Essential Disputes between the Serbs and the Croats

in the course of History

Most of the disputes that have arisen between the Serbs and the Croats in different periods of time involve a variety of issues, but some have not changed their essence at all for more than hundred years. The former disputes, which emerged during the settling of the Serbs in the regions of Lika, Kordun, Bania and Slavonia in the 16th and 17th centuries, cannot be treated as collective disputes between the Serbs and the Croats. At that time, misunderstanding and disputes occurred between the immigrant population of Orthodox religion and the Croatian feudal lords, spiritual and secular, who were the owners of the land the Serbs were settled on. These were the conflicts between the Serbs, on one hand, and the ruling stratum of the society of Croatia and Slavonia, on the other, and not between the two peoples as a whole. The court and military authorities of Austria accepted the Serbs as a cheap military force. They settled them in sparsely populated and depopulated areas which they gradually exempted from the authority of the Croatian Parliament and the Croatian ban (governor) and changed into a special territory known as Military Frontier or Military Border area (Militargrenze).

The inhabitants of the Military Border area, both Orthodox and Catholic, who were included in the military border system with the task of preventing further penetration of the Turks towards Central and Western Europe, had certain privileges, but also considerable military and other duties. In any case, their legal status was more satisfactory than that of feudal dependent serfs. Unlike the latter, the frontiersmen were personally free. Endowed with privileges, and burdened with numerous and not at all easy military obligations, the border guards were under great pressure from secular and spiritual feudal lords. The lords could not accept the idea that, while the border guards were settled upon and used their feudal lands, they had obligations only towards the Court and military authorities in Vienna. With all their might the lords tried to force upon the frontiersmen the feudal obligations of serfs. That is why open, sometimes smaller and sometimes larger but often violent disputes and conflicts became commonplace. In the arbitration of these disputes the Court and military authorities tended to support the frontiersmen , whose help was indispensable to them. Unable to impose their authority and feudal obligations on the border guards, the Croatian lords hated these border-area inhabitants to such an extent that they would rather destroy them than let them settle the land, which formally and legally belonged to the lords but factually to the Court and military circles. These Serbs, the border guards on whom they could not impose the obligations of the serfs, nor those duties which the Catholics owed to their Church in the provincial parts of Croatia and Slavonia, were considered uninvited guests and intruders. The landlords actually treated them as if they were intruders. Such an attitude towards the frontiersmen, primarily the Serbs of Orthodox religion, continued from generation to generation and survived until our days.

A crucial role in encouraging this unfriendly relationship was played by the Croatian and Slavonian lords, both spiritual and secular, who had a great influence, even after the dissolution of feudalism in 1848, upon the emerging civil and capitalist society to which they transmitted their views, biases and prejudges from the previous period of history. Owing to this, these old misunderstandings neither ceased nor disappeared with the fall of the old social system. On the contrary, they were transmitted into the new social and political system and continued to poison, harm and disturb in a destructive manner the relations between the Serbs and the Croats.

In studying the effects of past events upon those that followed, the historian cannot overlook some analogies concerning the social and political development of the Croatian people in its relation to the Serbs, especially these ones in Dalmatia and Slavonia, but also those in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is well known that the Habsburgs, particularly Maria Theresa and Joseph II, spent enormous energy to create, from multilingual, multinational and culturally complex community of several states, through a variety of reforms and willy-nilly, a greater and unitary Austrian State which would be ruled by the Germans and in which everyone would eventually speak German.

Such attempts of the Habsburgs and the Germans of Austria were strongly opposed by all non-German peoples of the Empire. In this resistance, the well organized and nationally conscious Hungarians played a leading role. By resisting the Habsburgs and the Germans of Austria, the Hungarians created a highly popular movement with clear state and national political ideas. Resisting Germanization and fighting against drowning of Hungary in a unitary German Empire, the Hungarians put forward as the main objective of their state and national policy the formation of a greater and ethnically homogeneous Hungarian State, which would extend from the Carpathian mountains to the Adriatic sea. So, it happened that the aim which the Habsburgs and the Germans of Austria intended to achieve provoked the Hungarian movement whose pan-Hungarian objectives in Hungary parallel the national Habsburgs' pan-Germanic efforts in the Monarchy as a whole. The only difference between the two was that the Hungarians were subordinated to the interests of the Germans and Germanization and the non-Hungarian subjects of Hungary to the Hungarians and Hungarization.

In writing about German and Hungarian intentions, I would like to emphasize that these were very long processes. They were going on for two entire centuries, and even when they formally disappeared from the political scene, the ideas stayed and continued to be transformed, one way or another, into new political trends. This is necessary to emphasize because the process of forcible Germanization did not stop when forcible Hungarization, similar in methods and objectives, begun to take place. The Croats rose against Hungarization in the same way as the Hungarians rose against Germanization. Incarnated in the Illyrian Movement, which in its essence was entirely subordinated to the Croatian national political and national interests, Croatian resistance was finished with the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution in 1848/49. However, the series of efforts at forcible Germanization, then Hungarization, continued with forcible Croatization of the Serbs from the beginning of the sixties of the 19th century, with occasional ups and downs until our own days.

When the recividism of feudal society, concerning the disputes of the Serbs and the Croats, is discussed it is necessary to emphasize the importance of the Croatian national policy. For a long time, and to a great extent even today, that policy has been based on the "Croatian state and historical right". This right is of feudal-class origin and, as a residue of the past, it very much burdened and completely disturbed the relations of the Serbs and the Croats. It has served, and it is still used, as the basis for developing a theory and political ideology which starts from the assumption that on the Croatian state territory exists only one - the Croatian "political", i.e. "diplomatic" or, as one would say today, constitutive people. The "Croatian state and historical rights" has always been, and still is, the starting point of any greater Croatian policy with objective to create greater, ethnically pure and religious--Catholic--homogeneous Croatia. Lengthy, firm and persistent insisting on an archaic "state and historical right", despite a more modern and progressive understanding of inter-ethnic relations in contemporary society, especially in a multicultural community, developed and accepted in liberal and democratic civil systems, is only one of many proofs that the Croatian social environment has not only been deeply conservative in this respect but also reactionary for a long time, and has stayed far behind true democratic trends.

The institution of the "political" people is based upon the medieval feudal principle according to which the governing stratum of the society makes the "political" people. This institution has been taken over from the Hungarian class society and it is not in any case of Croatian origin. It appeared during feudalism, it was cherished in the Hungarian social environment until the fall of Austria-Hungary in 1918, and it is still in effect in Croatia representing a permanent part of the Croatian national policy. The sense and aim of the policy which is based on the "political" people is to create from a multinational state, as Hungary was until 1918, and as Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia were until our days, a nationally homogeneous --only Hungarian, i.e., only Croatian state. In other words, the institution of the "political" people has been accepted, and in Croatia it is present even today, with the intention that the majority people should assimilate minority peoples. That is why the relations between the Croats and the Serbs started to deteriorate from the moment Croatian politicians, at the beginning of the sixties of the 19th century, expressed their viewpoints that, in their country, there was only one people, i.e. the Croatian "political" people. It was immediately clear to the Serbs that the Croats, who did not hide this, with the institution of the "political" people wanted to develop, regarding the territory, much greater and ethnically still purer Croatian state. Their intention to assimilate the Serbian population and to expand Croatia onto those territories which the Serbs considerate theirs, not only on account of history but also because of the prevalence of their population on these territories, could not pass without disputes and sharp confrontations.

As a consequence of the already mentioned objectives of the Croatian policy (making greater, ethnically pure and religiously Catholic homogeneous Croatia) which are based on the "Croatian state and historical right" and on the institution of the "political" people, there has been a constant dispute between the Croats and the Serbs about recognizing the political individuality of the Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia. Croatian politicians and Croatian political parties recognized the physical existence of the Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, but they refused to recognize their political individuality and constitutivenes, and decided to regard them as "Orthodox Croats". With the intention to assimilate them, so that they could make a greater and ethnically pure Croatian state, they wiped out the Serbian name everywhere, wherever and whenever they could, not only when they designated Serbian nation or language but also when they entitled Serbian institutions, particularly the Serbian Orthodox Church. That is why the official language in Croatia was not designated as "Serbo-Croatian", "Croatian or Serbian", but as "our language" "people's language", "Croatian", and at one time "Yugoslav". The situation was also similar with the designation of people, where, again, the modifier : Serbian was avoided. This adjective was not even used for the name of the Serbian Orthodox Church, hence its official title was "Greek-Eastern", "Greek-non-Uniate" and "Croatian Orthodox Church".

On the basis of all that happened in the past and is still happening nowadays, it is clear that the Croats and the Serbs will not be able to find the common language of mutual understanding as long as the Croatian state and national policy is based on their "Croatian state and historical right" and on the institution of the Croatian "political" people. History has shown that those social and political forces of Croatia that were able to abandon the postulates of the feudal society could negotiate and come to an agreement with the Serbs, and even avoid all, otherwise inevitable, confrontations. The best examples for this statement could be found in the joint declarations of the Croatian and Serbian politicians of the time of the Croatian- Serbian Coalition which existed and acted from 1905 to 1918. Those social groups and political parties of the Croats that abandoned the fiction that on the Croatian state territory existed only one - the Croatian "political" people not only became reconciled with the Serbs but they also started with them a joint national-political action, which led to the formation of the common state in 1918. Contrary to these, there were groups in Croatian society and political parties that steadily, even rigidly, followed the "Croatian state and historical right", persisting in their attitude that there was only the Croatian "political" people in Croatia and that the Serbs were actually "Orthodox Croats", and as such simply a part of that "political" people. They were in permanent dispute and confrontation, almost at war with the Serbs, prepared even with the most brutal means to impose upon them the pan-Croat policy they persuaded. Such were the Party of Rights of Ante Starcevic and Eugen Kvaternik, the Frankofurtimas Party of Josip Frank and the Ustasi of Ante Pavelic. Such are the members of Franjo Tudjman's Party, Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica (HDZ) and many other politicians in Croatia today.

Wishing to materialize the centuries-long dream about a greater and ethnically pure Croatian state based on the " Croatian state and historical right" and on the Croatian "political" people, the entire school system in Croatia and Slavonia in the second half of the 19th century was subordinated to Croatization particularly during Ban Ivan Mazuranic's rule. As the increased Croatization of the Serbs became a well thought-out plan and was widely applied, with ever greater success from year to year, the Croatian side spread propaganda that the matter was about the laicization and reforms of schools undertaken in the spirit of the liberal ideas of Europe of the time. In any case, the school reforms introduced by Mazuranic had a disastrous impact on the further development of the school system designed by the Serbs within the existing Serbian national-church autonomy. This is why Mazuranic and his government, with their clear anti-Serbian and greater Croatian aims designed in their educational policy, created an unbridgeable gap between the Serbs and the Croats. In the eyes of the Serbs, Mazuranic with his policy was, and still is, the personification of the policy of Greater Croatia. Relatively tolerable relations between the Serbs and the Croats, before his rule, were so much disturbed during his term as Ban that many later generations could not reestablish and restore the old confidence. For all those Croats who considered that the Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia were a nuisance, who regarded them as a disturbing and betraying factor of the Croatian national and state idea, Mazuranic's educational policy served as an example which should be followed using assimilation and Croatization, in order to get rid of the Serbs, that "breed" of Orthodox Christian religion, as it was described by Eugen Kvaternik; that "slavish breed" ripe for the hatchet, as it was spoken of by the "father of the homeland", Ante Starcevic; that "bramble" which should be plucked out from the garden of Croatia, as emphasized by Josip Miskatovic.

Not recognized by the Croatian opposition parties, stigmatized in various and the worst possible ways, under permanent pressure to assimilate, even under the threat of physical destruction, in order to resist evil and find ways to survive, a considerable part of the Serbs had to collaborate with the Hungarian Vice Roy Ban Khuen Hedervari ( 1883-1903). For that they were accused of betraying the Croatian state, of treason of the national and political idea. Treason was imputed to the Serbs collectively , openly and constantly, in order to force them to accept greater-Croatian policy or to disappear. Not ready to accept this nor to disappear, Serbs had to accept the struggle which was not possible to be avoided with a plain aim of achieving equal rights. Thus, misunderstandings, differences and conflicts endlessly reappeared and were adding up with no end to be seen, resulting in growing Croat hate followed by a wish that the Serbs would disappear forever from the territory which destiny provided for them.

The greatest disseminators of hatred, those who included hatred into the state, national and political programmes, who gave it the characteristics of the struggle between two different races, Eugen Kvaternik and Ante Starcevic, were accepted by the Croatian society as their greatest patriots. With this act the discord between the Croats and the Serbs was deeply implanted into their very beings. While the Croats were ready to glorify and follow the above mentioned Croatian leaders, the Serbs avoided them with good reason, as they felt the harsh consequences of their destructive actions.

When the essential matters in dispute between the Croats and the Serbs are analyzed , many abuses of the Serbs by the Croats should be mentioned , such as breach of agreements, contracts and decisions, even those passed by the Croatian Parliament. Prepared for mutual activities with the Croats in defending Croatian state interests, on the condition of equal sharing both of rights and duties, the Serbs never deceived the Croats, and were often in the forefront in national battles. This happened during the revolution and war with the Hungarians (1848/49), during a forcible imposition of the Compromise and dualism (1867/68), during the removal from office of Ban Levin Rauh and the struggle for the revision of the Compromise in 1869-1873, during the years of national movements in 1883 and in 1903, and many times later on, up to present days. Whenever they needed the Serbs, and as long as they needed them, the Croats were on good terms with the Serbian people, and not only gave them promises but did not question at all their right to equality and recognition of their political individuality. Even the Croatian Parliament solemnly stated in 1867 that " the triune Kingdom recognizes the Serbian people living in it as the same and equal people to the Croatian people". When danger would end, after the task had been successfully accomplished, those who had generously given the Serbs various promises now turned against them and continued in the same old way as if nothing had happened in the meantime, as if they have no obligations at all towards the Serbs. Many times abused and then betrayed and rudely rejected , the Serbs rightly discerned the disloyalty of the Croats. That is why they hardly trusted and even less respected them. But in spite of this bitter knowledge, forced by the circumstances of life, Serbs allowed all over again to be deceived, abused, and cheated , hoping in vain that these deceits would not happened again.

In this century-long game the Serbs, in a political sense, were always the losers and the Croats the winners. However, in the moral sense the Serbs won these struggles and the Croats lost them. Such a relationship between the defeated and conquered had other consequences: mutual contempt, intolerance and hatred, even pathological hatred, equally unrestrained and equally dangerous on both sides and for both peoples.

Great misunderstanding between the Croats and the Serbs, ruining their relations for decades and preventing them from finding a mutual national and political path, occurred owing to different, mutually opposite views about Austria-Hungary, the Hubsburg dynasty and their role in the solution of the Eastern and Southern Slavs questions. The majority of Serbs saw enemies in these factors and not only did not expect help from them, but felt a premonition of danger and were preparing for defense. The majority of Croats, however, were expecting help from Vienna and the Dynasty and not only in securing the territorial integrity of the Croatian lands but also in expanding the triune Kingdom onto the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina and those areas which, supposedly, by the "historical and state rights" should belong to Croatia. The objective of such pro-Austrian and pro- Hubsburg view of a considerable part of Croats and their political parties was a territorial expansion of Croatia within the federation of the Habsburg Monarchy. As this expansion of Croatia should have been done at the expense of the Serbian ethnic area and in view of the Serbia's aspirations to the same territories towards which the Croats also had claims , the conflict of the two policies, in their objectives, was inevitable, all the more so because it was being stirred by the Vienna Ballplaz, where the pro-Austrian and pro-Habsburg greater Croatian ambitions were welcomed for many reasons, for they perfectly fitted in the state policy of the whole Monarchy towards the Balkans. When mentioning the pro-Austrian and pro-Habsburg policy of the Croats it is necessary to emphasize that it is considered as a phenomenon of long duration. Having begun in the middle of the 16th century, it changed with time, becoming stronger or weaker, but it always persevered assuming, during the last hundred years, ever so more clear, open and aggressive anti-Serbian characteristics.

Besides constant aspirations towards Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was the stumbling block between Croatia and Serbia, Srem also became the apple of discord after the Hungarian Revolution in 1848/49, and especially after 1860. Not taking into consideration that the population of Srem in the national and religious sense was mostly Serbian and Orthodox, the Croats emphasized their historical right to this region intending to include it into a greater and ethically pure, religiously-Catholic-homogeneous Croatian state, which even during that time, as well as much later, was getting its distinct outlines on geographical maps. In the dispute over Srem, i.e. where it belonged, two principles, two rights were confronted. The Serbs insisted upon a more modern, natural and ethnic right proving that Srem was theirs. To that the Croats opposed the ever applicable and in origin feudal historical rights. As much as these two principles are mutually irreconcilably unacceptable the dispute between the Serbs and the Croats over Srem, hardly amenable to resolution in the past, remains no less so even today.

When the Eastern question, and in connection with it the Southern Slav question, imposed itself with all its strength in the middle of the last century, new problems in the relations between the Serbs and the Croats came to light. Although on both sides there were those who expressed the view that such important questions should be treated in accord and with joint efforts, the forces favouring mutual rivalry prevailed over the forces of compromise. Convinced that in many things, particularly in culture, they have advantages over the Serbs and that as such, being more cultured, they can be more attractive to all South Slavs, the Croats thought that they should have the leading role in the efforts towards national-liberation and unification and that Zagreb, not Belgrade, should be the centre of the gathering. In these and such plans the Croats, as mentioned before, always counted on getting help from Vienna and the Dynasty, which in turn encouraged their hopes in this respect. Starting from the fact that Serbs had two states, Serbia and Montenegro, at first semi-independent and since 1878 completely independent, that they had an army and all other significant advantages for carrying out an independent national and state policy, which the Croats did not have, the Serbs did not pay attention to Croatian conceit about higher culture, but believed that they, and not the Croats , were to play the role of Piedmont among the South Slavs, that Belgrade, not Zagreb, should be the centre of the unification.

This rival struggle about the leading role of one side or the other continued to smolder and changed into a struggle of two enemy policies, a struggle of two centres, one of which had to give in. After the successfully finished Balkan Wars, Belgrade, Serbia and the Serbs imposed themselves as the real leading factors in the gathering of the South Slavs. After World War I the union was carried out under the leadership of the Serbs, with Belgrade as its centre. This victory of the Serbian way in solving the Southern Slav question was accepted painfully in many Croatian circles, particularly in those nationally exclusive ones who did not disappear from the scene either after World War I or after World War II. They experienced it as a heavy defeat which deserved, in their opinion, even heavier revenge. Not only the act of establishing but also the way of creating a common state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, served as an inexhaustible source of dissatisfaction to the above mentioned circles of Croatia, who continued to plot and destruct the State, as it was not made according to the model they were longing for. Due to this, its real creators, the Serbs, became even more disliked and even more often than before found themselves under the attacks of those who experienced the creation of Yugoslavia as the defeat of the Croatian state and political idea.

The fact that during the 19th century the Serbs at first acquired two semi-independent and then independent states marked in a special way the relations of the Serbs and the Croats. The later were convinced that they are on a higher degree of culture and civilization than the Serbs, and that they are, as said before, predestined to be at the head of the liberation and unification struggle of the South Slavs. In fact, except for their great ambitions, the Croats did not even have basic presuppositions for such leadership. The Croats tried hard with all their strength to reach the goal they were missing. Since they were considering the Serbs to be their immediate and most dangerous rivals, they experienced each success of the Serbs as their own defeat, and each defeat of the Serbs as their own victory. The fact that the Serbs had two states and the Croats none, or better to say, had a kind of state more on paper than in reality, made them feel inferior, envious, and also aggressive. With an enormous aggressiveness they wanted, at the expense of the Serbs, to make up for that which they did not have. That is why mutual conflicts were inevitable and their results were in numerous ways disastrous for both sides.

In these strained inter-ethnic and political relations at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th centuries, at the time when the Croatian Catholic Church accepted the Croatian nationalist programme advocated by Josip Frank and his Pure Party of Rights, when Catholic clericalism started to permeate every pore of life manifesting even more recognizable anti-Serbian and anti-Orthodox features, the Serbs in Croatia and Slavonia achieved a number of distinguished results. They succeeded in organizing their economy in the best possible way, particularly their finances; in creating a strong political party; in gathering and uniting the Serbian society in various walks of life; and making a considerable progress in culture. The achieved results were so great that Zagreb, as a new center of Croatian Serbs, gradually started to overtake the role of Novi Sad, the former "Serbian Athens". Petite bourgeois, nationally exclusive and extreme Catholic circles of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, striving to make greater, ethnically pure and religiously homogeneous Catholic Croatian State, could not bear the fact that the Serbs in Croatia were developing so well economically and politically, that they were presenting themselves strongly in the field of culture. Unable to start a healthy competition with the Serbs, to confront them with their own success and prosperity, the middle class Frankofurtimas circles of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia compensated their lack of ability with destructive hatred. On several occasions this hatred was expressed in the anti-Serbian demonstrations which took place in Zagreb and other towns of Croatia. Thus, even in the field of merciless capitalist competition, which acquired the aspect of the struggle between two nations, the Serbs were perceived by the Croats as a constant disturbing factor which stood in the way of the development of the Croatian economy, society and politics and, what is particularly important, in the way of the realization of the centuries long Croat aspiration to establish an independent Croatian State.

Economically strengthened, socially well organized, united and in the essential political objectives in complete accord, relying upon Serbia, whose reputation had been constantly rising since 1903, the Serbs on the whole became attractive to one part of the Croats ready for real reconciliation, harmony and cooperation. In such a situation, the Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, who were striving for reconciliation and cooperation on an entirely equal basis, were dangerous in the eyes of the Frankofurtimas extremists. They found this danger in the fact that the Serbs on the whole, especially the so called Croatian Serbs, were proposing different ways and means for the solution to the Croatian and Serbian question from those offered by the great Croatian extremists supported by the official circles of Vienna and Budapest. Instead to support a greater, ethnically pure and religiously homogeneous, Catholic Croatia, some Croats and the Serbs, who were inclined to reconciliation, harmony and cooperation, expressed their readiness to live together in equality, in a new and independent state of South Slavs. Croatian extremists simply did not want to live at all with the Serbs in a common state. In addition to this, they had a view that the Yugoslav orientation of the Croats and the Serbs was not only a negation of their national and state aspirations , but also a source of dangerous destruction of the unity of the Croatian people. That is why, from the first years of the 20th century, when the Yugoslav idea started to take deeper roots, both the Serbs and the Croats of Yugoslav orientation, as well as the Yugoslav idea itself, were under constant attack from all kinds of representatives of the Croatian nationalist policy.

With an intention to point out the essential controversial matters between the Serbs and the Croats, I cannot avoid to mention some great differences which existed between them in regards to Yugoslavia. Having lost their state early and having fallen under the rule of Hungary and later Austria, the Croats lived under foreign rule for more than eight hundred years and had dreams about restoring their statehood. Unable to realize these dreams in reality , although they tried hard and used enormous energy, worthy of respect, Croats tried to preserve some kind of continuity of their statehood in formal, legal documents, in various treaties, sanctions, compromises, charters, patents, parliamentary decisions, and other various papers. Eight hundred years of these constitutional, legal compromises and struggles left a deep trace in the mentality of the Croatian people. In the same way as they behaved within Hungary and Austria, and later on in Austro-Hungary, they displayed the same behavioural mannerism within the first and second Yugoslavia. For them both, the first and second Yugoslavia were regarded as temporary creations. Their ideal, as stated before, was an independent greater Croatia. Thus, Yugoslavia, in which they found themselves by a mere historical accident, was not accepted and felt by many of them as if it were also their own state. In other words, having invested very little into its formation, the Croats were even less inclined to invest anything into its preservation.

This compromise-prone behaviour of the Croats towards Hungary and Austria was less harmful for these states than it was for Yugoslavia. Within Hungary and Austria, with regards to their number, strength and influence, the Croats were of no major importance. However, within Yugoslavia they were a partner without whom that kind of state was hardly possible. Knowing this, and being aware of the fact that for Serbs Yugoslavia meant a lot, because it made possible for Serbs to live in one state, the Croats were using their experience of bargaining to perfection, selfishly and arrogantly extorting concessions of one kind or another, all with the aim of achieving greater advantages for themselves. Thus, it became obvious that Yugoslavia could exist only if and as long as the requirements of the Croats were being fulfilled, as long as it suited Croats to live in the community to which they were ready to contribute as little as possible, while taking out of it as much as possible. Considering this fact, it is clear then why grave crises troubled both the first and the second Yugoslavia and why both disintegrated according to the scenarios prepared by Croats, in which the main role, that of a destroyer, was played by the Croatian people.

Since this introductory part of the book has the task to explain to the less well informed reader the essential problems of the history of the Serbs in Croatia and Slavonia and their relations with the Croats, I wish to stress, as the main point of the entire book, that one of the basic results of the policy based on the "Croatian state and historical rights" was the widespread conviction among the Croats that their national and political programme can be realized only through destruction of the Serbs. For this reason the Serbs constantly bore the brunt of extreme and exclusive Croats, recruited from various social strata. This brunt with shorter or longer intermissions, depending upon life circumstances, has lasted more than a hundred years, until our own days. These attacks always had the same goal: the creation of ethnically pure, religiously Catholic and unified Croatian state. Understanding this one can explain the anti-Serbian demonstrations in Zagreb in 1895, 1899 and 1902; the anti Serbian Zagreb trials for High Treason of 1908/1909, the pogroms of Serbs in Croatia in 1914 and 1915, and finally the genocide of Serbian people committed between 1941 and 1945. The Croats aspirations and dreams of independent Croatia can explain Croatian's secession from and destruction of Yugoslavia in 1991, as well as their intention to defend Croatia on the Drina river, as was proclaimed on the eve of Yugoslavia's disintegration by Franjo Tudjman's closest collaborators. The relegation of the Serbs in Croatia, once a constitutionally defined constitutive nation, to the status of a national minority is a continuation of the policy based upon the idea of the existence of only one, Croatian, "political" people in Croatia. A result of such a policy is the absolute expulsion of the Cyrillic script and the change in the name of the official language in Tudjman's Croatia from the Croatian or Serbian to simply Croatian. For the same reasons the one hundred and thirty year old Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts became the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The undermining, blowing up and burning of Serbian houses, the granting of or withholding of the certificates of citizenship, the forceful signing of declarations of loyalty, the dislodging of Serbs from their apartments and dismissals from their employment, killings and forcible emigration, the pogroms of the Serbs of Western Slavonia, Lika, Bania, Kordun and the Knin Border Area (Kninska Krajina) committed in the course of 1995 military operations known as Lighting and Storm , and the most radical ethnic cleansing of these regions are all in the service of the "Croatian political thought," which foundation is the doctrine of "Croatian state and historical rights". The policy based on that principle is of a fundamentally monstrous and pathological nature. It is an anachronism which glaringly collides with current civilizational and democratic achievements. A country which builds its present policy on recidivism of distant past, and this is precisely what Tudjman's Croatia is doing, can only pay a lip service to democracy, civil liberties and human rights; these rights in reality do not and will not exist in such a state.

I wrote the History of the Serbs in Croatia and Slavonia on the eve of the civil war prior to the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in 1991. The Serbian people, whose history the reader is holding in his or her hands, no longer exists on its centuries old hearths. They were chased away by guns by Franko-Ustasi like followers of Franjo Tudjman, aided and abetted by the Great Powers. Following their respective imperial designs, the United States of America and Germany became accomplices in the crime of ethnic cleansing of the Serbian people from the land soaked and suffused for ages with their blood and sweat. The century old dream of the Croatian policy about the creation of a great, ethnically pure, religiously Catholic homogeneous state was realized with the unselfish help of these Great Powers. In the History of the Serbs in Croatia and Slavonia the reader will find enough information about the Croatian past aspirations and goals. This information should prove helpful in explaining and understanding the etiology, cultivation and development of an evil in Croatia, which the Serbian people either did not know how, or were not permitted, or were not able to prevent.

The English edition of the History of Serbs in Croatia and Slavonia, after three editions in the Serbian language, I experience as an Obituary to a substantial part of the Serbian nation. As a historian, I am inclined to believe that this tragedy would not have occurred if the Serbian nation as a whole had paid more attention to their own past, became better acquainted with it, drawn from it certain lessons, and made serious attempt to inform in time the European and world public about the problems of human rights in Croatia. Not having done so, they paid a high price. Once again I want to believe that this History of Serbs in Croatia and Slavonia might be informative, instructive and useful even as an Obituary. In that belief I submit it to my readers, cultivating the illusion that it can still play a useful role in sobering of the uninformed and misled and bringing them to their senses.

Vasilije D. Krestic

Belgrade July 4th, 1996

Biblioteka | The Spiritual Unity of the Serbs

Copyright © 1997 by Vasilije Krestic
Copyright © 1997 by BIGZ , Beograd
Copyright © 1998 by Serbian Unity Congress