Croats
| Croats | |
|---|---|
 
| |
| Total population: | 5 - 6 million (2005 est.) |
| Significant populations in: | Croatia: 4,028,300 (2005 est.) 3,977,171 (2001 census) Austria: |
| Language: | Croatian |
| Religion: | Predominantly Roman Catholic |
| Related ethnic groups: | Slavs South Slavs |
Croats (Croatian: Hrvati) are a south Slavic people mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There is a notable Croat diaspora in western Europe, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The Croats are predominantly Catholic and their language is Croatian.
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Locations
Croatia is the nation state of the Croats, while in the adjacent Bosnia and Herzegovina they are one of the three constitutive nations.
Autochthonous Croat minorities exist in:
- Vojvodina in northern Serbia, where they are a constitutional nation
- Boka Kotorska in western Montenegro
- Burgenland in the eastern part of Austria
- Romania along the border with Serbia
- Macedonia disperced: traditional population to declare themselves Croat.
The population numbers are reasonably accurate domestically: around four million in Croatia and a bit under 600,000 (roughly 17%) in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Abroad, the count is approximated due to incomplete statistical records and naturalization but estimates suggest that there are around 1.5 to 2.0 million Croats living abroad. The largest emigrant groups are in western Europe: primarily Germany, where the emigrant community groups estimate around 450,000 people with direct Croatian ancestry, as well as Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom.
Overseas, the United States contains the largest Croatian emigration (409,458 in the 1990 census, mostly in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and California), followed by Australia (105,747 according to 2001 census, with concentrations in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth) and Canada (southern Ontario), as well as smaller groups in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Brazil, New Zealand and South Africa.
The foremost organization of the Croatian diaspora is the Croatian Fraternal Union.
It should be noted that the domestic population number includes a non-negligible amount of people who don't actually live in Croatia all year: instead, they live work in a nearby European country during large parts of the year, returning home for the holiday seasons (and the census, obviously).
History
The origin of the Croatian Slavic tribe before the great migration of the Slavs is uncertain. One theory suggests they are descended from ancient Persia (cf. Alans). The earliest mention of the Croatian name, Horouathos, can be traced on two stone inscriptions in Greek language and script, dating from around the year 200 AD, found in the seaport Tanais on the Azov sea, Crimea peninsula (near the Black Sea). Both tablets are kept in the Archaeological museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. However, whether the term Hourathos is related to the Croat ethnonym is open to conjecture, as the two words may have independent origins.
In the 7th century, the Croatian tribe is thought to have moved from the area north of the Carpathians and east of the river Vistula (what was referred to as the White Croatia) and migrated into the western Dinaric Alps. White Croats had formed the Principality of Dalmatia in the upper Adriatic, while their subgroup - Red Croats - created the Principalities of Red Croatia: Zahumlje, Travunia with Konavle and Duklja. Another wave of Slavic migrants from White Croatia subsequently founded the Principality of Pannonia.
The Principality of Dalmatia became the Croats' nation-state as soon as Prince Trpimir of Dalmatia stiled himself as the Duke of Croats in 856. The nationality of the Red Croats would unclearly switch between Croatian and Serbian, with the Neretvians accepting Croatdom, while the Zachlumians maintained a Croatian identiy for some time.
In 925, Croatian Duke of Dalmatia Tomislav of Trpimir unite all Croats into one state by annexing the Principality of Pannonia as well as maintaining close ties with Pagania and Zahumlje.
Since the Hungarian annexation in 1101, the Croats were at times subjected to forceful Hungariazation and German since 1527, respectivly. The ensuing Ottoman conquests and Habsburg domination broke the Croatian lands into disunity again - with Croats majorily living in Croatia proper and Dalmatia, and large masses of population also living in Slavonia, Istria, Rijeka, Herzegovina and Bosnia. Numerious migrations of Croats followed, particularely to Molise in Italy, Burgenland in Austria and the United States of America.
After the First World War, most Croats were united into the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs - in which they where the most numerious of the three constitutional nations. Prior to the state's joining with the Kingdom of Serbia, Croats became one of the constitutional nations of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The state was transformed into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929 and the Croats were melted into the new nation with their neighbour fellow-South Slavs - Yugoslavs. In 1939, the Croatian nation received a high degree of autonomy within the Kingdom when the Croatian Banate was created - which united almost all ethnic Croatian territories within the Kingdom. In the [{Second World War]], the Axis forces have implemented a puppet-state - the Independent State of Croatia which inluded all territories where Croats lived in the former Yugoslav Kingdom. During and after the war, between 40,000 and 200,000 Croats lost their lives in genocides like the Bleiburg massacre by the Partisans and Četniks as a direct responce to the crime-led NDH.
Croats became one of the two constitutional peoples of two of the SFRJ Peoples'/Socialist republics - Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (in the latter one of the three since 1968). After 1974, the Socialist Republic of Croatia became the nation-state of the Croats and since 1990, the Republic of Croatia is the sole nation-state of the Croatian people. In the first years of the Croatian War of Independence, over 200,000 Croats were moved away from their homes by the military actions on the Peoples' Army of Yugoslavia. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Croats attempted their own independent state - the Croatian Comunity/Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, but subsequently joined into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The government's policy of strengthening the Croatian ethnic strangth in Croatia brough many migrations of Croats from all over the world to Croatia - particularely from Serbia and Montenegro. This Croatian population's influx was increased by Croatian refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina due to the Bosnian War. After the war's end in 1995, most Croatian redugees returned, while some moved in to the formerly-held Serbian homes.
Genetics
Genetically, on the Y chromosome line, a majority (>87%) of Croats belong to one of the three major European Y-DNA haplogroups -- Haplogroup I (38%), Haplogroup R1a 35% and Haplogroup R1b 16% [4]. All three groups migrated to Europe during the upper paleolithic around 30,000-20,000 BC. Later, neolithic lineages, originating in the Middle East and that brought agriculture to Europe, are present in surprisingly low numbers.
Furthermore the dominant presence of haplogroup I is rather interesting. This group exists in Europe only and is fairly wide-spread, but in relatively small percentages. Its frequency in the Balkans is high, but the only populations that have similar levels of the I group are the Scandinavians. [5].
There are a number of relevant conclusions that can be drawn from the genetic data.
First of all it gives strong support to the theory that the region of modern day Croatia served as a refuge for northern populations during the last glacial maximum (LGM). After the LGM there was a migration to the north of the people whose offspring today form a significant portion of the three mentioned Scandinavian populations. The groups that stayed put are the ancestors in part of about 38% of modern day Croats. The second conclusion that can be drawn is that the theory of a Persian origin has little genetic support. Modern-day Persians have a significantly different haplogroup distribution, although millennia ago Persia may have been home to altogether different peoples. Only a relatively small percentage of the Croats belong to one of the haplogroups that is common in the Middle East. The low frequency of these groups is consistent with the minor migration of neolithic farmers from the Middle East that occurred around 10,000 years ago.
And the third conclusion is that modern-day Croats may not have that much genetically in common with the Croats of proto-Slavic origin. The R1a haplogroup that is usually at 40-60% levels in most Eastern European countries is at 35% within the Croat population. The bottom line is that the genetic evidence points to that there was a high degree of mixing of the newly arrived Croat tribes with the indigenous populations that were already present in the region of modern day Croatia.
Croatian cuisine
- Main article: Croatian cuisine
Croatian cuisine is heterogeneous, and is therefore known as "the cuisine of regions". Its modern roots date back to Proto-Slavic and ancient periods and the differences in the selection of foodstuffs and forms of cooking are most notable between those on the mainland and those in coastal regions. Mainland cuisine is more characterized by the earlier Proto-Slavic and the more recent contacts with the more famous gastronomic orders of today - Hungarian, Viennese and Turkish - while the coastal region bears the influences of the Greek, Roman and Illyrian, as well as of the later Mediterranean cuisine - Italian and French.
A large body of books bears witness to the high level of gastronomic culture in Croatia, which in European terms dealt with food in the distant past, such as the Gazophylacium by Belostenec, a Latin-Kajkavian dictionary dating from 1740 that preceded a similar French dictionary. There is also Beletristic literature by Marulic, Hektorovic, Drzic and other writers, down to the work written by Ivan Bierling in 1813 containing recipes for the preparation of 554 various dishes (translated from the German original), and which is considered to be the first Croatian cookery book.
