The concept ofGreater Croatia (Croatian:Velika Hrvatska) describes theirredentist belief in the equivalence between the territorial scope of theCroat people and that of the country ofCroatia. It is a foundational tenet within multiple variants ofCroatian nationalism. The term has been used to describe theCroatian diaspora living inSoutheast Europe as a regionalsphere of influence. TheCroatian language is spoken in many neighboring countries, extendingits cultural reach abroad.
The concept of a Greater Croatian state has its modern origins with theIllyrian movement, a pan-South-Slavist cultural and political campaign with roots in theearly modern period, and revived by a group of youngCroatian intellectuals during the first half of the 19th century. Although this movement arose in the developing Europeannationalist context of the time, it particularly arose as a response to the more powerful nationalist stirrings in the then-Kingdom of Hungary, with whom Croatia was in apersonal union.[citation needed]
The foundations of the concept of Greater Croatia are laid in late 17th and early 18th century works ofPavao Ritter Vitezović.[3] He was the first ideologist of Croatian nation who proclaimed that allSouth Slavs areCroats.[4] His works were used to legitimize expansionism of theHabsburg Empire to the east and south by asserting its historical rights to claim Illyria.[4][5] "Illyria" as Slavic territory projected by Vitezović would eventually incorporate not only most of the Southeastern Europe but also parts of Central Europe such as Hungary.[6] Vitezović defines territory of Croatia which, besides Illyria and all Slavic populated territory, includes all the territory betweenAdriatic,Black andBaltic seas.[7]
Because the Kingdom of Hungary was so large, Hungary attempted processes ofMagyarisation on its constituent territories. As a reaction,Ljudevit Gaj led the creation of the Illyrian movement.[8] This movement aimed to establish Croatian national presence withinAustria-Hungary through linguistic and ethnic unity amongSouth Slavs. This was the first and most prominentPan-Slavic movement in Croatian history. An early proponent of Croatian-based Pan-Slavism was the politician, CountJanko Drašković. In 1832, he published hisDissertation to the joint Hungarian-Croatian Diet, in which he envisioned a “Great Illyria” consisting of all the South Slav provinces of the Habsburg Empire. Likewise, the influentialBishopJosip Juraj Strossmayer, although a supporter of theHabsburg monarchy, nonetheless advocated merging theKingdom of Dalmatia with Croatia.
The concept of a Greater Croatia was developed further byAnte Starčević andEugen Kvaternik.[9][10][11] The two founded the nationalistParty of Rights (HSP) in 1861. Unlike Strossmayer and the proponents of the Illyrian movement, HSP advocated a united Croatia that stood independently of a Pan-Slavic umbrella state.[10][12] For Starčević, a Greater Croatia covered modern-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia and he viewed all South Slavs who inhabited the regions as Croats, regardless of their religion.[13] In his view, Croatia included all the territory from the Alps in the north to Macedonia and the Bulgarian border to the south. The Bulgarians and Croats were the only South Slavic nations.[14] He was an early opponent of Croatia's unification with Serbs and Slovenes (chiefly theKingdom of Serbia). Starčević and Kvaternik's ideologies gradually gained popularity during the interwar period as tensions grew in theKingdom of Yugoslavia between the Croatian and the more influential Serbian political leaders. Ensuing events surrounding the ideology culminated in the World War II conflict between theIndependent State of Croatia and its opponents includingChetnik Serbs and Communists of all ethnicities (including Croatian).
Amid rising ethnic tensions between Croats and Serbs in the 1930s, an autonomous state within Yugoslavia, called theBanovina of Croatia was peacefully negotiated in the Yugoslav parliament via theCvetković–Maček Agreement of 1939.[15] Croatia was united into a single territorial unit and was provided territories of parts of present-dayVojvodina,Posavina, and parts ofHerzegovina andCentral Bosnia, which had Croatian majority at the time.[citation needed]
The first modern development of a Greater Croatia came about with the establishment of theIndependent State of Croatia (Croatian:Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH). Followingoccupation of the country byAxis forces in 1941,Slavko Kvaternik, deputy leader of theUstaše proclaimed the establishment of the NDH. The Ustaša, anultranationalist andfascist[16] movement founded in 1929 supported a Greater Croatia that would extend to the RiverDrina and to the edge ofBelgrade.[17]Ante Pavelić, the Ustaše'sPoglavnik (leader) had been in negotiations withFascist Italy since 1927. These negotiations includedPavelić supporting Italy's annexation ofits claimed territory inDalmatia in exchange for Italy supportingan independent Croatia.[18] In addition,Benito Mussolini offered Pavelić the right for Croatia to annex all ofBosnia andHerzegovina. Pavelić agreed to this exchange. The Greater Croatian ideology, combined withNazi racial theory, culminated in thegenocide of Serbs,the Holocaust and thePorajmos in the NDH carried out by Ustaše.[19][20][21] The NDH's territory encompassed most of modern-day Croatia, all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, part of modern-day Serbia, and a small portion of modern-day Slovenia (the five settlements ofBregansko Selo,Nova vas pri Bregani,Jesenice na Dolenjskem,Obrežje andČedem).[22][23]
The most recent expression of a Greater Croatia arose in the aftermath of thebreakup of Yugoslavia. When themultiethnicYugoslav republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina declaredindependence in 1992, Bosnian Serb political representatives, who had boycotted the referendum, established their own government ofRepublika Srpska, whereupon their forces attacked theRepublic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At the beginning of theBosnian war, the Croats and Bosniaks formed an alliance against theYugoslav People's Army (JNA) and theArmy of Republika Srpska (VRS). The main Croat army was theCroatian Defence Council (HVO), and the Bosniak was theArmy of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH).[24] In November 1991, theCroatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia was established as an autonomous Croat territorial unit within Bosnia and Herzegovina.[25]
The leaders of Herzeg-Bosnia called it a temporary measure during the conflict with the Serb forces and claimed it had no secessionary goal.[26] TheCroatian Defence Forces (HOS), a paramilitary wing of theCroatian Party of Rights, supported a confederation between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina,[27] but on the basis of the NDH.[28] Over time, the relations between Croats and Bosniaks worsened, resulting in theCroat–Bosniak War,[29] which lasted until early 1994 and the signing of theWashington Agreement.[30]
Croatian PresidentFranjo Tuđman was criticised for trying to expand the borders of Croatia, mostly by annexing Herzegovina and parts of Bosnia with Croat majorities.[31] In 2013, theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ruled, by a majority, that the Croatian leadership had a goal to join the areas of Herzeg-Bosnia to a "Greater Croatia", in accordance with the borders of the Banovina of Croatia in 1939.[32] Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti, the presiding judge in the trial, issued a separate opinion in which he disputed the notion that Tuđman had a plan to divide Bosnia.[33] On 29 November 2017, the Appeals Chamber concluded that Tuđman shared the ultimate purpose of "setting up a Croatian entity that reconstituted earlier borders and that facilitated the reunification of the Croatian people".[34]
The2021 Balkan non-papers, were two documents of unknown origin, with several sources claiming that they had been drafted by the government of Slovenia. The first non-paper called for the "peaceful dissolution" ofBosnia and Herzegovina with the annexation ofRepublika Srpska and great parts ofHerzegovina andCentral Bosnia into aGreater Serbia and Greater Croatia, leaving a smallBosniak state in what is central and western Bosnia.[35][36]
Most commonly encompassed regions of Greater Croatia or its "sphere of influence" include:[1][37]
The concept of Greater Croatia...It has its roots in the writings of Pavao Ritter Vitezovic,...
By Slavic territories, Vitezović meant the Illyria of his dreams (Greater Croatia) which, in its boldest manifestation, would have incorporated Hungary itself.
