Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina, often referred to as Bosnian Croats or Herzegovinian Croats, are native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and constitute the third most populous ethnic group, after Bosniaks and Serbs. They are one of the three constitutive nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Most Croats identify themselves as Catholics and speak Croatian language.
Croats have been present in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the Slavic migrations to the Balkans in the 7th century. The medieval Kingdom of Croatia under native rulers and, later, in personal union with Hungary, encompassed large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the west until the 16th century. The Croats also lived under the Kingdom of Bosnia until it fell to the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 15th century. Between the 15th and 19th centuries, the Catholics in the Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina were often persecuted by the Ottomans, prompting many to flee the area, especially during the Great Turkish War and the Morean War in the second half of the 17th century, when their numbers were reduced to 30,000. At the end of the 17th century and in the early 18th century, the number of Catholics began to increase, with many of those who had fled returning. In the second half of the 19th century, especially during the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Croats became active political subjects, participating in Croatian national revival. The 20th century brought political turmoil, and poor economic conditions led to increased emigration. Ethnic cleansing within Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s saw Croats forced to go to different parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite having lived in numerous regions before the Bosnian War. The 2013 population census in Bosnia and Herzegovina recorded 544,780 residents registering as of Croat ethnicity.
History
Kingdom of Croatia
Croats settled in the areas of modern Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 7th century. Constantine VII in De Administrando Imperio writes that Croats settled Dalmatia and from there they settled Illyricum and Pannonia.There, they assimilated with the native Illyrians and Romans during the great migration of the Slavs. The Croats adopted Christianity and began to develop their own culture, art, and political institutions, culminating in their own kingdom, which consisted of two principalities: Lower Pannonia in the north, and Dalmatian Croatia in the south. Red Croatia, to the south, was the land of a few minor states. One of the most important events of the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early Middle Ages is the First Croatian Assembly held in 753 in Županjac. The second major event was the coronation of Tomislav, the first King of Croatia, in ca. 925, in the fields of Županjac. By this act, Pannonian Croatia and Dalmatian Croatia formed a united Croatian kingdom, which included Dalmatia, Bosnia and Pannonia, and Savia.
According to The New Cambridge Medieval History, "at the beginning of the eleventh century, the Croats lived in two more or less clearly defined regions" of the "Croatian lands" which "were now divided into three districts" including Slavonia/Pannonian Croatia on one side and Croatia/Dalmatian littoral and Bosnia on other side.
High and late Middle Ages
In 1102, Croatia entered into a union with the Kingdom of Hungary. After this, Bosnia, which was previously part of the Kingdom of Croatia, began to disassociate itself from Croatia. At first, Bosnia became a separate principality under Ban Kulin, who managed to solidify Bosnian autonomy at the expense of more powerful neighbours. Still, it was only in the 14th century that Bosnia became a formidable state. In the 14th century, King Tvrtko I conquered part of western Serbia and later parts of the Kingdom of Croatia, which he accomplished by defeating various Croatian nobles and supporting Hungary. Thus, the Kingdom of Bosnia emerged, but part of the present territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina remained in the Kingdom of Croatia.Regarding culture and religion, Bosnia was closer to Croatia than the Orthodox lands to the east. The Diocese of Bosnia is mentioned as Catholic in the 11th century and later fell under the jurisdiction of the Croatian Archdiocese of Split. In the 12th century, it came under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Dubrovnik. Another connection between Bosnia with Croatia is that Bosnian rulers always used the political title "Ban Kulin" in similarity to their Croatian counterparts. Due to the scarcity of historical records, no definite figures dealing with the religious composition of medieval Bosnia exist. However, some Croatian scholars suggest that a majority of Bosnia's medieval population were Catholics, who, according to Zlopaša, accounted for 700,000 of the total Bosnian population of 900,000. Some 100,000 were members of the Bosnian Church and other 100,000 were Eastern Orthodox Christians.
Ottoman Empire
In the mid-15th century, the Ottoman Empire began to conquer Bosnia. In 1451, they took the Vrhbosna province, and in 1463, they conquered Bosnia. Herzegovina was conquered in 1481, while northern Bosnia remained under Hungarian and Croatian rule until 1527, when the Ottomans took control. After the Turkish conquest, many Catholics in Bosnia converted to Islam, and their numbers in some areas declined as many fled due to fear of conversion and persecution. The Ottoman conquest changed the demographics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, reducing the Catholic population. The present-day boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina were established in 1699 with the Treaty of Karlowitz, which ended the Austro-Ottoman War. Another significant event for the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the boundary established by an agreement between the Republic of Ragusa and the Ottoman Empire, under which Ragusans promised to cede a part of their territory in Neum to the Ottomans to protect themselves from the Republic of Venice.In 1624, Pjetër Mazreku estimated the population of Bosnia, excluding Herzegovina and the Adriatic Hinterland. This estimate was revised by Nenad Moačanin, a historian, in 2013, numbering 225,000 Muslims, 150,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians, and 75,000 Catholics. Bishop Marijan Maravić, who governed the Diocese of Bosnia, which covered most of the Bosnian region, recorded 75,196 Catholics in his jurisdiction in 1650, while his successor Bishop Nikola Ogramić Olovčić estimated the number of Catholics in the Diocese in 1675 to be 80,000.
The Ottomans launched a war against the Habsburg Monarchy to conquer Vienna, triggering the Great Turkish War. This conflict proved disastrous for the Catholic population of northern and central Bosnia, whose numbers sharply declined. The 1697 campaign of Prince Eugene of Savoy had the most devastating impact: he ordered the destruction of Ottoman property, prompting nearly 40,000 Christians, the majority of whom were Catholics and mostly from northern, but also from central Bosnia, to flee with his forces to the Catholic-held Slavonia in fear of Ottoman reprisals.
After the successful defence of Vienna, Christians in Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and Bosnia rose against Ottoman rule, plundering Ottoman estates and forcing garrisons into their forts. Supported by Venetian arms and supplies, local hajduks raided Ottoman lands. Allied with the Habsburgs, Venice opened the Morean War, which spread into Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and western Bosnia. The war caused major migrations from Herzegovina, west Bosnia, and Dalmatia to the reconquered territories, where the Venetians resettled refugees and recruited them as soldiers, offering land and tax exemptions. By the war's end, more than 30,000 Christians, both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, had migrated to Dalmatia.
During these two wars, two-thirds of Catholics emigrated outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or around 70,000 people. The total Catholic population of Bosnia and western Herzegovina fell to around 30,000, and in eastern Herzegovina to only 2,200.
Up until the end of the 17th century, the Catholics, along with Jews, were the leading merchant class of the Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina, mainly due to their good standing with the Republic of Ragusa in the south. The wars at the end of the 17th century brought demographic, social and urban catastrophe to the Catholics, with their merchant class almost completely disappearing. Their place as a leading merchant class was taken by the Eastern Orthodox Christians in the 18th century, including Serbs, Greeks and Armenians.
After the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, the number of Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina started to recover in the first half of the 18th century. Numerous families that left during the war returned, both from Dalmatia and Slavonia. The return was encouraged by the Ottoman authorities, giving the returnees amnesty with abandoned lands, free tools and seed. The recovery was much more rapid in Bosnia and western Herzegovina, the area served by the Franciscans. The return from Dalmatia to southwestern Bosnia and western Herzegovina became more rapid after the 1733 plague, when the local Muslim landlords stimulated their return. The growth was affected mainly by natural growth, and less by migrations. The bishop of Bosnia didn't manage to record all areas under his jurisdiction due to the Austro-Turkish war in 1737. That year, he collected the data from western and central Bosnia and reported 16,504 Catholics. His successors conducted a census of the entire jurisdiction and recorded 39,942 Catholics in 1743. The recovery process was especially slow in eastern Herzegovina. The bishop of Trebinje, reported in 1708, that there were only 2,200 Catholics in his diocese, which covered the area. His successor, Sigismund Tudišić, noted that in 1751, there were 3,009 Catholics. Only a century later, in 1858, the number of Catholics rose to 8,760.
The census shows that there were around 40,000 Catholics in Bosnia and western Herzegovina in the 1740s. The impactful events for their demography at the time were the Austro-Turkish War and the epidemic of 1742-43. In the next sixty years, the number of Catholics rose to around 100,000, an increase of 60,000 or 150%, with an average annual growth of 2,5%. The decrease between the 1780 and 1786 censuses was due to the 1782-83 epidemic. This epidemic spread throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and killed around 20,000 Catholics and 100,000 other residents. The continued growth of the Catholics in the second half of the 18th century is mainly due to peace between the Ottoman Empire and its Christian neighbours. The last Austro-Turkish War was brief and didn't impact the demography of the Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The increase in the number of Catholics was primarily due to natural growth, rather than immigration from Dalmatia, which occurred at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century as a result of the Napoleonic conquest. There were also minor occasions of emigration of Catholics to the Austrian-held territory.
The 1851 census counted only males, recording 440,733 in Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina. Historian Muhamed Hadžijahić concluded, based on the 1851 census, that the total population was approximately 1,077,956, including 173,200 Catholics. The 1870 Ottoman census recorded 220,353 Catholics in the Eyalet of Bosnia, an increase of 27.2% from 1851, making up 14.6% of the population.
The Ottoman authorities waged between the two Christian churches, the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, by giving the bishops of the Eastern Orthodox Church the right to collect taxes from Catholics, and then granting appeals to Catholics to this decision.
The activity of the Catholic Church was limited. At the same time, the Ottomans preferred the Orthodox Church because Catholicism was the faith of Austria, their enemy. In contrast, Eastern Orthodoxy was more prevalent in Bosnia, making it more acceptable to the Ottomans. In the first 50 years of Ottoman rule, many Catholics fled from Bosnia. A number of Catholics also converted to Orthodox Christianity. Franciscans were the only Catholic priests to be active in Bosnia. Before the Ottomans arrived in Bosnia, there were 35 Franciscan monasteries in Bosnia and four in Herzegovina. Some monasteries were destroyed, and some were converted to mosques. In the 1680s there were only 10 Franciscan monasteries left in Bosnia. The Catholic Church in Bosnia divided its administration into two dioceses, one was the Croatian Bosnia diocese, the part which the Ottomans did not conquer, and the other was Bosna Srebrena diocese.
Between 1516 and 1524, the persecution and forced Islamization of Catholics occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In that year, Franciscan monasteries in Kraljeva Sutjeska, Visoko, Fojnica, Kreševo and Konjic, and later in Mostar. It is believed that during that time, some 100,000 Croats converted to Islam. In 1528, the Ottomans conquered Jajce and Banja Luka, thus destroying the Croatian defence line on the Vrbas river. After that conquest, Croatia reduced to around 37,000 km2. During the 18th century, Turkish rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina started to weaken, and after the Napoleonic Wars their rule rapidly decreased; the Ottoman Empire lost its demographic, civilisation, and other reserves for military and territorial expansion, while the Austrian Empire, as the rest of the European countries, gained them.
The Catholics were also under pressure from the Eastern Orthodox Church between 1498 and 1779. The Eastern Orthodox Church gained the right from the Ottoman government to collect taxes from both the Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Eastern Orthodox bishops claimed before the Ottoman authorities that Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are the same religion to gain jurisdiction over the Catholics. Together with taxing the Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox clergy also insisted on the conversion of Catholics to Eastern Orthodoxy, especially in Eastern Herzegovina.
From 1815 to 1878, Ottoman authority in Bosnia and Herzegovina declined. After the reorganisation of the Ottoman army and the abolition of the Janissaries, the Bosnian nobility revolted, led by Husein Gradaščević, who sought to establish autonomy in Bosnia and Herzegovina and halt any further social reforms. During the 19th century, various reforms were implemented to increase freedom of religion, which exacerbated tensions between Catholics and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Soon, economic decay would occur, and nationalist influence from Europe would arrive in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since the state administration was very disorganised and the national conscience was powerful among the Christian population, the Ottoman Empire lost control over Bosnia and Herzegovina. On 19 June 1875, Catholic Croats, led by Don, revolted because of high taxes in West Herzegovina. Their goal was to subordinate Bosnia to the rule of the Emperor of Austria, who was also the King of Croatia. During the revolt, for the first time, Bosnian Croats used the Croatian flag. Soon after, the Orthodox population in East Herzegovina also revolted, which led to the Herzegovina Uprising. The Ottoman authorities were unable to defeat the rebels, so Serbia and Montenegro took advantage of this weakness and attacked the Ottoman Empire in 1876, soon after the Russian Empire did the same. The Turks lost the war in 1878, and this resulted in over 150,000 refugees who went to Croatia. After the Congress of Berlin was held in the same year, Bosnia and Herzegovina was transferred to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.