CROAZIA. - I. GEOGRAPHY
A region of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, occupying approximately the same boundaries as the kingdom of that name, which had a short-lived existence during the Second World War.
The kingdom of C. united with the Hungarian Crown measured, in 1913, 42,534 sq km in area, with 2,261,954 inhabitants; that which arose and disappeared during the Second World War, comprising, in addition to the original core, a large part of Dalmatia, Slavonia, and the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, covered approximately 106,000 sq km, with 7 million inhabitants. The present Croatian People’s Republic measures 57,400 sq km, with 3,749,039 inhabitants (1949). Important cities are: Zagabria, Osiek, Varaždin, Karlovac, Brod, Ragusa, and Spalato.
C. consists of the Dinaric zone southwest of the Culpa and Sava rivers and of the Pannonian zone, which comprises two parts: a mountainous one that is an extension of the Alpine zone, and a plain extending around the Sava, Drava, and Danube rivers. The climate of C. is continental, with hot summers and harsh winters, and a violent “bora” on the high plateaus.
C. is distinguished by its partial lack of religious unity. The majority is Catholic (60%), especially in Dalmatia, Slavonia, central and southwestern Bosnia; the “Orthodox” constitute approximately 29%, and Muslims 11%. The latter are descended from the “Patarens” who infiltrated the country around 1200 and, after the Turkish conquest, embraced Islam.
II. CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
The Croats, a most ancient people (in the 6th century B.C. they lived in Iran), who moved into central Europe around Cracow, according to the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, as early as the 7th century A.D. were already (unlike the other Slavs) governed by their own stable form of state. Called by Heraclius, after defeating the Avars and occupying Pannonia, they then descended to settle along the whole of Dalmatia, where the Roman element had fallen under the domination of the Avars (first half of the 7th century). Immediately after their arrival in Dalmatia, the Croats received Baptism from missionaries summoned from Rome in the time of John IV (640–42). From then until our own day, those whom Pope John X in 925 would call « specialissimi filii Sanctae Romanæ Ecclesiae », according to the letter written to the first « king Tomislav », found in their attachment to the Roman See and to the Catholic faith an element of strength and national distinctiveness, in the face of the related expansionist assaults of Serbian Orthodoxy and the Muslim Turks. Bound to Rome, under the pontificate of Agatho (678–81), by « pacts signed with their own hand and by firm and inviolable oaths to St Peter the Apostle », pledging not to invade the lands of others but to live « in peace with all who desired it » (according to Porphyrogenitus’s account in De administrando Imperio), this bond with the West was further strengthened as a result of Frankish expansion toward central Europe, when around 800 the two C.s, Pannonian and Dalmatian, recognized Frankish sovereignty. Toward the end of the 9th century, a dark period began for C., marked by internal struggles between the pro-Frankish party, gathered around Duke Domagoj (864–76), and the Byzantine party, which with Sedeslav attempted to induce the Croats to join the Photian schism, but without success. After Sedeslav was overthrown by Branimir, the disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire and the crisis of the papacy itself caused by the Investiture struggle led the Croatian dynasty to orient itself increasingly toward Byzantium. The Glagolitic liturgy was already in use among the Croats around 900: that is, the Roman rite based on the Old Church Slavonic language
and on Glagolitic writing. Six dioceses retain this privilege. With the general revival of the Roman Church under Gregory VII, Dalmatian C., after a long period of struggles and Norman interventions from Apulia, and Venetian interventions in Split (February 1076), managed to establish itself firmly among the states that Gregory VII’s strong theocratic conception placed under the direct dependence of the See of Rome. Zvonimir, crowned Rex Chroatiae Dalmatiaeque in 1076, strengthened his people’s orientation toward the West. After Zvonimir’s death in 1089—the penultimate king of the national Trpimirović dynasty—as a result of internal disturbances, two years later Ladislaus of Hungary took advantage of the situation of anarchy to extend his rule over Pannonian C., while his successor Coloman, through the pacta conventa of 1102, acquired Dalmatian C. by right of succession, uniting at Biograd the Crown of C. with that of St Stephen. From then on there was a dual coronation of the Árpád kings, in Hungary and in C.
From this point onward, the history of C. became intertwined with that of Hungary, to which it continued to be a regnum associatum until 1791. Having recognized themselves nationally from the outset in Rome and in Catholicism, the Croats continued for centuries to defend together their national individuality and Catholic positions in the Balkans, against the assaults and then the connected penetration of the Turks on the political-military side, and of the Serbs on the religious-national side. In 1242 the Croats are seen stopping the Mongols of Kasan at their own borders, while the Turkish conquest of Bosnia opened the gates of C., which within a short time fell under the domination of their raids. In vain did Pius II, on 22 October 1463, proclaim a crusade specifically to liberate Bosnia and ease the Turkish pressure spreading as far as Hungary, Carinthia, and Friuli. The last queen, Catherine, a Franciscan blessed, died in Rome in 1478, leaving the kingdom to the Holy See. The Croats remained practically alone, and the necessities of defense brought to the fore the «ban of C.», with a captain general under his command (1477), who, as the sole true representative of the people, had his own army as the greatest pledge of national freedom. The Croats’ centuries-long struggle against the Turks earned them the title of «seudum saldissimum et antemurale Christianitatis» (Leo X, 1519). Ravaged and laid waste by Turkish raids, what would be called «reliquiae reliquiarum olim inclyti regni Chroatiae» became the object of slow national as well as religious erosion at the hands of «Orthodoxy», which under Ottoman rule had become a tenacious factor in preserving Serbian national individuality. From 1527
the territory, now reduced in extent, passed by free decision of the Croatian parliament under Habsburg rule, in whose hands it remained until 1918.
The Croats also sought to preserve their individuality, especially in relation to Hungary, with which they aimed to attain equality of rights. The movement was intensified as a result of their partial entry into the Napoleonic orbit as the Illyrian Provinces (1809–13), giving rise to impulses of national revival which, under the name of Illyrism, would be renewed with Gaj and remain alive throughout the 19th century.
Although the constitution of 1849 emphasized the complete separation of C. from Hungary, it was Monsignor G. Strossmayer, bishop of Djakovo from 1848, who gave a significant, above all religious and cultural, impetus toward consolidating Croatian aspirations to broad autonomy, reaffirmed in 1868. The period up to 1918 was characterized by the struggle to defend this autonomy and, once the First World War had broken out, the collapse of the «dual monarchy» led to the separation of Slovenia and C. from it, and together with Serbia they went on to form Yugoslavia (1 December 1918).
The coexistence of the Croats within the new Yugoslav state was anything but easy because of disputes of race and religion. Although the Constitution affirmed the principle of equality among all religions, in practice the government, predominantly in the hands of the «Orthodox» Serbian element and always inclined to identify the state with the national Church, supported the expansion of «Orthodoxy» by obstructing Catholic schools and constructing «Ortho-
For ecclesiastical jurisdictions, the liturgy, art, and literature: V. JUGOSLAVIA.