatian government. At the threat of Hungary he began to prepare for the defense of the country. Since Jelačić was the Croatian ban, the Krajina commander, and as he was appointed governor of Rijeka and Dalmatia, the whole of Croatia gathered around him.

A revolution broke out in Hungary that did not recognize any nation other than the Hungarians, and they threatened the Croats with weapons, so this led to the rapprochement of Croats and Serbs in southern Hungary (Bačka). A real war soon broke out between the Croats and the Hungarians, but only after unsuccessful negotiations and with the consent of the Viennese court.

Jelačić crossed the Drava with the Croatian army, returned Croatian Međimurje, and then entered Hungarian soil, but after several battles he had to fight to defend the court and Austria.

When the Hungarian revolution was broken with the help of the Russians, the new ruler Francis Joseph I declared absolutism imposed on all Austrian hereditary countries but also on the Croats who helped the Habsburgs as well as the Hungarians who started the revolution.

During the existence of absolutism, Jelačić continued to be the ban and sought as much as possible to help Croatia in the economic field and the separation of the Croatian Catholic diocese from the Hungarian church administration.

Zagreb then became a single city and as the archbishop's seat became the capital and integration center of all Croats.

CROATIA IN THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN MONARCHY

After the defeat of Austria in 1859 in Italy, the ruler had to abolish absolutism, restore the constitutional state, and within the Monarchy there was more and more discussion about centralism or federalism.

In 1861, the Croatian Parliament was convened, which demanded the unification of all Croatian lands, ie the entire Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia.

Parliament refused to enter the Vienna Imperial Council, and thus a possible settlement with Austria, and again approached Hungary, but on the condition that they recognize the territorial integrity and equality of Croatia.

That is when modern political parties appeared for the first time, and the idea of an independent Croatian state was presented for the first time (Ante Starčević, Eugen Kvaternik).

Also, for the first time, Serbs came forward demanding the division of state sovereignty with Croats, and their name for the language, their alphabet, Cyrillic as official and more.

After a new defeat in the war against Italy and Prussia in 1866, Austria, as a centralist state, had to establish itself as a dual monarchy: divided into Austria and Hungary, or officially Austro-Hungary.

Since the Croats had their centuries-old rights, state legal individuality and the status of a kingdom, the Croats and Hungarians had to make a special settlement in 1868. At that time, a special act called the Croatian-Hungarian Settlement was issued, recognizing Croats' special legal status and autonomous internal affairs (administration, judiciary, education, religious affairs) and special state symbols and the army (home guard).

Although Croats were not satisfied with this, no other nation in Austria-Hungary had such a status (eg Czechs, Poles, Romanians).

Although the Croatian-Hungarian settlement was not entirely favorable, especially in the field of economy, taxes and transport, the country nevertheless progressed and modernized during the time of Ban Pučanin and the reformer Ivan Mažuranić (1873-1880).

At that time, Austro-Hungary received a protectorate in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the Berlin Congress (1878), so that the entire Croatian people found themselves in one state.

When the Military Frontier or Border was abolished in 1881, parts of it were returned to the Croatian country, whose administrative, political and cultural center was Zagreb, according to historical law.

However, Dalmatia, Boka Kotorska and Istria were still in the Austrian part of the Monarchy, and Rijeka as a port and Međimurje was ruled by Hungary, although the Croatian Parliament worked on the unification of all Croatian lands. It remained so until the collapse of Austro-Hungary.

With the unification of the Military Border in 1881, the number of Serbs in Croatia increased. These were the descendants of the mentioned Vlach cattle breeders who settled in Croatian lands during the Turkish aggressions, and during the 19th century they accepted Serbian nationality due to the same Greek-Eastern religion. They demanded the division of sovereignty with the Croats, as well as cultural and political autonomy. One part of them, at the instigation of Serbia, worked on the separation of the former territories of the Military Frontier and its unification with the Kingdom of Serbia.

It was a well-known Greater Serbia program in which, in addition to parts of Croatia, they included Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Principality of Montenegro, Macedonia, etc. These political and conquest efforts of Serbs and Serbia, also called the so-called by the Serbian question, to this day they have been the cause of instability.

After the Croatian national revival, political parties were formed in Croatia, the strongest of which was the People's Party, led by the famous bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer. This party is working on the educational uplift of Croatia and the gathering of all South Slavs around Zagreb on the basis of the so-called South Slavic ideas or South Slavs.

Since 1861, there has been the Party of Rights, which is for an independent Croatian state and against a settlement with Austria, Hungary or Serbia.

In that political struggle in the triangle between Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade and the effort to unite all Croatian countries in Croatia, the South Slavic idea was strengthened, which was aimed at leaving Austro-Hungary and forming a common state of South Slavs.

The end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century in Croatia took place in anti-Hungarian demonstrations of the Croatian opposition, such as 1883 when illegal Hungarian coats of arms and inscriptions were overthrown in Zagreb, and then the whole of central Croatia was seized by the anti-Hungarian people's movement.

In 1895, Zagreb students burned the Hungarian tricolor as a symbol of Hungarianization.

This was repeated in 1903 by Croatian peasants when another anti-Hungarian people's movement broke out and the Hungarian ban, Count Khuen-Héderváry, resigned.

Since the local Serbs in Zagreb published a pamphlet in their newspaper "Srbobran" in which they announced the war to the destruction of the Croats, the first anti-Serb demonstrations broke out in Zagreb in 1902.

In 1903, the People's Movement actualized the unresolved Croatian question in dual Austro-Hungary.

He was supported by Croats from Dalmatia and Istria, which were part of Austria, and were joined by Slovenes and other Slavic peoples in the Monarchy.

Croatian politicians from Dalmatia, especially Frano Supilo and Ante Trumbić, stood out in this action in support of Croatia.

In 1905, they started the so-called the policy of a "new course", which provided for the gathering of all opposition parties, both Serbs in Croatia and Dalmatia, as well as Hungarians in Hungary and Italians in the Monarchy.

At the end of 1905, Croatian opposition politicians met in Rijeka and published the Rijeka resolution, and immediately afterwards, Serbian politicians published their Zadar resolution in Zadar. They support the policy of a "new course", but demand the recognition of the Serbs as a constituent people.

Immediately afterwards, the Croatian-Serbian coalition was formed, which won a majority in the elections (1906). The most prominent figure of the Coalition was the Croat Frano Supilo, but he was suppressed by a skilful and cunning politician, the Croatian Serb Svetozar Pribicevic, who works in cooperation with the Serbian government in Belgrade and directs the Coalition towards a common state with Serbia.

Serbia, as the victor in the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), significantly expanded its territory and immediately after the clash with Turkey and Bulgaria planned the Sarajevo assassination, which was the reason for World War I in 1914.

Serbia initially fought successfully along the Drina, then in 1915 it was occupied and had to withdraw with the army along with Montenegro to the island of Corfu and Greece, from where in 1917 with Western allies set out to break through the Thessaloniki battlefield, then liberate its territory and conquer ( almost without resistance) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, parts of Croatia and Austro-Hungary.

Most of the opposition politicians, led by Supil and Trumbić, fled in 1914 to Italy, France, England and formed the so-called Yugoslav Committee for the Liberation of the Southern Slavs in Austro-Hungary and for Cooperation with Serbia.

Due to the representation of federalism in the new state, the Board left Supilo and soon died.

Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic wanted to create an enlarged, in fact Greater Serbia and centralist monarchy. Trumbic was lenient in the hope that a new state would be created first, and then its internal organization would be determined.

Austro-Hungary, composed of numerous peoples, disintegrated into constituent parts after the lost war in 1918. Italy, the victor in the war, had a secret 1915 London Agreement that gave it the right to parts of Croatia's Adriatic coast.

CROATIA IN MONARCHIST YUGOSLAVIA

Only the Croatian Parliament, as the bearer of Croatia's historical sovereignty, could decide on the severance of all state-legal relations with Austria-Hungary.

He did so on October 29, 1918, and thus the Transitional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (SHS) was created, with its center in Zagreb.

It was threatened from the west by Italy, which claimed the Croatian Adriatic coast as the winner.

On the other hand, victorious Serbia is advancing with the army, occupying the ally Montenegro, southern Hungary and proposing unification into a centralist monarchy with the Serbian Karadjordjevic dynasty.

The leadership of the State of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, led by a Serb from Croatia, Svetozar Pribićević, and a Slovene, Anton Korošec, agreed to unite and on December 1, 1918, proclaimed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes based in Belgrade.

The unification was accompanied by large protests in Zagreb (December victims). Italy was one of the victorious powers from 1918 to 1924 and took from the Croats (and Slovenes) Istria, the largest Croatian port of Rijeka, until then the capital of Dalmatia, Zadar and the islands (Cres, Lošinj, Lastovo, etc.).

It was a violent decision that was never accepted by the Croatian Parliament and not approved by the majority of the Croatian people. The new state was an undemocratic monarchy with the supremacy of Belgrade, Serbia and their dynasty, in which all non-Serbian peoples were not recognized national rights.

Such a centralist system was legitimized by the Vidovdan Constitution of 1921, which gave the state a new name; Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Higher taxes were levied on non-Serb peoples, most financially was invested in Serbia, and all governments, ministers, generals were (about 90% of them) Serbs and Montenegrins.

While in the first Yugoslavia unitarization and Serbization were carried out, in Istria, Rijeka, Zadar there was a violent, total Italianization since 1922 and fascism which was first resisted by the Istrian Croats (Labin, Praština).

When Croats and some Croatian Serbs united against Belgrade in 1927 and formed the Peasant-Democratic Coalition (Radić-Pribićević), it was an incentive to kill the leaders of the Croatian people in the Belgrade assembly, led by Stjepan Radić in 1928. Vladko Maček takes over the leadership of the HSS.

The following year, King Alexander's direct dictatorship of January 6 was proclaimed. The country was given a new name, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

It was administratively divided into 9 banovinas with the aim of having as many Serbs as possible.

Croatian territory was divided into the Sava and Primorska banovina, and Croatia was deprived of eastern Srijem, Dubrovnik and the Bay of Kotor.

Mass persecutions and massacres of Croats began, so some fled abroad and founded the Croatian Liberation Organization. They were Ustashas, whose main goal was the overthrow of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in fact the Serbian state and the creation of a free Croatia. Their leader was Ante Pavelic. The communists were then in favor of overthrowing that state.

Relations in the country changed after the assassination of King Alexander in 1934 by Macedonian revolutionaries with the help of Croatian Ustashas in Marseilles.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia soon separated from the politics of French and Versailles Europe, turned to fascism, and Croats were increasingly persecuted and killed within the country.

The Croatian Peasant Party gained more and more voters, and in 1939 forced the Belgrade government to allow the establishment of the Banovina of Croatia, which regained its autonomy and partly the attributes of statehood, which it lost by unification in 1918.

The banovina was created by merging the former Sava and Primorska banovina, with the addition of mostly Croatian districts from other banovinas (Brčko, Derventa, Dubrovnik, Fojnica, Gradačac, Ilok, Šid and Travnik). It was "Maček's solution to the Croatian question" and a step towards the federalization of the state, but it was made impossible by II. world war, which then began.

INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA AND WORLD WAR 2

Yugoslavia joined the Triple Alliance on March 25, 1941, but a coup was soon carried out in Belgrade with the help of Britain, annulling that accession.

This was the reason for Germany to attack with the help of its allies (Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria) and break the 12 days of the war in April, and then immediately divide Yugoslavia.

From Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was created, assisted by the mentioned states, especially Italy, which took over a large part of the Croatian coast, several islands and cities, and Hungary from Međimurje.

The Ustashas and their leader Ante Pavelić took power in the Independent State of Croatia. Since they, although a minority in Croatia, with the help of fascist forces still restored the Croatian state, they initially had the support of part of the Croatian people, which was lost after the sale of Dalmatia.

The majority of Croats, who did not want co-operation with Germany and Italy and belonged to Vladko Maček's Croatian Peasant Party, remained neutral.

Another, left-leaning minority, led by communists, some of whom completed Stalinist bloody schooling in Russia, at the same time as the German attack on former ally Russia by Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941, began the fight against fascism.

The first partisan detachment in Europe was founded in Sisak.

The Communists, with the support of England and Russia, began to create their own communist federal state within the future Yugoslavia (AVNOJ, ZAVNOH).

The Ustasha government was somewhat losing the support of the people as it compromised itself by sending troops into battles on the side of Nazi Germany. In addition, by order of Nazi Germany, deportations of opponents of Nazism were sent to concentration camps in occupied Europe, and to concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia (Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška); Jews, Roma, communists, dissidents ...

However, Serbian propaganda later multiplied the number of victims, and it was forbidden to talk about the communist and Chetnik ones until 1990, thus systematically creating an inaccurate picture of the so-called genocide of the Croatian people. Although Draža Mihajlović's Chetnik movement caused massacres of Croats and Muslims in the eastern part of the Independent State of Croatia, because until 1944, the government was held by the Quisling government and Chetniks. And Serbia became the first in Europe to become a "Judenfrei" state, that is, "cleansed" of Jews.

After the capitulation of Italy in 1943, the Croatian people partly joined the partisans, especially in Dalmatia, Istria, the Croatian coast and hinterland, which until then were controlled by Italy, then Croatia along with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia became the center of anti-fascist struggle. Partisans are also crossed by part of the Home Guard and Chetnik units.

With the help of the Russians and the English, the partisans crossed into Serbia, liberated Belgrade and began the final battles for Croatia and Slovenia.

Although the war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945, the Croatian army fought for another week in southern Austria, and then surrendered to the British, who, contrary to the law of war, handed it over to Tito's army. Most were soon killed without trial near Bleiburg and in Slovenia, and the rest were led in death marches around Yugoslavia and killed en masse. On that way of the cross, but also after the post-war liquidations, Croats suffered the most, as in the Ustasha camps (Jasenovac, etc.) mostly political opponents (Chetniks, partisans, communists, anti-fascists) died, and because of racial laws and religious differences also Jews, Serbs and Roma. The only difference was that the liquidations of political opponents were carried out in war until 1945, and those later in peace (even in the mentioned Jasenovac,

According to Bleiburg, for fear of retaliation by partisans and Russians, many Croat and Bosniak civilians, many of whom were also killed without trial, withdrew from revenge, hatred or looting of their property.

CROATIA IN SOCIALIST YUGOSLAVIA

The Communists promised the Croatian and other conquered peoples that they would have their states in a federal Yugoslavia after the war.

Indeed, in 1945, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed, including Croatia and other republics, but the national question was not resolved.

Instead of democracy, there was a dictatorship of a narrow party group led by Josip Broz Tito.

The army, police, and diplomacy were dominated by Serbs and Montenegrins. Pro-Croatian communists were removed or liquidated, such as Andrija Hebrang.

Numerous camps were opened, such as Goli Otok, in which opponents of the communist regime were imprisoned and killed.

Every democratic decision was suspended, the Catholic Church was persecuted, and the Archbishop of Zagreb, Alojzije Stepinac, was sentenced to prison in a rigged trial, and was systematically poisoned. He was one of 442 Catholic priests, nuns, theologians and seminarians who were killed during and after World War II in Croatia and Bosnia by communists or Chetniks.

Croatia, as more economically developed, was heavily exploited in favor of Serbia.

The use of the pure Croatian language was banned, numerous national institutions were abolished, and full equality of nations existed only formally.

When Tito removed Aleksandar Ranković, a Serb from the political life of the covert Greater Serbia program, in 1966, Croatian intellectuals were encouraged, launched a public protest against the imposition of the Serbian language within Matica Hrvatska, and published a Declaration on the Name and Position of Croatian Literature. language in 1967, signed by all the most important Croatian national institutions and public officials, and among them the most prominent Croatian writer of the left orientation, Miroslav Krleža.

The declaration was strongly condemned by party leaders and organizations, but it achieved its goal.

New newspapers and magazines are being launched that demand more freedom, democracy, clean bills in the economy, and even Croatia's membership as a state in the United Nations.

The whole movement, which was called the "Croatian Spring" or the party's "mass movement" (MASPOK), finally resonated with the pro-Croatian members of the Communist Party.

These demands were opposed mainly by Croatian Serbs, orthodox communists, the so-called The Yugoslavs, led by Tito and Vladimir Bakarić, broke the "Croatian Spring" by force at the end of 1971.

At a meeting in Karađorđevo on December 2, 1971, "Croatian nationalism" was condemned, and then the entire leadership of the Communist Party of Croatia (Savka Dabčević-Kučar, Miko Tripalo, etc.) were forced to resign.

The arrest, imprisonment and persecution of thousands of Croats began immediately. Many had to flee abroad.

Thousands of Croats were fired in cultural, scientific and even economic institutions, and Matica hrvatska was dissolved, ostensibly as a nationalist institution. Therefore, the meeting of the leaders of the Communist Party in Karadjordjevo was called the "cutting" of Croatian cadres. The dungeons were full, and some intellectuals spent up to 10 years in them (Marko Veselica et al.). Some Croats were killed by the UDBA (secret police) abroad (Bruno Bušić).

Josip Broz Tito (who was declared 10th on the list of the greatest dictators-murderers of the 20th century) and the Central Committee of the Party carried out purges in both Serbia and Slovenia, but this was not as drastic as in Croatia.

The so-called "Croatian silence". Terror was perpetrated against Croats as political enemies who wanted only fairer relations within Yugoslavia.

The persecution of Croats caused a wave of Greater Serbia mood and demonization of everything Croatian. This was understood by Josip Broz Tito when the data on the Serbization of the Yugoslav People's Army, diplomacy, and all politics in general were decided. That is why he initiated the adoption of the Constitution from 1974, which included the constitutional amendments from 1971. According to that Constitution, parity relations between the republics were introduced, consensus in decision-making, and Kosovo and Vojvodina, until then provinces, received almost the status of republics.

The Socialist Republic of Croatia is defined in that Constitution as a state and a self-governing community.

In the world, such a Yugoslavia was a welcome buffer zone between the Cold War division of the Western and Eastern blocs, as well as a significant representative of non-aligned countries, so none of the countries cared much about the totalitarianism carried out within Yugoslavia.

Yet it was all a dead letter on paper while Tito lived until 1980, and then there was more and more discussion about relations between the republics and about the need for real federalism, even confederalism.

The biggest problem of the other, Tito's Yugoslavia, was the so-called the Kosovo issue.

Kosovo, a province within Serbia, where the Albanian population reached almost 90 percent, demanded a separate republic, and the most radical part secession.

The Serbian, communist leadership, led by Slobodan Milosevic, does not allow that, but responds to Greater Albanian nationalism and separatism by reviving Greater Serbia, Chetnik programs with the slogan: "All Serbs in one state." The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) has been working on this since 1986, and since 1987, Milosevic's communists and the Serbian Orthodox Church. The roots of this Greater Serbia idea have existed for about a hundred years.

First, the autonomies of the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina were abolished (Anti-bureaucratic revolution), then the leadership of Montenegro was obtained, and in 1989, when Kosovo celebrated the 600th anniversary of the Serbian defeat against the Ottomans, Slobodan Milosevic openly announced a Greater Serbia program assistance of Montenegro and the Yugoslav People's Army to be obtained by grace or force.

So, since then, two western republics have been endangered, ie Bosnia and Herzegovina, where about one third of Serbs lived, and Croatia, where that number was about 12 percent.

The announcement of the Greater Serbia program, which was also a threat to the former multinational Yugoslavia, took place at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, and the beginning of the disintegration of multinational states such as the USSR and Czechoslovakia in 1989.

CROATIAN INDEPENDENCE AND GREAT SERBIAN AGGRESSION

In the late 1980s, the Serbian national movement led by Slobodan Milosevic sought to transform Yugoslavia into a formal federal but centralist state (it launched the so-called anti-bureaucratic revolution, which overthrew the republican and provincial leaderships).

In such circumstances, the League of Communists of Croatia decided to democratize the system, which encouraged freedom of the press and the emergence of independent political initiatives, and in 1989 the first opposition political parties (Croatian Social Liberal Party - HSLS, Croatian Democratic Union - HDZ).

At the end of 1989, a reformist current prevailed in the SKH leadership, which led to a decision on multi-party elections and to the full independence of the SKH at the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the SKJ in January 1990.

In the multi-party elections in the spring of 1990, the HDZ, led by Franjo Tudjman, won. He led a mass national movement aimed at Croatian state independence and abandoning the communist order.

In December 1990, a new democratic constitution was adopted, followed by a referendum on the state position of the Republic of Croatia (19 May 1991), the Declaration on the Proclamation of the Sovereign and Independent Republic of Croatia (25 June 1991) and the Decision to Terminate State Relations with other republics and provinces of the SFRY (October 8, 1991). This decision was also made by Slovenia.

Serbia responded to Croatia's political and state independence with open aggression against Croatia.

In late July and August 1990, the Serb leadership incited a political and military uprising of Serbs in Croatia (the Serb Serb Parliament, the so-called referendum on Serb autonomy in Croatia and the creation of the Serb Autonomous Region of Krajina, the erection of roadblocks, the creation of armed guards, the declaration of war). situation "in Knin) and sending weapons and personnel from Serbia to Croatia with the aim of ethnic cleansing of the conquered territory within the so-called. Greater Serbia, all the way to the imaginary line on the route Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag.

In July 1991, the so-called JNA (Yugoslav People's Army), then the 4th largest military force in Europe, launched an open aggression against the Republic of Croatia, aided by some rebel Serbs in Croatia and terrorist groups from Serbia (territorial defense), organized by Slobodan Milosevic.

One third of Croatian territory was occupied, during which ethnic cleansing of Croats and non-Serb peoples was carried out, with massacres of many civilians and the demolition of Croatian houses and religious buildings.

Vukovar, which was located near the border with Serbia, suffered the most, but due to the fierce three-month resistance of Croatian defenders, the Yugoslav army and local Serbian rebels suffered huge losses in manpower and equipment. This has contributed to Croatia arming itself, albeit under a UN embargo on arms imports, with the help of Croatian emigrants or the occupation of Yugoslav Army barracks.

The revenge of the Serbs after the capture of Vukovar was frightening. Thousands of war veterans and Croatian civilians were brutally killed or taken to concentration camps in Serbia. Croatia is still searching for over a thousand missing people.

Other Croatian settlements and towns were also severely damaged. Dubrovnik was also attacked. 402 children were killed.

Croatia was forced to respond not only by military (defensive Homeland War) but also by political and diplomatic activities.

At the beginning of August 1991, a coalition government of democratic unity was established and all Croatian political forces were united.

In the fight for international recognition, Croatia participated in the work of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia, which has been operating in The Hague since September 1991, under the chairmanship of Lord Peter Carrington.

Following the opinion of its Arbitration Commission (December 7, 1991) that the SFRY was "in the process of disintegration", Croatia was recognized by EU countries on January 15, 1992, and admitted to the UN on May 22.

The aggression of Serbia was extended at the beginning of 1992 to BiH, where after the withdrawal from the barracks on the territory of Slovenia and Croatia, large forces of the Yugoslav Army were stationed, strengthened by territorial defense from Serbia and local Serbs.

Croatia assisted the resistance of Croats in BiH and their alliance with Bosniaks in armed defense, and took care of numerous refugees from BiH. Along with the expelled Croats from the occupied territories in Croatia, Croatia found itself in a difficult situation.

Since the beginning of the conflict between Croat and Bosniak forces in central Bosnia in early 1993, over defense against a common enemy, the Serbs, the Washington Accords (March 18, 1994), signed by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and BiH Presidency President Alija Izetbegovic, and agreements on the Croat-Bosniak federation, the conflict between Croats and Bosniaks ended, and the basis for ending the war was created.

In July 1995, in the area of Srebrenica and surrounding towns in eastern BiH, the genocide of Serbs against Bosniaks was committed, even though it was a UN-protected area .

Through negotiations and wider diplomatic actions, Croatia sought to resolve the issue of the occupied territories, but to no avail, as rebel forces rejected all its and international initiatives, seeking to turn the occupation into a permanent state with the help of the UN peacekeeping force (UNPROFOR). In the military operations "Flash" (May 1-2, 1995) and "Storm" (August 4-7, 1995), Croatian forces liberated most of the previously occupied area, and the rest of the Danube region was peacefully reintegrated with the help of UN Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES) in the period from the beginning of 1996 to January 1998 (Erdut Agreement).

Croatia, as the winner of the war, by the decision of President Franjo Tudjman, abolished the rebel Serbs from Croatia, if they did not commit a war crime.

CONTEMPORARY CROATIA

After lengthy negotiations, Croatia was admitted to the Council of Europe on 6 November 1996 as its 40th full member.

In December 1999, the first president, Franjo Tudjman, died.

2000 Croatia joins NATO's Partnership for Peace program.

In 2000, Croatia became a member of the World Trade Organization, and in 2003 it joined the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA).

The Stabilization and Association Agreement was signed with the European Union in October 2001, and the application for EU membership was submitted in February 2003.

In June 2004, Croatia received the status of a candidate for membership in the European Union, and in early October 2005 it began accession negotiations.

Croatia became a NATO member on April 1, 2009.

Following the successful completion of accession negotiations, the Treaty of Accession of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union was signed on 9 December 2011, and on 1 July 2013 Croatia became a member of the European Union.

MY SUPPLEMENT AND ATTITUDES:

- The anti-fascist movement is not the same as the communist movement. Although communism in socialist Yugoslavia appropriated anti-fascism and the partisan movement as its sole act and thus covered up crimes committed in the name of communism in order to deal with opponents of the communist regime and cover up the looting of undue property.

The anti-fascist struggle aimed to overthrow the criminal German Nazi and Italian fascist occupying powers.

By the decision of the Council of Europe, communism was classified, along with Nazism and fascism, in the totalitarian criminal regimes of the 20th century (Council of Europe Resolution 1481/2006 of 2006).

- The defensive Homeland War was honorable and aimed at defending Croatian territory from the Greater Serbia Milosevic policy that supported the Greater Serbia idea and the occupation of Croatian territory. The so-called The Yugoslav People's Army, composed of Serb and Montenegrin commanders and soldiers reinforced by territorial defense from Serbia, as well as part of the rebel Croatian Serbs.

I will emphasize that not all Serbs participated in or supported the aggression against the Republic of Croatia, as did not all members of the Serb minority in Croatia. Some Serbs were forced to take part in the uprising at the cost of their lives (some were killed by their compatriots because they did not want to shoot at their neighbors and friends until yesterday).

About 10,000 Croats of Serbian nationality took part in the defense of the Republic of Croatia from the criminal Greater Serbia policy.

As in all wars, so in this honorable defensive Homeland War there were individual crimes by individuals from the ranks of the Croats. These criminals were brought to justice and convicted by the Croatian judiciary as war criminals. Although there were also unjust condemnations of honorable people for command responsibility.

On the other hand, the Republic of Serbia refuses to arrest and convict many war criminals who are still hiding in Serbia. Although a small number of criminals were arrested and sentenced to symbolic punishments. It also refuses to cooperate in uncovering the remains of missing Croats, as well as denying its responsibility and role in the aggression against the Republic of Croatia.