Croatia

Croatian: Hrvatska

Croatia

The toponym and the associated ethnonym are of non-Slavic, possibly Iranian, origin. According to the source *De administrando imperio*, written by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII (905–959) around 950, the Croats migrated during the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641), probably from the Carpathian region.

Croatia combines, both geographically and culturally, Central European and Mediterranean characteristics and influences. Its neighbouring countries are Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It covers an area of 56,542 square kilometres. Its horseshoe-shaped outline is unusual, resulting from the long, wedge-shaped course of the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. This stems from centuries of conflict between the Hungarian kings, and later Austria and Venice, and the Ottomans. To the west, Croatia is bordered by the long Adriatic coastline.

The official division of the country into županije (counties; historically corresponding to the Hungarian komitat, today roughly equivalent to a German administrative district or Landkreis) is based on functional, geographical and historical criteria. In terms of landscape, Croatia is divided into four major natural regions or cultural spheres:

1. Central Croatia, which links the country’s two ‘arms’ in the north-east (Slavonia) and south (Dalmatia) and, in parts, still features a subalpine low-mountain landscape. Here, at the foot of the Zagorje ( mountainous region), lies the capital, Agram/Zagreb. Baroque towns such as Warasdin/Varaždin and Karlstadt/Karlovac, aristocratic estates and even the cuisine reflect Central European influences. Beyond the Drau (Croatian: Drava), stretching towards the Mur (Croatian: Mura), lies the formerly Hungarian region of Međumurje, with its centre at Csakathurn/Čakovec.

2. Slavonia is the name given to the region between the rivers Drava and Danube (Podravlje and Podunavlje) and the Sava (Posavina), running along the border with Hungary. The old trading, garrison and industrial town of Esseg/Osijek is regarded as the de facto ‘capital’, situated some distance from the bishop’s seat in Diakowar/Đakovo. Baranja begins on the northern outskirts of Esseg, whilst to the east lies the sub-region of Western Syrmia, with its capital Wukowar/Vukovar near the Danube. To the west, Slavonia is geographically bounded roughly by the Ilova. This area constituted the main settlement area of the German minority. Between the river valleys runs a ridge of low mountain ranges (e.g. Papuk), which in turn enclose the Požega Basin. Compared with the south of Croatia, Slavonia is considered to be densely forested and has been home to related industries since the 19th century (Belišče). Above all, however, this region is known for being flat and fertile, particularly the loess soils in the east (Eastern Slavonia, Đakovština, Syrmia). Important international land transport routes run along the Sava, mostly in an east-west direction. In the past, however, it was the Drava and the Danube that connected these three historic regions of eastern Croatia with the more northerly centres of the Habsburg Monarchy. Compared with neighbouring regions, however, the river systems also proved to be a limiting factor, partly due to marshes (Kopački rit in the Danube-Drava triangle) and steep banks (Ilok), and with only a few notable crossings (Esseg), which certainly contributed to this part of Europe standing apart from the centres of power in the Pannonian Plain as far back as late antiquity. The Danube Swabian farming settlements on the Hungarian bank of the Danube (e.g. around Apatin, now in Serbia) were also separated from the German-speaking town of Esseg by the river and a marsh. It was not until 1910 that a railway bridge was completed downstream at Erdut.

The following regions are of less significance for the history of the German minorities in Croatia:

3. Istria is the peninsula in the far north-west of the country. Whilst mining (Labin) and the naval base at Pola/Pula, for example, were once of significance, tourism – which is currently the country’s most important source of income – transformed this region into what is now arguably the most prosperous in Croatia over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. Its proximity to Austria and Germany was a key factor in this development. In keeping with a Habsburg tradition, the official administrative centre is Pazin (formerly Mitterburg), though the de facto centre is Pula, situated almost at the southern tip of the peninsula.

4. Dalmatia comprises the strip of land that narrows towards the south, encompassing most of the Croatian coastline and the majority of the islands, as well as the most karstified hinterland (limestone mountains), including the Velebit and Dinara ranges. Enclosed within the karst mountains are fertile plains known as the poljes. Geographically, the coastline is divided by several tributaries, of which the Neretva, flowing from neighbouring Herzegovina, is the most significant. Historically, Zadar can be regarded as the capital of Dalmatia; however, Split has grown to become Croatia’s second-largest city due to an influx of people. Unlike the Central European regions of Central Croatia and Slavonia, Istria and Dalmatia have been shaped culturally, economically and thus anthropogeographically by the ‘Mediterranean world’. In addition to the urban settlements dating from antiquity, this encompasses the crisis and the relative decline in the region’s significance after 1500, as well as more recent trends such as mass tourism and coastal development.

The ‘geographical’ perception and division of Croatia that is common today draws on the historical ‘territories’ of the early modern period; however, it does not always correspond exactly with these or with later boundary demarcations. For example, within the region of ‘Dalmatia’ – roughly corresponding to the former Austrian Crown Land – the city-state of Dubrovnik existed for centuries. From a historical and constitutional perspective,‘Slavonia’also included Syrmia right up to the gates of Belgrade, whilst the Margraviate of Istria extended much further north during the Austrian period. As a port and shipbuilding city, Rijeka enjoyed a degree of self-government as a corpus separatum prior to 1918.

As the constitutional predecessor of the Republic of Croatia (1941/1991) – or, rather, as the nucleus of its statehood – the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, with Agram as its capital, can be regarded as such prior to 1918 within the framework of the Hungarian half of the Habsburg Monarchy. It comprised Central Croatia, part of the coast (the Primorje), Syrmia and‘Slavonia’, that is to say the two historical counties (županije) of Virovitica (south of the Drava, with its seat at Esseg) and Poschega/Požega (north of the Sava). Linguistically, German played a certain role in the towns, whilst Italian did so on the coast for a long time; however, the religious dominance of the Catholics was unambiguous. The main historical settlement areas of the Serbian and Orthodox minority, who had come to the country during the ‘Turkish Wars’, were located in the so-called ‘military districts’ – which were dissolved in 1878 – that is, in the border region with the Ottoman Empire.

The German minority, sometimes referred to as ‘Swabian’, lived not only in the second-largest town, Esseg (where they still constituted the majority of the population in 1900), in around 100 somewhat scattered settlements in Slavonia (on the Ilova, along the Drava, around Esseg and Diakowar, near Poschega) and Syrmia. These regions were structurally shaped by the development of the countryside following the end of Ottoman rule in 1699, although this had been carried out somewhat less ‘systematically’ than the central government’s investment projects in southern Hungary. It was particularly during this period (the 18th and 19th centuries) that settlements of Czech, Hungarian, Slovak, Ukrainian and Italian immigrants also sprang up in the neighbourhood. Similarly, some German-speaking Jews from Hungary moved to many towns; among rural areas, Slavonia had the highest proportion of Jewish inhabitants in Croatia, whilst among towns, Esseg had the highest (approximately eight per cent in 1910). Protestants were initially only permitted to settle in the military districts, but this changed as a result of further immigration during the 19th century. Both the German and Hungarian minorities were predominantly Catholic, but each had significant Protestant minorities, which in some places constituted the majority.

The German minority was most heavily concentrated in Baranja; in this micro-region, they even constituted the majority of the population at times until their expulsion. As early as the 18th century, this area had acquired its own distinct socio-historical character through the Darda and Belje estates or domains; in terms of constitutional law, it belonged to Hungary before 1918 and between 1941 and 1945, and from 1918 to 1941 it was governed from Neusatz/Novi Sad. In the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Syrmia continued to exist after 1918 as an ‘oblast’ ( region) until 1929, whilst the Slavonian counties were merged to form the Osijek Oblast. In 1929, the Sava Banat was formed from Slavonia and Central Croatia. The establishment of the autonomous Banat of Croatia in 1939 was based on ethnic criteria and therefore also included the Croatian-populated parts of Syrmia. The so-called ‘Independent State of Croatia’ was divided into Velike Župe (large municipalities, in the sense of districts) between 1941 and 1945: ‘Vuka’ essentially corresponded to Syrmia; the northern part of Slavonia around Esseg was called ‘Baranja’; the southern areas were merged with parts of Bosnia to form Livac i Zapolje and Posavina. Whilst during the socialist era it was primarily the municipalities (and republics) that were of significance, a radically altered ‘županije’ administrative structure was reintroduced after 1991.

Slavonia, Syrmia

Parts of Croatia were under the direct influence of Western civilisation for longer than Central Europe. From the Illyrian campaigns of 168 BC at the latest, large parts of what is now Croatia belonged to the Roman Empire. In 395, the territory of Croatia was assigned to the western half of the empire. Following the Migration Period and the Avar invasions, the Franks advanced into this region around 800. According to Einhard, the realm of Charlemagne (747/748–814) encompassed Istria, Pannonia and Dalmatia. Christianisation, initially carried out from Split, later took place from Aquileia and established a Roman Catholic tradition. In Dalmatia and Istria, the use of the Slavic language in the Mass persisted alongside Latin for a long time, in some cases until the Second Vatican Council established Croatian as the official language. The Slavonic Missal, as well as various documents, were occasionally preserved in their own alphabet, the Glagolitic script, right up until the 19th century. Not least because of the importance of Italian in the coastal regions, the preservation of this tradition took on national symbolic significance.

As is well known, it became common practice in 19th-century Europe to legitimise national ideals and objectives by referring to the duration and geographical extent of historical statehood. It was not uncommon for medieval personal unions and territorial states to be attributed an ethnic-cultural agenda which they had not in fact possessed. Older Croatian historiography cites a papal source from 876 which mentions a ‘Dux Chroatvrum’ named Branimir. This title had already been held by one of his predecessors, Trpimir, founder of the Trpimirovci dynasty, who, however, is still described as a Frankish vassal. The centre of the Croatian principality of Domagoj (c. 870) lay in Dalmatia and its hinterland; it is also associated with a distinct early Romanesque style in architecture and sculpture in that region. It was not until Tomislav (d. c. 928), who was crowned king in 925, that his realm was extended as far as Pannonia. Since the 19th century, the Croatian kings and the symbols associated with them (e.g. interlaced ornamentation) have become over-used points of reference for the national movement.

Following the death of the last of the Trpimirovci, Zvonimir (d. 1089), an assembly of the nobility elected the Hungarian king as his successor in 1102. The constitutional and dynastic union between Croatia and Hungary, which stemmed from this agreement (pacta conventa), continued to exist even during the reign of the House of Habsburg. This period lasted from 1526 to 1918, during which the ‘Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia’ was always counted among the lands of the Hungarian Crown. Croatia thus corresponded to the model of an East Central European noble nation, which was constituted in the assembly of the nobility and estates, the Sabor (parliament). The Croatian viceroys bore the title of Ban until 1918. As a result of the expansion of Venice and the Ottomans, the centre of gravity – and indeed the name – of this territory shifted northwards, with Agram/Zagreb serving as its political centre from the 16th century onwards.

Slavonia, on the other hand, had fallen under Ottoman rule following the Battle of Mohács. Many Catholics emigrated. It was not until the ‘Turkish Wars’ from 1683 onwards that it was conquered by the Habsburg troops under Prince Eugene (1663–1736). The so-called Military Frontier was established along the border with the Ottoman Empire. This territory was directly subordinate to the Austrian central authorities, specifically the Court War Council in Vienna, whilst the municipalities were self-governing. Following the Treaty of Karlowitz/Sremski Karlovci in 1699, the feudal system was re-established in ‘civil’ Slavonia (from 1745). The construction of the Baroque fortified town of Esseg was part of the Habsburgs’ absolutist territorial development programme (1712–1721); in 1809, Esseg was granted the status of a royal free town. In 1878, neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina was occupied by the Habsburg Empire and the Military Frontier was dissolved.

Following the transformation of the Austrian Empire into the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy in 1867, Budapest pursued the aim of transforming the Hungarian half of the empire into a Magyar nation state. Although the constitutional status of Croatia-Slavonia was enshrined in the ‘Small Compromise’, the nagodba, of 1868, it was also the subject of fierce disputes. Within the national movement amongst Croatian intellectuals, there were competing concepts: on the one hand, there was a belief in the cultural unity of the South Slavs, at least within the Monarchy (Yugoslavism, advocated, for example, by Josip Strossmayer [1815–1905]); on the other hand, the historical state rights of Croatia were emphasised (ideologised above all by Ante Starčević [1823–1896]). It is difficult to ascertain how widespread these ideas were amongst the population due to the census suffrage system. In 1910, the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia had a total population of 2,261,954 – compared with 18,264,533 in Hungary – of whom 1,877,833 were Catholics. According to calculations by Mario Bara and Ivan Lajić, 670,741 people lived in‘Slavonia’(including the western parts of Syrmia and Baranja), of whom 351,218 were Croats, 119,833 Serbs and 84,492 Germans.^{[1] The} largest town in this area was Esseg with 31,388 inhabitants; Agram had 79,038 inhabitants.

On 29 October 1918, the Sabor terminated the constitutional union with Austria-Hungary. The ‘State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs’ was formed from the South Slavic territories of the Habsburg Monarchy. On 1 December 1918, this was united with Serbia to form the ‘Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes’. The Croatian Peasants’ Party under Stjepan Radić (1871–1921), which had opposed this move, emerged as the dominant political force following the introduction of universal suffrage. In 1928, Radić was assassinated in the Belgrade Parliament; on 6 January 1929, an authoritarian regime – the ‘royal dictatorship’ – was established, and the country was renamed ‘Yugoslavia’. In the 1930s, the country moved closer to the ‘Third Reich’. In 1939, the Croatian settlement areas were united into an autonomous ‘Banate of Croatia’. When Yugoslavia joined the German-Italian alliance in return for assurances of neutrality, a pro-Allied officers’ coup took place on 27 March 1941.

Adolf Hitler therefore decided to occupy Yugoslavia, together with Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria, and to dismantle it politically. As the Chair of the Croatian Peasants’ Party, Vlatko Maček (1879–1964), refused to collaborate, the leadership of the ‘Independent State of Croatia’ – proclaimed on 10 April 1941 – was placed in the hands of the Ustaše under Ante Pavelić (1889–1959) – until then a far-right splinter party in Italian exile. The new state also encompassed the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina and thus many areas where Croats were no longer in the majority. Serbs and – following the German model – Jews and Roma were persecuted and murdered, including at the notorious Jasenovac concentration camp. The Communist-led Partisans under Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) grew in popularity in Croatia, particularly as they proclaimed Croatia in 1943 to be a separate constituent republic of a future Yugoslavia.

After the end of the war in 1945, the Communists carried out bloody acts of revenge against their former opponents (the Bleiburg massacre). The Catholic Church viewed the new socialist Yugoslavia with suspicion due to its collaboration during the Second World War. In 1948, a rift developed between Tito and Stalin (1878–1953); as a ‘non-aligned state’, Yugoslavia henceforth sought ‘its own path to socialism’. In the first free elections in 1990, the ‘Croatian Democratic Union’ emerged victorious, leading the country to independence in 1991 following a referendum. During the ensuing war, the Serb-majority areas and mixed-population regions of eastern Croatia remained initially under occupation by the Yugoslav Army and were only recaptured in 1995 or incorporated through ‘peaceful reintegration’ under a UN mandate. Croatia is now a member of NATO and, since 2013, of the EU as well.

Immigrants from German-speaking regions have lived in Croatia, particularly in certain towns, since the Middle Ages, and even more so after 1526. However, the German population mainly immigrated during the 18th and 19th centuries. A distinction must be made between at least three social groups: 1. noble families; 2. the urban population, particularly in the imperial fortress of Esseg, to a lesser extent in Agram, and sporadically in other towns as well; this group included civil servants, soldiers, craftsmen and labourers, as well as German-speaking Jews; 3. the rural so-called‘Danube Swabians’, who lived as craftsmen and farmers scattered across several dozen villages as well as in certain districts of towns such as Esseg, Vukovar and Winkowitz’/Vinkovci. Unlike in southern Hungary, the state played only a minor role in immigration during the 18th century; the initiative came primarily from the local nobility. However, the majority did not immigrate from Germany but from Hungary in the 19th century (partly due to the capitalisation of land acquisition); a small group came from Bohemia.

The Catholic faith led to the intermingling of the German and Croatian populations and, to a large extent, to assimilation – before 1918, the Church, the administration and, to a large extent, the schools were characterised by Croatian influence. National mobilisation among the Germans did not reach the Croatian territories until late: following initial beginnings from 1906 onwards, such tendencies first took root in the 1920s within a few bourgeois associations in Esseg. However, it was not until the early 1930s that local branches of the Kulturbund – which was so active in Vojvodina – were established. At that time, following intervention by the German Reich, German primary school departments were also set up in Croatia. When disputes arose within the Kulturbund from 1934 onwards between German nationalists and National Socialist ‘reformers’, the ‘Cultural and Welfare Association’ was founded in 1935 as a rival organisation under Branimir Altgayer (1897–1950) was founded as a rival organisation. In 1939, with Berlin’s support, the ‘reformers’ prevailed within the Kulturbund, which had been brought into line with Nazi policy.

During the Second World War, Altgayer became the leader of the ‘German Ethnic Group in the Independent State of Croatia’, an organisation ideologically committed to National Socialism and granted extensive ‘rights of autonomy’ (including the education system, etc.). Whilst separate military units were initially formed within Croatia, from 1942/43 conscripts were transferred or drafted into the Waffen-SS. Even during the war, from 1943 onwards, more and more German villages had to be evacuated due to the partisan war. These people were initially concentrated in Eastern Slavonia; in October 1944, the vast majority (around 80 per cent) were evacuated to Germany. By decree of 23 November 1944, the Germans, with a few exceptions, were collectively dispossessed and interned in camps, apparently in preparation for their expulsion to Germany or Austria. As the Allies did not approve of this plan, some of the Danube Swabians remained detained in camps in Yugoslavia until as late as 1948. Those who remained did not leave the country until the early to mid-1950s. Today, very few Germans remain in Croatia; according to the 2011 census, there were 2,965.^[2]

• Carl Bethke: German and Hungarian Minorities in Croatia and Vojvodina, 1918–1941. Concepts of Identity and Ethnopolitical Mobilisation. Wiesbaden 2009 (Balkanological Publications 47).
• Ibid.: (No) Common Language? – Aspects of the History of German–Jewish Relations in Slavonia, 1900–1945. Münster 2013 (Studies on the History, Culture and Society of South-Eastern Europe 12).
• Neven Budak (ed.): Croatia. Regional Studies, History, Culture, Politics, Economy, Law. Vienna 1995 (Austrian Eastern Studies 37; special issue).
• Ivo Goldstein: Croatia. A History. London 1999.
• Hannes Grandits: Family and Social Change in Rural Croatia (18th–20th Centuries). Vienna 2002 (Studies on South-Eastern Europe 2).
• Károly Kocsis, András Bognár (eds.): Etnička karta Panonskog prostora Hrvatske = Ethnic Map of the Pannonian Region of Croatia. Budapest 2003.
• Ivan Lajić, Mario Bara: Wars, Colonisation and the National Structure of Slavonia in the 20th Century. Zagreb 2009.
• Reinhard Lauer (ed.): Croatia. Culture – Language – Literature. Göttingen 2005 (Treatises of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. Philological-Historical Class 271).
• Branka Magas: Croatia through History. The Making of a European State. London et al. 2007.
• Vlado Obad: Roda Roda and German-language Literature from Slavonia. Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 1996.
• Sabrina Ramet: The Three Yugoslavias. A History of State Formation and its Problems. Munich 2011 (South-Eastern European Studies 136).
• Sabrina P. Ramet, Konrad Clewing, Reneo Lukić (eds.): Croatia since Independence. War, Politics, Society, Foreign Relations. Munich 2008 (Southeast European Studies 131).
• Krešimir Regan (ed.): Hrvatski povijesni atlas [Croatian Historical Atlas]. Zagreb 2003.
• Mirjana Stančić: Buried Literature: German-language Poetry in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia from 1800 to 1945. Vienna et al. 2013 (Literary History in Studies and Sources 22).
• Ludwig Steindorff: Croatia. From the Middle Ages to the Present Day. Regensburg 2001 (Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. History of Countries and Peoples).
• Holm Sundhaussen: The Germans in Croatia-Slavonia and Yugoslavia. In: Günter Schödl (ed.): Land on the Danube. Berlin 1995 (German History in Eastern Europe), pp. 291–348.
• Arnold Suppan: The Croats. In: Adam Wandruszka, Peter Urbanitsch (eds.): The Habsburg Monarchy 1848–1918. Vol. III/l. Vienna 1980, pp. 626–733.
• Joachim Weber: Croatia. Regional Development and Processes of Transformation. Stuttgart 2002 (Proceedings of the Geographical Society of Hamburg 92).

• Časopis za suvremenu povijest [Journal of Contemporary History], Zagreb.
• Yearbook of the German National Minority Association, Osijek.
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• Review of Croatian History, Zagreb.
• Scrinia Slavonica, Slavonski Brod.

• www.nsk.hr (Croatian National Library)
• hrcak.srce.hr/?lang=en (Hrčak. Portal of scientific journals of Croatia – articles from Croatian scientific journals since around 1991 available for free download)
• bib.irb.hr/index.html?lang=EN (Croatian Scientific Bibliography)
• www.znaci.net/ (Digitised literature and sources on the Second World War)
• anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?apm=0&aid=apz (Digitised volumes of the ‘Agramer Zeitung’ held by the Austrian National Library, 1841–1912)

[1] Lajić, Bara: Wars, Colonisation and the National Structure of Slavonia in the 20th Century, p. 182.

[2] State Institute for Statistics: Population by nationality by town/municipality: www.dzs.hr/Hrv/censuses/census2011/results/htm/H01_01_04/h01_01_04_RH.html. (Accessed: 26 June 2014).

Carl Bethke: Croatia. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2014. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32615 (accessed 9 February 2021).