Croats in Vojvodina are a large national minority and the fourth largest ethnic group in the autonomous region after Serbs , Hungarians and Slovaks . According to the 2011 census, the number of Croats in Vojvodina amounted to 47,033 people, or 2.43% of the population of Vojvodina. Croats are officially recognized as a national minority, the Croatian language is one of the six official languages in Vojvodina, their rights in the field of education, culture and information are officially protected. Most Vojvodina Croats are Catholics . Vojvodina is also home to communities of Bunevcians and Shoks who have vague national self-determination. Some of them consider themselves to be part of the Croatian ethnic group, and some as an independent ethnic group.
Content
History
In the 15th century, Croats mainly lived in the region of Srem . They made up the majority in 76 of the 801 villages that existed on the territory of modern Vojvodina [1] . Most of the Croats living in Vojvodina were Shocks . During the 17th century, Bunevites began to move from Dalmatia to Vojvodina. According to some theories, the Shoks can be descendants of the medieval Slavic population in Vojvodina, where their ancestors lived from the 7th century. According to other opinions, the medieval Slavs in Vojvodina mainly spoke the Ikava dialect of the Shtokav dialect , which today is more likely associated with the standard Croatian language .
According to 1851, the population of the Voivodeship of Serbia and the Temeshvar Banat , a historical province that was the forerunner of the present Vojvodina, “among other” ethnic groups, there were 62,936 residents recorded as “Bunevcians and Shocks” and 2,860 as Croats [2] . Subsequent estimates of the population in the 19th century, which were carried out in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, regarded the Bunevites and Shokis as ethnic groups separate from the Croats [3] .
The 1910 census in the Austro-Hungarian Empire showed great differences between those who considered themselves Bunevites and Shocks, and those who considered themselves Croats. According to the census in the city of Subotica, there were only 39 citizens who considered the Croatian language their native language, while 33,390 citizens were listed as speakers of “other languages” (most of them declared Bunev as their native language) [4] . In the city of Sombor, 83 residents recognized Croatian as their native, and 6,289 residents were listed as speakers of “other languages” (mainly Bunev).
According to the 1910 census in Srem , which was then part of the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia , Croats made up a relative or absolute majority in Gibarac (843 Croats or 86.46% of the total population), Kukuevtsi (1,775 or 77.61%), Novi -Slankamen (2,450 or 59.22%), Petrovaradin (3,266 or 57.02%), Stari-Slankamen (466 or 48.19%) and Morovich (966 or 41.67%) [5] .
In 1925, representatives of the Bunevites and the Shoks organized in Subotica a celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the founding of the Kingdom of Croatia , dedicated to the fact that in 925 Tomislav I became the first king of the Kingdom of Croatia. A memorial plaque with the inscription “Memorial plaque for the millennium of the Kingdom of Croatia 925-1925 was erected in the square named after King Tomislav in Subotica. Established by the Bunev Croats ” [6] . In addition to Subotica, plaques in honor of Tomislav I were also installed in Sremski Karlovtsi and Petrovaradin .
In the XX century, when the main division between the peoples speaking the languages of the Serbo-Croatian continuum became a religious attribute , most of the Shok people and part of the Bunevites belong to the Croatian ethnic group.
In the 1990s, during the war in Croatia, representatives of the Serbian Radical Party organized and participated in the expulsion of Croats from many towns and villages of Vojvodina. The Chairman of the Serbian Radical Party Vojislav Seshel was suspected of participating in these events [7] . According to various estimates, the number of Croats who left Vojvodina during these events ranged from 20,000 to 40,000 inhabitants [8] .
Language
Since 1993, the Croatian language has been official throughout the entire territory of Subotica [9] . The meeting of the Sremska Mitrovica community at the end of 2005, and then the Apatine community in 2006, also recognized the Croatian as official.
In 2009, the Charter of the Autonomous Region of Vojvodina introduced the Croatian language based on Latin graphics as one of the six official languages in the bodies and organizations of the Autonomous Region of Vojvodina. Since the fall of 2009, the Croatian language with elements of national culture has been taught in primary schools in places with a compact population of the Croatian population [10] . Since 2009, Radio Sombor began broadcasting the weekly broadcast in Croatian language “Voice of the Croatians” [11] .
Abundance and area of settlement
About two-thirds of all Croats in Vojvodina have Bunev or Shock roots. As part of Yugoslavia, until 1991, Bunevites and Shokians were considered as Croats, since 1991 they are counted separately. The number of Croats from 1495 to 2011 within the borders of modern Vojvodina looks like the following images (until 1991, the Bunevites and Shokians were considered as Croats):
| Year | Total population | Croats | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1495 | 194,500 | 7,500 | 3.9% |
| 1787 | 476,018 | 38,161 | 8.0% |
| 1828 | 867,281 | 67,692 | 7.8% |
| 1840 | 912,754 | 66,362 | 7.3% |
| 1857 | 1,030,545 | 60,690 | 5.9% |
| 1880 | 1,178,189 | 72,298 | 6.1% |
| 1890 | 1,331,143 | 80,404 | 6.0% |
| 1900 | 1,433,387 | 81,198 | 5.7% |
| 1910 | 1,515,983 | 91,366 | 6.0% |
| 1921 | 1,535,794 | 129,788 | 8.5% |
| 1931 | 1,624,158 | 132,517 | 8.2% |
| 1940 | 1,662,862 | 101,035 | 6.1% |
| 1948 | 1,663,212 | 134,232 | 8.1% |
| 1953 | 1,712,619 | 128,054 | 7.5% |
| 1961 | 1,854,965 | 145,341 | 7.8% |
| 1971 | 1,952,533 | 138,561 | 7.1% |
| 1981 | 2,034,772 | 109,203 | 5.4% |
| 1991 | 2,013,889 | 74,226 | 3.7% |
| 2002 [12] | 2,031,992 | 56,546 | 2.78% |
| 2011 [12] | 1,931,809 | 47,033 | 2.43% |
Percentage share
According to the 2011 census, Croats were as follows represented in the districts of the Autonomous Region of Vojvodina [13] :
| County | Total number | The number of Croats | Share of croats |
| North Bachsky | 186 906 | 14 536 | 7.78% |
| West Bach | 188 087 | 10 879 | 5.78% |
| South Bach | 615 371 | 10 022 | 1.63% |
| Sremsky | 312,278 | 8 758 | 2.80% |
| South Banat | 293,730 | 1 512 | 0.51% |
| Mid Banat | 187 667 | 796 | 0.42% |
| North Banatsky | 147,770 | 530 | 0.36% |
| Vojvodina | 1 931 809 | 47,033 | 2.43% |
See also
- Croats
- Croats in Serbia
- Vojvodina population
Notes
- ↑ Károly Kocsis, Saša Kicošev: Changing ethnic patterns on the present territory of Vojvodina
- ↑ Dr Dušan J. Popović, Srbi u Vojvodini, knjiga 3, Novi Sad, 1990.
- ↑ Juraj Lončarević: Hrvati u Mađarskoj i Trianonski ugovor, Školske novine, Zagreb, 1993, ISBN 953-160-004-X
- ↑ Home page of - www.talmamedia.com unopened (unavailable link) . Date of treatment February 20, 2016. Archived December 16, 2012.
- ↑ A magyar szent korona országainak 1910. évi népszámlálása; Budapest 1912
- ↑ Mario Bara: Hrvatska seljačka stranka u narodnom preporodu bačkih Hrvata (The Croatian Pesants Party in the national movement of Bačka Croats), p. 63
- ↑ Vojislav Seselj indictment
- ↑ Hrvatska nacionalna manjina u Srbiji Archived March 11, 2009.
- ↑ Hrvatsko nacionalno vijeće u Republici Srbiji Službena uporaba hrvatskog jezika
- ↑ Radio Subotica (inaccessible link) . Date of treatment February 20, 2016. Archived March 6, 2016.
- ↑ Radio Subotica, uredništvo na hrvatskom jeziku Archived March 10, 2016 by Wayback Machine Ivana Petrekanić Sič: Hoće li i kada Radio Sombor nastaviti s emitiranjem programa ?, 3. ožujka 2011., preuzeto 8. ožujka 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, Population Census 2002 Archived on April 24, 2011.
- ↑ Ethnic composition of Serbia 2011