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Croatian lands before the Croats (until 7th c.)
The area known as Croatia today has been inhabited throughout
the prehistoric period, since the Stone Age. In the middle
Paleolithic, Neanderthals lived in Krapina. In the early Neolithic
period, the Starcevo, Vinca, Sopot, Vucedol and Hvar cultures
were scattered around the region. The Iron Age left traces
of the Hallstatt culture (proto-Illyrians) and the La Tène
culture (proto-Celts).
In recorded history, the area was inhabited by the Illyrians,
and since the 4th century BC also colonized by the Celts and
by the Greeks. Illyria was a sovereign state until the Romans
conquered it in 168 BC. The Western Empire organized the provinces
of Pannonia and Dalmatia, which after its downfall passed
to the Huns, the Ostrogoths and then to the Byzantine Empire.
Forebears of Croatia's current Slav population settled there
in the 7th century.
Medieval Croatian state (until 1102)
The Croat and other Slavic tribes arrived in what is today
Croatia and Bosnia in the 7th century. The Croats organized
into two dukedoms; the Pannonian duchy in the north and the
Dalmatian duchy in the south. The Christianization of the
Croats ended in the 9th century.
The first native Croatian ruler recognized by a pope was
duke Branimir, whom Pope John VIII called dux Chroatorum in
879.
The first King of Croatia, Tomislav of the Trpimirovic dynasty,
was crowned in 925. Tomislav, rex Chroatorum, united the Pannonian
and Dalmatian duchies and created a sizeable state. He defeated
Bulgarian Tsar Symeon I in one of the greatest battles in
history (Battle of the Bosnian Highlands). The mediæval
Croatian kingdom reached its peak during the reign of King
Petar Krešimir IV (1058–1074).
Following the disappearance of the major native dynasty by
the end of the 11th century in the Battle of Gvozd Mountain
(Peter`s Mountain), the Croats eventually recognized the Hungarian
ruler Coloman as the common king for Croatia and Hungary in
a treaty of 1102 (often referred to as the Pacta Conventa).
The main families of Croatia which formed their county are
unknown with over a 1000 surnames but some names such as Miljak
and Milicic are certain.
Personal union with Hungary (1102–1526)
The consequences of the change to the Hungarian king included
the introduction of feudalism and the rise of the native noble
families such as Frankopan and Šubic. The later kings
sought to restore some of their previously lost influence
by giving certain privileges to the towns. The primary governor
of Croatian provinces was the ban.
The princes of Bribir from the Šubic family became particularly
influential, asserting control over large parts of Dalmatia,
Slavonia and Bosnia. Later, however, the Angevines intervened
and restored royal power. They also sold the whole of Dalmatia
to Venice in 1409.
As the Turkish incursion into Europe started, Croatia once
again became a border area. The Croats fought an increasing
amount of battles and gradually lost increasing amounts of
territory to the Ottoman Empire (Battle of Krbava field).
Habsburg Empire, Venice and the Ottomans (1527–1918)
The 1526 Battle of Mohács was a crucial event in which
the rule of the Jagiellon dynasty was shattered by the death
of King Louis II. The Ottoman Empire further expanded in the
16th century to include most of Slavonia, western Bosnia and
Lika.
Later in the same century, large areas of Croatia and Slavonia
adjacent to the Ottoman Empire were carved out into the Military
Frontier (Vojna Krajina) and ruled directly from Vienna's
military headquarters. The area became rather deserted and
was subsequently resettled by Serbs, Germans and others.
After the Bihac fort finally fell in 1592, only small parts
of Croatia remained unconquered. The remaining 16,800 km²
were referred to as the remnants of the remnants of the once
great Croatian kingdom. The Ottoman army was successfully
repelled for the first time on the territory of Croatia following
the Battle of Sisak in 1593. The lost territory was mostly
restored, except for large parts of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina.
By the 1700s, the Ottoman Empire was driven out of Hungary
and Croatia, and Austria brought the empire under central
control. Empress Maria Theresia was supported by the Croatians
in the War of Austrian Succession of 1741–1748 and subsequently
made significant contributions to Croatian matters.
With the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797, its possessions
in eastern Adriatic became subject to a dispute between France
and Austria. The Habsburgs eventually secured them (by 1815)
and Dalmatia and Istria became part of the empire, though
they were in Cisleithania while Croatia and Slavonia were
under Hungary.
Croatian romantic nationalism emerged in mid-19th century
to counteract the apparent Germanization and Magyarization
of Croatia. The Illyrian Movement attracted a number of influential
figures from 1830s on, and produced some important advances
in the Croatian language and culture.
Following the Revolutions of 1848 in Habsburg areas and the
creation of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, Croatia
lost its domestic autonomy, despite the contributions of its
ban Jelacic in quenching the Hungarian rebellion. Croatian
autonomy was restored in 1868 with the Hungarian–Croatian
Settlement which wasn't particularly favorable for the Croatians.
First Yugoslavia (1918–1941)
Shortly before the end of the Great War in 1918, the Croatian
Parliament severed relations with Austria-Hungary as the Allied
armies defeated those of the Habsburgs. The People's Council
(Narodno vijece) of the state, guided by what was by that
time a half a century long tradition of pan-Slavism, joined
Serbia and Montenegro in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes shortly thereafter.
The Kingdom underwent a crucial change in 1921, when the
new constitution centralized authority in the capital of Belgrade
and redrew internal borders to favor the Serb majority, to
the dismay of the Croatians led by the Peasant Party of Stjepan
Radic. They boycotted the government of the Serbian Radical
People's Party throughout the period, except for a brief interlude
between 1925 and 1927.
In 1928, Radic was mortally wounded by a Serb deputy during
a Parliament session which caused further upsets in Zagreb.
In 1929, King Aleksandar proclaimed a dictatorship and imposed
a new constitution which, among other things, renamed the
country Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
In 1934, the king Aleksandar was assassinated abroad, in
Marseilles, by a coalition of two radical groups: the Croatian
Ustaše and the Macedonian VMRO. Croatia received some
autonomy in 1939 with a reshuffling of the provinces, but
the militarist regime in Belgrade crumbled in 1941 and the
Axis powers quickly occupied Yugoslavia.
World War II (1941–1945)
The Axis occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941 allowed the Croatian
radical right Ustaše party to come into power, forming
the so-called "Independent State of Croatia", led
by Ante Pavelic, he was styled (Führer-like) Poglavnik
Nezavisne Drzave Hrvatske (i.e. Leader of the Independent
State of Croatia). His fascistoid puppet regime enacted racial
laws, formed eight concentration camps and started a campaign
to exterminate Serbs, Jews and Roma.
The anti-fascist partisan movement emerged early in 1941,
under the command of the Communist party, led by Josip Broz
Tito, as in other parts of Yugoslavia. Serbian royalist guerilla
Cetnici were also formed which protected Serb villagers from
the Ustaše and in turn retaliated against Croats.
Early in the war, Ustaše opened up the Jasenovac concentration
camp. This complex of internment and extermination camps was
one of the larger sites of mass murder in occupied Europe
at the time and was the place of death of tens of thousands
of people.
Both Ustaše and Cetnici collaborated with the Axis powers
and fought together against the Partisans. By 1943, the partisan
resistance movement greatly expanded and was able to expel
all Nazi collaborators by 1945, with the help of the Soviet
Red Army. The ZAVNOH, state anti-fascist council of people's
liberation of Croatia, functioned since 1943 and formed an
interim civil government.
Second Yugoslavia (1945–1991)
Croatia became part of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia
in 1945, which was run by Tito's Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
Tito, himself a Croat, adopted a carefully contrived policy
to manage the conflicting national ambitions of the Croats
and Serbs.
Croatia was a Socialist Republic part of a six-part federation.
Under the new communist system, private property was nationalized
and the economy was based on a type of planned market socialism.
The country underwent a rebuilding process, recovered from
WWII, went through industrialization and started developing
tourism.
The constitution of 1963 balanced the power in the country
between the Croats and the Serbs, and alleviated the fact
that that the Croats were again in a minority. Trends after
1965, however, led to the Croatian Spring of 1970–71,
when students in Zagreb organized demonstrations for greater
civil liberties and greater Croatian autonomy. The regime
stifled the public protest and incarcerated the leaders, but
this led to the ratification of a new Constitution in 1974,
giving more rights to the individual republics.
In 1980, after Tito's death, political, ethnic and economic
difficulties started to mount and the federal government began
to crumble. The emergence of Slobodan Miloševic in Serbia
and many other events provoked a very negative reaction in
Croatia, followed by a rise in nationalism and active dissent.
Modern Croatia (from 1990/1991)
In 1990, the first free elections were held. A people's movement
called the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won, led by Franjo
Tudman General of Croatian WW2 antifascist movment, the Partisans.
HDZ's intentions were to secure more independence for Croatia,
contrary to the wishes of part of ethnic Serbs in the republic
and official politics in Belgrade. The excessively polarized
climate soon escalated into complete estrangement between
the two nationalities and even sectarian violence.
In the summer of 1990, Serbs from the mountainous areas where
they constitute a relative majority rebelled and formed an
unrecognized "Autonomous Region of the Serb Krajina"
(later the Republic of Serbian Krajina). Any intervention
by the Croatian police was obstructed by the Yugoslav People's
Army (JNA), mainly consiteted of Serbs. The conflict culminated
with the so-called "log revolution", when the Krajina
Serbs blocked the roads to the tourist destinations in Dalmatia
and started a mass ethnic cleansing of all nonSerb population.
The Croatian government declared independence from Yugoslavia
in 1991, and the JNA launch an open agression on Republic
and backing up local Serb militia's. Many Croatian cities,
notably Vukovar and Dubrovnik, came under the attack of the
Serbian forces. Croatian Parliament cut all remaining ties
with Yugoslavia in October that year.
The civilian population fled the areas of armed conflict
en masse: generally speaking, thousands of Croats moved away
from the Bosnian and Serbian border, while thousands of Serbs
moved towards it. In many places, masses of civilians were
forced out by the Yugoslav National Army (JNA), which consisted
mostly from conscripts from Serbia and Montenegro, and irregulars
from Serbia, in what became known as ethnic cleansing.
The border city of Vukovar underwent a three month siege
— the Battle of Vukovar — during which most of the
city buildings were destroyed and a majority of the population
was forced to flee. The city fell to the Serbian forces in
late November 1991. Soon after, shocked with atrocites commited
by Serbs, the foreign countries started recognizing Croatia's
independence. By the end of January 1992, most of the world
recognized the country.
Subsequent UN-sponsored cease-fires followed, and the warring
parties mostly entrenched. The Yugoslav People's Army retreated
from Croatia into Bosnia and Herzegovina where war was just
about to start. During 1992 and 1993, Croatia also handled
seven hundred thousands of refugees from Bosnia, mainly Bosnia's
Moslems.
Armed conflict in Croatia remained intermittent and mostly
on a small scale until 1995. In early August, Croatia started
the Operation Storm and quickly regained control of the most
of so called "Republic of Serbian Krajina", leading
to a mass exodus of the Serbian population. An estimated 200,000
Serbs fled shortly before, during and after the operation.
A few months later, as a result, the war ended upon the negotiation
of the Dayton Agreement.
President Tudman died in late 1999 and the country underwent
many liberal reforms beginning in 2000. An economic recovery
as well as healing of many war wounds ensued and the country
proceeded to become a member of several important regional
and international organizations. The country is currently
in process of joining the European Union.
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