Croatia celebrates its Independence Day on May 30. The history of this state, like the history of the entire former Yugoslavia as a whole, is a clear example of the separation and mutual play off of the Slavic peoples. In the context of the tragedy Ukraine is going through today, the urgency of this problem can hardly be ignored.
As you know, most of the former Yugoslavia, with the exception of Slovenia and Macedonia, as well as the Kosovar Albanian state that separated from Serbia with the support of the United States and NATO, speaks practically the same language - Serbo-Croatian. The main division between Serbs, Croats, Bosnians is not ethnic, but confessional. It was the confessional affiliation that ultimately formed the cultural types of these peoples differing from each other. Serbs are part of the Orthodox world, which grew up on the Byzantine cultural tradition. Bosnians are Muslims and, therefore, gravitate not to the Slavs, but to the Turks, with whom they have cooperated for centuries. Well, Croats are Catholics. And their belonging to the flock of the Vatican largely explains the historical hostility towards the Serbs and towards the Orthodox world in general.
The historical homeland of the Croats is the Carpathian region, including the lands of the southern part of Galicia. One of the Croatian branches - the Red Croats - by the 7th century AD. moved to the Balkans - to Dalmatia. The Black Croats subsequently joined the Czech nation, and the White Croats, who remained in the Carpathian region, became one of the key components of the formation of the Ruthenian people. The first Croatian state on the Balkan Peninsula appeared in the 9th century and is associated with the name of Trpimir, who gave rise to the Trpimirovic dynasty. Almost from the very first years of its existence, the Croatian state, despite the existing ties of the Croats with other southern Slavs who were in the orbit of Byzantine influence, focused on the Catholic West. During the reign of King Tomislav I, church councils in Split made a decision in favor of the priority of Latin over Slavic in church services.
Further "romanization" of the Croats continued as they were integrated into the German-Hungarian world of Central Europe. In 1102 Croatia entered into a dynastic union with Hungary, and in 1526, seeking to secure the country from the threat of Turkish conquest, the Croatian parliament handed over the crown to the Austrian emperor Ferdinand Habsburg. From then until 1918, for almost four centuries, Croatian lands were part of Austria-Hungary. In an effort to minimize the influence of Russia and Orthodoxy in the Balkans, Austria-Hungary supported that part of the Slavs who professed Catholicism and focused on the Central European civilizational cluster. The Croats treated them in the first place, since they were seen as a counterweight to the neighboring Serbs, known for their pro-Russian sentiments.
As part of Austria-Hungary, the Croats were subordinate to the Hungarian government, since the Habsburgs tried to respect the historical traditions of the subordination of the Croatian lands to the Hungarians, dating back to the union of the Croatian and Hungarian monarchies in 1102. The Croatian ruler, who bore the title "Ban", was appointed by the Emperor of Austria-Hungary on the proposal of the Hungarian government. In turn, the Croatian nobility preferred not to quarrel with the Habsburgs and, unlike the Hungarians, who were hatching plans for secession, showed political loyalty. Thus, the Croatian ban Josip Jelacic was one of the leaders of the suppression of the Hungarian revolution of 1848.
At the same time, since the middle of the 19th century, Illyrianism has spread among a part of the national intelligentsia in Croatia. This cultural and political concept provided for the unification of all South Slavic ethnic groups living in the territory of ancient Illyria into a single Yugoslav state. Among the Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, according to the supporters of the Illyrian concept, there is a much greater historical, cultural, linguistic community than between Croats and Hungarians or Germans.
The Yugoslavian peoples, according to the adherents of Illyrianism, were supposed to create their own autonomy within the Kingdom of Hungary, and in the future - an independent state, which would include not only the Austro-Hungarian Slavs, but also the Yugoslavs living in the Ottoman Empire. It is noteworthy that for some time Illyrianism even enjoyed the support of the Austrian leadership, which saw in the Croatian national movement an opportunity to weaken the positions of the Hungarian government. In turn, the Hungarians supported the "Magyarons" movement - another part of the Croatian intelligentsia, which denied the need for Yugoslavian unification and insisted on further and closer integration of Croats into Hungarian society.
The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the First World War entailed the emergence in the Balkans of a new state entity - the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. After his soon unification with Serbia into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the long-awaited dream of the Illyrian supporters of Yugoslav unification came true. However, it turned out that it is very, very difficult to get along together for peoples who have existed for centuries in different civilizational planes and are close mainly only in linguistic terms. Croats and Slovenes accused the Serbs of usurping real power in the new state, headed by Serbian kings from the Karageorgievich dynasty.
The negative reaction of Croatian society to the rule of Serbian kings resulted in the formation of ultra-nationalist organizations. In 1929, the day after the establishment of the dictatorship by King Alexander I Karageorgievich, Croatian nationalists led by Ante Pavelic, a member of the party of law, founded the Croatian revolutionary movement, which became known as the Ustasha movement, i.e. insurgents. Lawyer Ante Pavelic, who called himself an Ustashe colonel, participated in the nationalist movement from early youth, managed to visit both the secretary of the Croatian Law Party and the leader of the radical wing of the Croatian Peasant Party, before deciding to create the Croatian Revolutionary Movement.
Serious assistance to the Croatian nationalists was provided by neighboring Italy, whose interests included the fragmentation of Yugoslavia as a single state and the restoration of Italian influence on the Adriatic coast of the country. In addition, the Ustashi ideologically, as an ultra-right organization, were close to the fascist party of Benito Mussolini, which was in power in Italy. The Ustashi quickly turned to armed resistance, primarily including terrorist attacks against the central government. Together with the Macedonian nationalists from VMRO, they carried out on October 9, 1934 the assassination of the King of Yugoslavia, Alexander I Karageorgievich.
The attack of Nazi Germany on Yugoslavia in April 1941 entailed the creation under the auspices of the Nazis and their Italian allies of a new political entity - the Independent State of Croatia, in which the actual power was in the hands of the Ustasha. Formally, Croatia became a monarchy headed by King Tomislav II. It didn't matter that Tomislav was actually called Aimone di Torino and that he was not Croatian by nationality, but Italian - the prince of the Royal House of Savoy and the Duke of Aostia. By this, the Croats emphasized their loyalty to the Italian state, while at the same time leaving the real power on the territory of the newly proclaimed state in the hands of the Ustasha "head" Ante Pavelic. Moreover, during the years of his reign, the “Croatian king” did not bother to visit the territory of the Independent State of Croatia that was “subject” to him.
During the years of the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia, the Croatian Ustashi became famous for their incredible cruelty and abuse of the peaceful non-Croatian population. Since the Serbs formed the basis of the partisan anti-Hitler resistance, the German command, skillfully playing on the long-term enmity of the Croatian and Serbian nationalists, turned the Ustashe state into an important instrument of countering the Serbian resistance.
In an effort to meet the standard of Nazism - Hitlerite Germany - Ustashe Croatia reached the adoption of completely absurd laws, such as the Law on Citizenship of April 30, 1941, which affirmed the "Aryan identity" of Croats and prohibited non-Aryans from obtaining citizenship of the Independent State of Croatia.
Military units of the Ustasha took part in the aggression of Hitlerite Germany against the Soviet Union, while on the territory of Yugoslavia proper the Ustasha carried out a real genocide against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. The 369th Reinforced Infantry Regiment, recruited from Croats and Bosnian Muslims and better known as the Croatian Legion, or Devil's Division, was destroyed at Stalingrad. More than 90% of the 4465 Croatian soldiers who went to the Eastern Front to fight against the Soviet Union were killed.
Unlike many of Germany's other satellites, including Italy, the Croatian state remained loyal to Hitler until the very end of World War II. After the defeat of Nazism, the "poglavnik" Ante Pavelic fled to Francoist Spain. At home, he was sentenced to death in absentia and, apparently, they tried to carry out the sentence - in 1957 an attempt was made on Pavelic's life, but he survived and died only two years later from the consequences of his injuries.
The creation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) after the end of the Second World War failed to "extinguish" separatist and nationalist sentiments among Croats. Even the fact that the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito himself was a Croat by his father and a Slovenian by his mother by nationality, i.e. representative of the "western" part of the Yugoslavs, did not affect the desire of Croatian nationalists to disconnect. It was emphasized that Serbia and other regions of Yugoslavia allegedly parasitize on Croatia with its developed foreign trade. Also, the leaders of the "Croatian Spring" - the massive Croatian nationalist movement of the 70s. XX century - drew attention to the alleged imposition of the Serbo-Croatian language "Serbian norms".
Started in the late 1980s. the process of the disintegration of Yugoslavia was in many ways reminiscent of similar events in the Soviet Union. The Western press wrote sympathetically about Croatian and Slovenian nationalists, calling them adherents of European traditions and democratic rule, in contrast to the Serbs, who were accused of striving for dictatorship and inability to establish democracy. The way the "Ukrainians" and Little Russians are opposed in Ukraine today is directly analogous to the Yugoslav scenario, even the lexical tools of European politicians practically do not change - the "good" and "democratic" Kiev regime, oriented towards the West, and "Vatniki" and "Colorado" East, "immature to democracy" and therefore worthy, if not death, then at least deprivation of civil rights, including the right to self-determination.
From March 1991 to January 1995, for four years, there was a bloody war on the territory of Croatia. The Serbian population, which found itself after the collapse of Yugoslavia, on the territory of the newly formed Croatian state, did not want to live in the same country with the descendants of the Ustasha, especially given the rise to power of nationalist forces. Despite the fact that even in sovereign Croatia the Serbs made up 12%, they were deprived of real political power and representation. Moreover, Croatian neo-Nazis turned to commit systematic crimes against the Serb population, including such acts as attacks on churches and Orthodox clergy. The Serbs - a very believing people and honoring Orthodox shrines - could not stand this.
The response was the creation of the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Fighting broke out between the Serbian and Croatian troops. At the same time, most Western states, including both the United States and European countries, practically did not hide their sympathies towards the Croats. The Bosnian Muslims, who were also historical opponents of the Serbs since the days of the Ottoman Empire, also took the side of the Croats (since they sided with the co-religionists - the Turks, including performing police functions in the occupied territories).
The Serbian-Croatian war was accompanied by colossal human losses and economic devastation of the once prosperous Yugoslavia. In the war, at least 13.5 thousand people died on the Croatian side (according to Croatian data), on the Serbian side - more than 7.5 thousand people (according to Serbian data). More than 500 thousand people from both sides became refugees. Although the official Croatia and the moderate leaders of the Croatian Serbs today, twenty years after the war, talk about the normalization of relations between the Croatian and Serb population of the country, this can hardly be believed. Too much grief was brought by Croatian nationalists to the Serbian people - both during the Second World War and during the Serbian-Croatian War of 1991-1995.
If we analyze the consequences of the war and the creation of an independent Croatia, then we can unequivocally state that the losing side is … no, not Serbia, but the southern Slavs and the Slavic world as a whole. By inciting Croats against Serbs, cultivating anti-Serb and anti-Orthodox sentiments in Croatian society based on the imaginary identification of Croats with the Western European world (although it is very doubtful that the Anglo-Saxon allowed the Croat to be equal with him), the main goal of the United States and Great Britain was achieved - the separation of the South Slavs, weakening of Russian influence in the region.
Croats, as well as Poles, Czechs, and other "West-oriented" Slavs, are taught that they belong to the Western world and their strategic interests are in the plane of cooperation with the United States and the European Union. Exactly the same strategy is used today in Ukraine in relation to the “westernized” part of the Ukrainians - not only the Galicians, but also the Little Russians of Central Ukraine, who fell under the “westernized” ideological influence.
Today, the former Yugoslavia, to which its neighbors listened and which was not inferior to many other European states economically and culturally, is a few small and weak states that are actually incapable of independent foreign and domestic policies. However, the long-suffering Balkans have repeatedly found themselves in a similar difficult situation. But, as history shows, whenever Russia became stronger, its political and military power increased, including its influence in Eastern Europe, the position of the southern Slavs - Serbs, Montenegrins, Bulgarians - improved as well.
As for the Croats, they are so firmly connected with the "Western" world that it is hardly possible in the foreseeable future to talk about the possibility of their return to their "roots", the normalization of relations with their closest relatives - Orthodox Serbs and Montenegrins. The task of Russia in this situation remains, as it was centuries earlier, the restoration of Russian influence in the Orthodox countries of the Balkan Peninsula and preventing the Westernization of the same Serbs or Montenegrins according to the Ukrainian scenario.
