Serbs of Croatia

Overview

Traditional elements of identity are the Orthodox faith, Cyrillic script and military history, while modern elements are language and literature, civic, social and political values, concern for ethnic status and national organisation, and celebration of the Liberation of Yugoslavia.

According to the 2011 census there were 186,633 ethnic Serbs living in Croatia, 4.4% of the total population. Their number was reduced by more than two thirds in the aftermath of the 1991–95 War in Croatia as the 1991 pre-war census had reported 581,663 Serbs living in Croatia, 12.2% of the total population.

Middle Ages

According to De Administrando Imperio (960s), the Serbs settled in parts of modern-day Croatia during the rule of Heraclius (610–626) and soon formed a Serbian state which stretched across parts of modern-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia. The lands of Pagania, Zachumlia and Travunia (which encompassed Dalmatia, roughly south of modern Split) were inhabited by Serbs. According to the Royal Frankish Annals (821–822), Duke of Pannonia Ljudevit Posavski fled, during the Frankish invasion, from his seat in Sisak to the Serbs in western Bosnia, who controlled a great part of Dalmatia ("Sorabos, quae natio magnam Dalmatiae partem obtinere dicitur"). The event would have taken place during the rule of either Radoslav or his son, Prosigoj. In the 880s, the Serb Prince Mutimir exiled his two brothers due to treachery, but kept his nephew Petar at the court. Petar later fled to the Croatian principality. When Mutimir's son Pribislav had ruled for a year, Petar returned and defeated him, making him flee with his brothers Bran and Stefan to Croatia. In 894 Bran returned but was defeated and blinded. Pavle, the son of Bran, later returned and defeated Pavle with Bulgarian aid.

King Mihailo I (1050–1081) built the St. Michael's Church in Ston, which has a fresco depicting him.

Beloš Vukanović, a member of the Serb Vukanović dynasty, was given the title of Ban of Croatia by the Kingdom of Hungary and ruled 1142-1158 and briefly in 1163.

In 1222, the King of Serbia Stefan Prvovenčani gifted Mljet, Babino Polje, the Saint Vid church on Korčula, Janin and Popova Luka and churches of St. Stephen and St. George, to a Benedictine monastery on Mljet.

The first Serbian Orthodox monastery in Croatia, Krupa, was built in 1317 by Stephen Uroš II Milutin of Serbia, other medieval monuments include Krka (before 1345) and Dragović (late 14th century). Many monasteries and churches were damaged in the War in Croatia. In 1333 the Republic of Ragusa bought the Pelješac peninsula and the coast land between Ston and Dubrovnik from Serbian King Stefan Dušan, the Ragusans promised freedom of religion to the Orthodox Serbs.

Members of the Orlović Serb clan settled in Lika and Senj in 1432, they later joined the Uskoks. On 22 November 1447, the Hungarian King Ladislaus V wrote a letter which mentioned "Rascians, who live in our cities of Medvedgrad, Rakovac, both Kalinik and in Koprivnica".

Ottoman conquest and Habsburg Empire

As many former inhabitants of the Austrian-Ottoman borderland fled northwards or were captured by the Ottoman invaders, they left unpopulated areas. After the Ottoman capture of Smederevo fortress in 1459 up to 200,000 Orthodox Christians moved into central Slavonia and territory of Syrmia which today belong to eastern Croatia (Srijem). At the beginning of the 16th century settlements of Orthodox Christians were also established in western Croatia. In the first half of the 16th century Serbs settled Ottoman part of Slavonia while in the second part of the 16th century they moved to Austrian part of Slavonia. In 1550 they established the Lepavina Monastery. The Austrian Empire encouraged people from the Ottoman Empire to settle as free peasant soldiers, establishing the Military Frontiers (Militärgrenze) in 1522 (hence they were known as Grenzers, Krajišnici). They were mostly of Orthodox faith, Serbs and Vlachs (Romance-speaking). Catholic Vlachs were assimilated into Croats, while the Orthodox, under the Serbian Orthodox Church, identified with Serbs. The militarized frontier would serve as a buffer against Ottoman incursions. The Military frontiers had territory of modern Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Hungary. The colonists were granted small tracts of land, exempted from some obligations, and were to retain a share of all war booty. The Grenzers elected their own captains (vojvode) and magistrates (knezovi). All Orthodox settlers were promised freedom of worship. By 1538, the Croatian and Slavonian Military Frontier were established. Serbs acted as the cordon sanitaire against Turkish incursions from the Ottoman Empire. The Military frontiers are virtually identical to the present Serbian settlements (war-time Republic of Serbian Krajina).

In 1593, Provveditore Generale Cristoforo Valier mentions three nations constituting the Uskoks: "natives of Senj, Croatians, and Morlachs from the Turkish parts". Many of the Uskoks, who fought a guerrilla war with the Ottoman Empire were Serbs (Orthodox Christians), who fled from Ottoman Turkish rule and settled in White Carniola and Zumberak. A letter of Emperor Ferdinand, sent on November 6, 1538, to Croatian ban Petar Keglević, in which he wrote "Captains and dukes of the Rasians, or the Serbs, or the Vlachs, who are commonly called the Serbs". Tihomir Đorđević points to the already known fact that the name 'Vlach' didn't only refer to genuine Vlachs or Serbs but also to cattle breeders in general.

In the Venetian documents from the late 16th and 17th centuries, the name "Morlachs" (another term of Vlachs, first mentioned in the 14th century) was used for immigrants from conquered territory previously of Croatian and Bosnian kingdoms by the Ottoman Empire. They were of both Orthodox and Catholic faith, settled inland of the coastal cities of Dalmatia, and entered the military service of both Venice and Ottoman Empire.

The military border was returned in 1881 to the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. In 1918, it became part of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, which immediately joined the Kingdom of Serbia to form the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

World War II

Following the Invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 Axis powers occupied the entire territory of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. On the territory of the present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia a puppet state called the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was created, led by the Ustaše, a fascist Croatian movement.

The Ustaše government saw Serbs as "disrupting element" and immediately embarked on program of ethnic clensing and genocide. They went on to create concentration camps in which Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, anti-fascist Croats and Bosniaks perished in large numbers, the most notorious of which was the Jasenovac concentration camp. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum between 320,000 and 340,000 Serbs were killed by the Ustaše or their allies during WWII.

The main paramilitary force Serbs of Croatia were involved with were the Yugoslav Partisans which was particularly strong in regions of Lika, Kordun and Banija, they were connected with Partisans in Bosanska Krajina, they were the main recruiting ground for the Yugoslav Partisans besides Serbia and Montenegro due to the genocide and ethnic cleansing Independent State of Croatia was conducting against civilian Serb population. Because of this some of the main operations, battles and free territories were in the areas populated by Serbs in Bosnian Kraina and adjacent areas. In Dalmatia main resistance movement were the Chetniks. In March 1942 the Chetniks formed the Dinara Division, led by Orthodox priest Momčilo Đujić. This unit had a program to defend Serb population from the Ustaše led genocide, with arms and political activity. During the war, this division was involved in ethnic cleansing of this area. Chetniks in Croatia collaborated with fascist Italy to achieve their goals of protecting Serb civilians from genocide, in return they guaranteed Italians safety and defended them from the Partisans. Estimation of the priest Momčilo Đujić was that they saved as many as 500 000 Serbs in Dalmatia, Lika and Bosanska Krajina.

Socialist Yugoslavia

During the Second World War, at the Second and Third sessions of the National Anti-Fascist Council of the Peoples Liberation of Croatia (ZAVNOH) held in October 1943 and May 1944 respectively, the equality of the Serbian and Croatian nations, as constituent nations of the federal unit of Croatia, was recognized in every aspect. Later, in 1963, the Croatian Constitution did not mention the Serbs in Croatia as constituent nation of SR Croatia, but with the Constitutional amendments of 1971 this was now explicitly done in order to guarantee the rights of the Serbs in Croatia. This formulation implied that Croatia was not the national state of the Croats, but stated that Croatia was the land of Croats and Serbs. Then, on 22 December 1990, HDZ government of Franjo Tuđman promulgated a new Croatian constitution that changed the wording with regard to Serbs of Croatia. In the first paragraph of the Article 12, Croatian was specified as the official language and alphabet, and dual-language road signs were torn down even in Serb majority areas. Furthermore, a number of Serbs were removed from the bureaucracies and the police and replaced by ethnic Croats. Many Serbs in government lost their jobs, and HDZ made themselves target of Serbian propaganda by having party members attempting to rehabilitate the WWII Croatian fascist movement Ustaše, or by saying that the numbers of people killed in Jasenovac concentration camp were inflated. The party representing the interests of Serbs in Croatia, the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), which rejected the new constitution, began building its own national governmental entity in order to preserve rights that Serbs saw as being stripped away and to enhance the sovereignty of the Croatian Serbs.

War in Croatia

Amid political changes during the breakup of Yugoslavia and following the Croatian Democratic Union's victory in the 1990 general election, the Croatian Parliament ratified a new constitution in December 1990 where Serbs were listed with other nations and minorities. On a practical level, it became obvious that jobs, property rights, and even residence status depended on having Croatian citizenship, which was not an automatic right for non-Croats.

The percentage of those declaring themselves as Serbs, according to the 1991 census, was 12.2% (78.1% of the population declared itself to be Croat). Although today Serbs are able to return to Croatia, in reality a majority of Serbs who left during organized evacuation (citing: see section "Literature") in 1995 choose to remain citizens of other countries in which they gained citizenship. Consequently, today Serbs constitute 4% of Croatian population, down from the prewar population of 12%.

Before the Croatian War of Independence, part of the Croatian Serbs rebelled ("balvan revolucija") and led a military campaign against the Croatian state, creating an unrecognized state called Republic of Serbian Krajina in hopes of achieving independence, international recognition, and complete self-governance from the government of Croatia. The rebellion was incited from Serbia. As the popularity of the unification of Serbian people into a Greater Serbia with Serbia proper increased, the rebellion against the Croatian rule also increased. While some Serb politicians from Croatia sought a peaceful solution, others organized Serb parties in the Croatian government-controlled areas, like Milan Đukić; some of them (Veljko Džakula) unsuccessfully tried to organize the parties in the rebelled areas, but their work was prevented by Serb warmongers.

The Republic of Krajina had de facto control over one third of Croatian territory during its existence between 1991 and 1995 but failed to gain international recognition.

The war ended with a military success in Operation Storm in 1995 and subsequent peaceful reintegration of the remaining renegade territory in eastern Slavonia in 1998 as a result of the signed Erdut Agreement from 1995. Local Serbs are, on the ground that Agreement, established the Serb National Council and gained the right to establish the Joint Council of Municipalities.

In February 2015, during the Croatia–Serbia genocide case, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) dismissed the Serbian lawsuit claim that Operation Storm constituted genocide, ruling that Croatia did not have the specific intent to exterminate the country's Serb minority, though it reaffirmed that serious crimes against Serb civilians had taken place. The judgment stated that it is not disputed that a substantial part of the Serb population fled that region as a direct consequence of the military actions. The Croatian authorities were aware that the operation would provoke a mass exodus; they even to some extent predicated their military planning on such an exodus, which they considered not only probable, but desirable. Fleeing civilians and people remaining in United Nations protected areas were subject to various forms of harassment, including military assaults and acts by Croatian civilians. On 8 August, a refugee column was shelled.

Although it was very difficult to determine the number of properties destroyed during and after Operation Storm since a large number of houses sustained some degree of damage since the beginning of the war, Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimated that more than 5,000 houses were destroyed in the area during and after the battle. Out of the 122 Serbian Orthodox churches in the area, one was destroyed and 17 were damaged. HRW also reported that the vast majority of the abuses were committed by Croatian forces. These abuses, which continued on a large scale even months after Operation Storm, included summary executions of elderly and infirm Serbs who remained behind and the wholesale burning and destruction of Serbian villages and property. In the months following the August offensive, at least 150 Serb civilians were summarily executed and another 110 persons forcibly disappeared. One example of such crimes was the Varivode massacre, where nine elderly Serb villagers were killed by the Croatian Army.

At the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague, Milan Babić was indicted, pleaded guilty and was convicted for "persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds, a crime against humanity". Babić stated during his trial that "during the events, and in particular at the beginning of his political career, he was strongly influenced and misled by Serbian propaganda".

A small minoriry of pre-war Serb population have returned to Croatia. Today, the majority of the pre-war Serb population from Croatia settled in Serbia and Republika Srpska. After Croatian and other Yugoslav Wars, Serbia became home to highest number of refugees (including Croatian Serbs) and IDPs in Europe.

Modern Croatia

Tension and violence between Serbs and Croats has reduced since 2000 and has remained low to this day, however, significant problems remain. The participation of the largest Serb party SDSS in the Croatian Government of Ivo Sanader eased tensions to an extent, but the refugee situation is still politically sensitive. The main issue is high-level official and social discrimination against the Serbs.

At the height levels of the government, new laws are continuously being introduced in order to combat this discrimination, thus, demonstrating an effort on the part of government. For example, lengthy and in some cases unfair proceedings, particularly in lower level courts, remain a major problem for Serbian returnees pursuing their rights in court. In addition, Serbs continue to be discriminated against in access to employment and in realizing other economic and social rights. Also some cases of violence and harassment against Croatian Serbs continue to be reported.

The property laws allegedly favor Bosnian Croats refugees who took residence in houses that were left unoccupied and unguarded by Serbs after Operation Storm. Amnesty International's 2005 report considers one of the greatest obstacles to the return of thousands of Croatian Serbs has been the failure of the Croatian authorities to provide adequate housing solutions to Croatian Serbs who were stripped of their occupancy rights, including where possible by reinstating occupancy rights to those who had been affected by their discriminatory termination.

The European Court of Human Rights decided against Croatian Serb Kristina Blečić, stripped her of occupancy rights after leaving her house in 1991 in Zadar. In 2009, the UN Human Rights Committee found a wartime termination of occupancy rights of a Serbian family to violate ICCPR. In 2010, the European Committee on Social Rights found the treatment of Serbs in Croatia in respect of housing to be discriminatory and too slow, thus in violation of Croatia's obligations under the European Social Charter.

In 2015 Amnesty International reported that Croatian Serbs continued to face discrimination in public sector employment and the restitution of tenancy rights to social housing vacated during the war. In 2017 they again pointed Serbs faced significant barriers to employment and obstacles to regain their property. Amnesty International also said that right to use minority languages and script continued to be politicized and unimplemented in some towns and thar heightened nationalist rhetoric and hate speech contributed to growing ethnic intolerance and insecurity.

Demographics

According to the 2011 census there were 186,633 ethnic Serbs living in Croatia, 4.4% of the total population. Their number was reduced by more than two thirds in the aftermath of the 1991–95 War in Croatia as the 1991 pre-war census had reported 581,663 Serbs living in Croatia, 12.2% of the total population.

Counties

Counties with significant Serb minority (10% or more):

Cities

Cities with significant Serb minority (10% or more):

Municipalities

Municipalities with significant Serb population (10% or more):

Culture

Serbs in Croatia have cultural traditions ranging from kolo dances and singing, which are kept alive today by performances by various folklore groups. Notable traditions include gusle, Ojkanje singing, Čuvari Hristovog groba.

Religion

Serbs of Croatia are Serbian Orthodox. There are many Orthodox monasteries across Croatia, built since the 14th century. Most notable and historically significant are the Krka monastery, Krupa monastery, Dragović monastery, Lepavina Monastery and Gomirje monastery. Many Orthodox churches were demolished during World War II and Yugoslav war, while some were rebuilt by the EU funding, Croatian government and Serbian diaspora donations.

In the 1560s a Serbian Orthodox bishop was installed in the Metropolitanate of Požega, seated in the monastery of Remeta. In the 17th century, the Eparchy of Marča was founded at Marča, in the Croatian frontier. These were part of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate of Peć, which was reestablished in 1557, and lasted under Ottoman governance until 1766. Other bishoprics were founded, although their approval by the Habsburgs hinged on the belief that they would facilitate the union of these Orthodox Christians with the Catholic Church, and in fact, many, including some Orthodox bishops, did unify with Rome.

Serbs in the Croatian Military Frontier were out of the jurisdiction of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć and in 1611, and after demands from the community, the Pope established the Eparchy of Marča (Vratanija) with seat at the Serbian-built Marča Monastery, with a Byzantine vicar instated as bishop sub-ordinate to the Roman Catholic bishop of Zagreb - working to bring Serbian Orthodox Christians into communion with Rome, which caused struggle of power between the Catholics and the Serbs over the region.

In 1695 Orthodox Eparchy of Lika-Krbava and Zrinopolje was established by metropolitan Atanasije Ljubojević and certified by Emperor Josef I in 1707. In 1735 the Serbian Orthodox protested in the Marča Monastery and became part of the Serbian Orthodox Church until 1753 when the Pope restored the Roman Catholic clergy. On June 17, 1777 the Eparchy of Križevci was permanently established by Pope Pius VI with its Episcopal see at Križevci, near Zagreb, thus forming the Croatian Greek Catholic Church which would after World War I include other people; the Rusyns and ethnic Ukrainians of Yugoslavia.

Jovan, the Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana, stated that c. 30,000 Serbs had converted to Catholicism since the Operation Oluja (1995). In the 2011 census, regarding religious affiliation, c. 40,000 declared as "Serbs of the Orthodox faith", while 160,000 declared as "Orthodox".

Language

Serbian language is officially used in 23 cities and municipalities in Croatia.

In April 2015 United Nations Human Rights Committee has urged Croatia to ensure the right of minorities to use their language and alphabet. Committee report stated that particularly concerns the use of Serbian Cyrillic in the town of Vukovar and municipalities concerned. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić said that his country welcomes the UN Human Rights Committee's report.

Although 2011 census puts Serbs as the largest national minority in Croatia with 4.4% of the total population, the number of people who had declared Serbian language as their native is 52.879 (1.23% of the total population).

Politics

Serbs are officially recognized as an autochthonous national minority, and as such, they elect three representatives to the Croatian Parliament.

The major Serb party in Croatia is the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS). In the elections of 2007 and 2011, the SDSS has won all 3 Serbian seats in the parliament. In the Cabinet of Ivo Sanader II, the party was part of the ruling coalition led by the conservative Croatian Democratic Union, and SDSS member Slobodan Uzelac held the post of Deputy Prime Minister.

There are also ethnic Serb politicians who are members of mainstream political parties, such as the centre-left Social Democratic Party's MPs and Milanović cabinet members Željko Jovanović, Branko Grčić and Milanka Opačić.

Community in Serbia

Some 350,000 Serbs were resettled in Serbia during and after the Croatian War, of which the larger part took Serbian citizenship. In 2002, there were 284,334 Serbs from Croatia living in Serbia (without Kosovo). The majority lived in Vojvodina (127,884), then in Central and South Serbia (114,434). The largest part of the community stated that they wanted integration (60,6%), while only 4,3% wanted to return, while there were 27,4% who were undecided. In 2013, ca. 45,000 from Croatia still had refugee status in Serbia.

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