Serbs of Croatia
The Serbs of Croatia or Croatian Serbs, are a recognized ethnic minority in Croatia. According to data from the 2021 census, the population of ethnic Serbs in Croatia is 123,892, constituting 3.2% of the total population.
In some regions of modern-day Croatia, such as southern Dalmatia, ethnic Serbs have been present from the Early Middle Ages. Serbs from modern-day Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina started migrating to Croatia during the Habsburg monarchy's long series of wars against the Ottoman Empire. Several migration waves of Serbs occurred after 1538, when Habsburg Monarchy granted them the right to settle on the territory of the Military Frontier, populating the Dalmatian Hinterland, Lika, Kordun, Banija, and Slavonia. In exchange for land and exemption from taxation, they had to conduct military service and participate in the protection of the border. Following the 1848 revolution and the abolition of the Military Frontier in the 1870s-1880s, rising Croatian national sentiment and the growth of Yugoslav-oriented ideas among some Serb intellectuals led to increasing political tension, culminating in the formation of the Serb Independent Party and growing rivalry with Croatian nationalist movements.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Croat-Serb Coalition, led by the Croat Frano Supilo and the Serb Svetozar Pribićević, governed the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. After the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in 1918 and the subsequent interwar period, Serbs initially enjoyed significant political influence; however, growing Croatian demands for autonomy, culminating in the 1939 Cvetković–Maček Agreement that created the Banovina of Croatia, deepened ethnic tensions and radicalized parts of the Serb community. During World War II, Serbs were targeted for extermination as part of genocide by the Ustaše regime in the Nazi German puppet state of Independent State of Croatia. After World War II, Serbs initially held prominent positions in the communist leadership and the new socialist republic; however, from the late 1960s onward, the Croatian Spring and rising Croatian nationalism, followed by Tito’s crackdown and subsequent decentralization of Yugoslavia, gradually fueled mutual grievances that intensified in the late 1980s.
Following Croatia’s proclamation of independence and the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbs rebelled against the Croatian government, establishing the Republic of Serbian Krajina on portions of Croatian territory, which triggered the Croatian War of Independence. The Republic of Serbian Krajina collapsed after the Croatian Army’s Operation Storm in 1995, leading to the reintegration of the territory into Croatia and the flight of around 200,000 Serbs. In the post-war period, Serbs were exposed to discriminatory measures and rhetoric, including barriers to employment, property rights, and use of the minority languages. Denial of the genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia has also been a prominent issue at times.
History
Middle Ages
In some regions that belong to modern Croatia, the presence of Serbs was attested since medieval times. Interpretation of early historical sources has been the subject of debate among scholars. Such are data from the Royal Frankish Annals, a 9th century source composed by Einhard, that mentions Serbs as holding a large part of Dalmatia. The scope and meaning of the term Dalmatia in that source was interpreted differently by various scholars.Another highly debated source is the 10th-century De Administrando Imperio, composed by the Byzantine emperor and writer Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Scholars such as John Van Antwerp Fine Jr. and Sima Ćirković state that the lands of Konavle, Zahumlje and Pagania are described in that source as inhabited by Serbs, who immigrated there from an area near Thessaloniki previously arrived there from the White Serbia. However, scholars Francis Dvornik, Tibor Živković, Neven Budak and Florin Curta, doubt such interpretation and state that a closer reading of the De Administrando Imperio shows that the Constantine VII's consideration about the regional population ethnic identity is based on Serbian political rule during the expansion of Časlav in the 10th century and does not indicate ethnic origin. John Fine and Noel Malcolm state that what is today western and proper Bosnia and Herzegovina was part of Croatia, while the rest was divided between Croatia and Serbia. Some members of the Serbian Vlastimirović dynasty took refuge in Croatia amid dynastic rivalry and war with the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th and 10th centuries.
Stefan Vojislav ruled a territory that included the coastal region from Ston in the north down to Skadar by 1040 after his rebellion against Byzantine rule. Mihailo Vojislavljević built the Church of St. Michael in Ston, which has a fresco depicting him. Croatia entered union with Hungary in the beginning of the 12th century. Serbia also entered close relations with Hungary. Beloš, a member of the Serbian royal family, became the "Ban of Croatia and Dalmatia" in 1142. By the early 13th century, the territory of Hum was under the jurisdiction of the Western i.e. Roman Church, while the Serbian Orthodox Church established the diocese of Hum in 1219, seated at Ston, linking the Pelješac peninsula with Hum which lasted until 1321 when Serbian Orthodox bishop had to withdraw from Ston. Serbia continued to hold parts of southernmost Dalmatia into the 14th century. In 1333 King of Serbia Stefan Dušan sold the Pelješac peninsula and the coastland between Ston and Dubrovnik to the Republic of Ragusa, while Ragusa had to pay an annual tribute and also had to guarantee freedom of worship for Eastern Orthodox believers in this territory.
According to Yugoslav ethnologist Jovan Erdeljanović, members of the Orlović clan settled in Lika and Senj in 1432, later joining the Uskoks. In 1436 on the Cetina, Croats, Vlachs, and Serbs appeared at the same time living on the estate of Ivan Frankopan. Serbs are reported in Hungarian documents as living in Croatia in 1437 and on 22 November 1447, the Hungarian King Ladislaus V wrote a letter which mentioned: "Rascians, who live in our cities of Medvedgrad, Rakovac, both Kalinik and in Koprivnica". Matthias Corvinus complained in a letter from 1462 that 200,000 people during the previous three years had been taken from his country by Ottomans, but this information was mistakenly used in Serbian and other historiographies as a reference for Serb migration to Hungary. After the Ottoman conquests of Serbia and capture of Smederevo fortress in 1459 and fall of Bosnia 1463 different populations of Eastern Orthodox Christians moved into Syrmia and by 1483 perhaps 200,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians moved into central Slavonia and Syrmia. The Turkish conquest of Bosnia also pushed refugees and migrants into eastern Croatia.
Early modern period
The origins of the Serbs of Croatia in the modern era lie primarily in the historical region of Herzegovina, from which Eastern Orthodox Christian families who spoke the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect of Shtokavian migrated en masse to the north and west during the 16th and 17th centuries. Scholar Marko Šarić states that the ethnolinguistically Slavic settlers were variously termed by contemporary sources as Rascians, Vlachs, Morlachs, Serbs, or Uskoks. The name Vlach was used not in an ethnic context, but rather to designate "a particular social structure and way of life." The group's ethnogenesis in Herzegovina was the outcome of interactions between Slavs and the original Vlachs, who mixed with the surrounding Slavic-speaking population while other Slavs in the region adopted pastoralism as well. The resulting migrant stream was characterized as "heterogenous" in nature.As many former inhabitants of the Austrian-Ottoman borderland fled northwards or were captured by the Ottoman invaders, they left behind unpopulated areas that were subsequently occupied by newcomers. In the first half of the sixteenth century, settlements of Eastern Orthodox Christians were established in modern-day western Croatia as well as the Ottoman part of Slavonia; in the second part of the century, they moved to the Austrian part of Slavonia. In 1550 they established the Lepavina Monastery in northern Croatia. Other "Vlach" settlements in the region included Mali i Veliki Poganac, mentioned in 1610, and Marča Monastery.
The Habsburg Empire encouraged people from the Ottoman Empire to settle as free peasant soldiers, establishing the Military Frontiers in 1522. The militarized frontier, which included territory in present-day Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, and Romania, was intended to serve as a buffer against Ottoman incursions. Colonists were granted small tracts of land, were exempted from some obligations, and were to retain a share of all war booty. The Grenzers elected their captains and magistrates. All Eastern Orthodox settlers were promised freedom of worship. By 1538, the Croatian and Slavonian Military Frontier were established, and colonization of Habsburg lands continued well into the seventeenth century. The Military frontiers were virtually identical to modern-day Serbian settlements. Serbian communities were dotted about until the twentieth century, preserving memories of their origin.
File:Serbian frontiersman in Syrmia, 1742.jpg|180px|thumb|right|Serbian frontiersman in Syrmia, Military Frontier, 1742
There was an additional population movement from the Ottoman territories into Venetian Dalmatia during the late 17th century. The Venetian government welcomed the immigrants, as they protected possessions against the Ottomans. The so-called Morlachs, former Ottoman subjects, helped Venice triple its size in Dalmatia. In 1684, around 9,000 Serbs settled around the borders of Dalmatia. By the end of the same year, 1500 Serb families had moved from the Dalmatian Hinterland into Venetian territory, and a similar migration happened in 1685, when 600 families moved from Cetina under their chieftain Peraičić. In the summer of 1685, Stephanus Cosimi, the Archbishop of Split, wrote that Morlach leader Stojan Janković had brought 300 families with him to Dalmatia, and also that around Trogir and Split, there were 5,000 refugees from Ottoman lands without food; this was seen as a serious threat to the defense of Dalmatia. Grain sent by the Pope proved insufficient, and expeditions were launched into Ottoman territory.
Throughout the history of the Serbs in Dalmatia, the Catholic clergy, particularly through the efforts of the Archbishop of Split, sought to assert their supreme authority over the "schismatics." Some scholars have argued that the formation of the Serbian identity of the migrants' descendants in Croatia only began in the 18th century under the influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Most of the local Eastern Orthodox priests of the Metropolitanate of Karlovci were educated in monasteries outside Croatia under the guidance of the Serbian Orthodox Church clergy who came to the southwestern region of the Habsburg monarchy during the Great Migrations of the Serbs. In 1695, Serbian Patriarch Arsenije III Čarnojević organized the Serbian Orthodox Church's hierarchy in Croatia. The territory of the Military Frontier was 'subjugated' to the Eparchy of Gornji Karlovac, and Varaždin Generalate and the rest of Croatia to the Eparchy of Pakrac. Thus, the Serbianisation of the Orthodox settlers of southern Croatia was in part the result of the hierarchical linkage between them and the Serbian Orthodox Church in northern Croatia.
Among the oldest Eastern Orthodox churches in Croatia are the monasteries of Krupa, Krka,a nd Dragović, and other smaller churches. These churches were converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in the mid-16th century and later, since Ottomans were forbidding building of new Christian churches. The claim that they date back to the 14-15th century is controversial and unlikely, as they display Romanesque and Gothic architectural features that are unusual for Byzantine-Orthodox churches. Additionally, Eastern Orthodoxy did not exist in Croatia before the Ottoman conquest, which further challenges such dating of these churches.