History

Prehistory -- At the turn of the 20th century (1899), the remains of a type of Neanderthal who lived in caves some 30,000 years ago, were discovered at Krapina, a tiny town north of Zagreb. These early cave dwellers' bones were dubbed "Krapina Man," and they established a time line that put humans in Croatia in the middle of the Stone Age. Traces of other prehistoric cultures also have been found at the island of Hvar and Vukovar in extreme eastern Croatia, but none is older or more significant than Krapina Man.

Illyrians -- Recorded Croatian history begins around 1200 B.C., when the people occupying the region that is now Croatia, Bosnia, Albania, and Serbia began to form a coalition of tribes known as the Illyrians. The Illyrian tribes shared similarities, such as burial customs and dwelling styles, but there is no concrete evidence that any one tribe was assimilated by any other. In fact, each Illyrian tribe had its own name based on where it settled, and at least some of them became regional powers and established cities that survive today.

The Greek Colonists -- The Greeks began colonizing the Adriatic coast of Croatia in the 4th century B.C., beginning with Issa (the island of Vis), a colony founded by residents of Syracuse (Sicily). Other settlements followed, including Paros (Hvar) and Tragurion (Trogir). The Illyrians traded oil, wine, salt, metals and other commodities with the Greeks but nonetheless tried to get rid of foreign settlements. In the 3rd century B.C., the Illyrians attempted to form an independent state under the leadership of one of its pirate tribes. In 229 B.C. the Greeks, alarmed by this turn of events, asked the Romans for help in containing Illyrian lawlessness. When the Romans sent messengers to negotiate peace with the Illyrian Queen Teuta, she had them executed. This touched off a series of wars that lasted more than 60 years, ending with the defeat of the Illyrians and the creation of the Roman province of Illyricum.

The Roman Occupation -- The spread of Roman colonies across Croatia continued until A.D. 9, when the Adriatic coast and interior lands were annexed by the Emperor Tiberius to create three Roman provinces: Dalmatia (Adriatic seacoast), Noricum (northern territory/Austria), and Pannonia (Hungary). The Romans built fortresses, roads, bridges, aqueducts, and sparkling new cities that overtook Illyrian culture or drove it away. The main Roman cities of that time were Pola (Pula), Jader (Zadar), Salona (Solin) near Split, and Epidaurum (Cavtat). The Roman propensity for building roads linked northeast Italy to Byzantium (Istanbul) and opened lines of communication that facilitated trade and troop movements and the spread of Roman culture.

Those same roads brought Christianity to the area, and with it persecution, primarily at the hand of the Emperor Diocletian, whose "retirement home" at Split is one of Croatia's best-preserved vestiges of the Roman era, which flourished until the end of the 4th century.

From about A.D. 395 until the 7th century, Croatia suffered a series of invasions by the Ostrogoths, Slavs, and other barbarians. But it was the Avars, a warlike Asian tribe, who allegedly brought the Slavic Croats -- ancestors to today's Croatians -- to the area.

According to the 10th-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the Emperor Heraclius asked the Croats to come to the region to help him get rid of the Avars and to protect Rome's interests, though the Croats didn't stop at saving the Roman occupation.

The Croat Migration -- Porphyrogenitus's account of the Croats' arrival has been disputed, partly because it was written 300 years after the fact. Other accounts differ about the Croats' appearance in southeastern Europe. Some experts say the Croats came from the Ukraine; others pinpoint Poland; and some say the Croats migrated from Iran because the name "Hvrat" has Persian origins. The trail leading back to the Croats is further clouded because the name Croat (Hvrat) was used by other Slavic tribes of the times (White Croats in Poland; Croats in the Czech Republic area; and other groups from nearby Slovenia, Slovakia, and Macedonia). Either way, it is likely that there were several waves of Croat migration, with the first group settling the part of the Roman province of Pannonia that is now southern Hungary. Subsequent migrations settled land all the way to Dalmatia.

Eventually, the Croat émigrés organized into two dukedoms, and at the same time they began to accept Roman-rite Christianity and Roman culture. But the existence of two distinct centers of culture -- Mediterranean (Dalmatia) and central European (Pannonia) -- served to form a dueling Croatian psyche, which lingers today. Croats continued to live under a series of foreign and Croatian administrations until A.D. 924, when the country was united under the leadership of Tomislav I, the first King of Croatia.

Medieval Croatia -- Tomislav was crowned around A.D. 924 and united the Pannonian and Dalmatian duchies, which included what is much of present-day Slavonia, Dalmatia, Istria, and Bosnia/Herzegovina. He disappears from history around A.D. 928, but no one disputes that he had a profound effect on Croatia. He was succeeded by a series of monarchs who enjoyed relative stability for almost the next 2 centuries. Among them were King Petar Kresimir IV (1058-74) and King Dmitar Zvonimir (1075-89). Zvonimir's reign is notable because he entrenched Catholicism in Croatia and strengthened the country's relationship with the Roman Church. His reign is immortalized on the Baska Tablet, a kind of Croatian Rosetta stone engraved with the oldest known Croatian text. The tablet is on display in Zagreb's archaeological museum.

Hungary & Venice -- After Zvonimir's death in the 11th century, the monarchy withered, and Croatia and Hungary formed a common kingdom guided by a parliament (Sabor). During this time, the wealth and power of the landed nobility grew, and an increase in the feudal obligations of the agrarian population followed.

Free cities (Dubrovnik, among others) were founded along the coast, increasing trade and political strength in the region. Many made trade agreements with Venice, which by now was a contender for control of Croatia's ports.

Trade increased, and northern Croatian cities also saw rapid development, but a Tatar invasion in 1242 diverted the government's attention to the country's defense as invaders razed Zagreb and everything else in their path. Ultimately, Hungarian King Bela IV outmaneuvered the Tatars and retained control, but the country's growing strength from its alliance with Hungary fueled Venice's determination to control Istria and Dalmatia and ultimately access to the sea.

Venice began a long-term campaign to take over the Croatian coast early in the 13th century: They captured Zadar in 1202 and Dubrovnik in 1205. For the next century, the Venetian influence along the coast increased until they achieved their objective. During the period of Venetian acquisition, the counts of Anjou came to the Croatian throne, and in 1358 they reasserted Hungarian control of Dalmatia thanks to Louis of Anjou. King Louis expelled the Venetians, but disarray in the House of Anjou ultimately resulted in the sale of rights over Dalmatia back to the Venetians in 1409.

The Ottomans & Hapsburgs -- During the 15th century the Ottoman Turks advanced on Croatian lands, taking Bulgaria and Bosnia and leaving the rest of Croatia vulnerable. During the battle against the Turks at Mohács, Hungarian King Louis II was killed in action, leaving the Turk Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in control of much of southern Croatia. Louis did not have an heir, and the throne went to his designated successor, Ferdinand I of Hapsburg, a move that put Croatia in the Hapsburg Empire.

The first Hapsburg rulers were determined to defend Croatia against the Turks, who continued to gobble up Croat land until the mid-17th century despite efforts to contain them. During this time, Croatia lost 75% of its territory and people, but by the mid-17th century, the Hapsburgs had retaken Croatia and pushed the Turks out of the region. Subsequently, Hapsburg armies gradually drove the Turks out of the rest of central Europe (except for Bosnia and Herzegovina). The decrease in Turk strength opened the door for the Venetians to once again surge in Dalmatia.

In 1671, the Croats made a push for self-rule, but the Hapsburgs would have none of it and quashed the movement. During the next century, the Hapsburgs gradually squeezed out Croatian authority, which further made Croatia a takeover target.

By this time many Orthodox Serbs who were living in Catholic Croatia and Russia began to show an interest in the region. This raised the question of who would take control, Catholic Austria or Orthodox Russia. Thus began the so-called Eastern Question, which was one of the precipitators of World War I.

The Napoleon Effects -- During the 18th century, Austria, Hungary, and Venice all continued to vie for pieces of Croatia and for imposition of their own cultures. The Hapsburgs pushed to install German customs and language; the Hungarians proposed that Hungarian be accepted as the official language and claimed that Slavonia belonged to Hungary; the Venetians extended their territories to the Dinara mountains and beyond, thanks to the Treaty of Pozarevac; and the Turks retained control of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Pozarevac treaty made it difficult to define Croatia's geography, but in 1808 Napoleon "solved" the problem by capturing coastal towns, uniting Dalmatia with parts of Slovenia and Croatia, and renaming the joint territories the Illyrian Provinces. Napoleon's influence was profound but short-lived. He promoted agriculture and commerce, raised the status of the Orthodox population, and started a reawakening of Croatian nationalism. But with his defeat in 1815 at the hands of the English navy, control. of Dalmatia once again reverted to the Hapsburgs, who immediately reasserted authority over Croatia.

Illyrianism -- After the fall of Napoleon, Austria created the Kingdom of Illyria, an administrative unit designed to thwart Hungarian nationalism and unification of the South Slavs. Dalmatia, however, was not part of this reorganization, as Austria decided to keep this gold mine as its vacation playground. Eventually, the Hapsburgs' attempts to exert absolute control over every aspect of Croatian life backfired. Croatian leaders began stirring up nationalism by promoting the Croatian language and culture and by forming a Slavic kingdom under the Hapsburgs' noses. In 1832, Ljudevit Gaj, a Croatian noble, tried to elbow the Hungarians aside by addressing the Sabor in the Croatian language, which was daring at the time. Gaj, who was a journalist and linguist, pushed a South Slavic literary language, engineered a Latin-based script, and in 1836 founded an anti-Hungarian journal that called for cultural and political unity. The Hungarians were understandably angered by these developments and tried to impose Hungarian as the official language of Slavonia. The Croatians responded by sending any correspondence written in Hungarian back to Hungary unread.

The Austro-Hungarian Influence -- In 1848, Hungary challenged Austria during the revolution that was sweeping across Europe. Croatians, who feared another wave of domination from Hungary and who had hoped for unification, sided with Austria and began to call for self-determination. Austria yielded to Croatian pressure and raised Josip Jelacic to the position of Ban (viceroy) of Croatia. Jelacic immediately convened the Croatian Sabor to consolidate his support. He suspended relations with Hungary and declared war, but his Austrian allies reasserted their authority over Croatia after defeating the Hungarians with Jelacic's help.

Austria ended absolute rule over Croatia in 1860, and in 1866 the Austro-Hungarian Empire was near collapse. In an effort to save it, Emperor Franz Joseph united Austria and Hungary in a dual monarchy. In a Sabor dominated by pro-Hungarian officials, a compromise on Croatia was reached that acknowledged the country as a distinct political entity within the empire.

Croatia increased its autonomy within the empire and in 1868 established a political/cultural base in Zagreb. However, the Croatian leadership was divided between those advocating a South Slav union and those favoring a Greater Croatia. In addition, animosity between the Croats and Serbs was on the rise. Bishop Josip Strossmayer attempted to reduce the religious differences between the Croats and Serbs to defuse the growing tensions.

Ante Starcevic represented the opposition to Strossmayer's initiatives and was suspicious of any conciliatory moves directed at the Serbs. Both movements were sabotaged by Ban (which means "lord" or "master") Károly Khuen-Héderváry when he ignored a compromise that allowed home rule for Croatia and promoted Hungarian language and culture by provoking conflict between Croats and Serbs.

Despite Héderváry's treachery, in 1906, Serbs and Croats again came together to create the Croat-Serb Coalition, which immediately came under attack from Vienna, which feared a loss of Austrian influence.

World War I & Its Aftermath -- In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and its diverse population of Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs, and Muslims. This move set back the Serb goal of creating a Serbian state and reignited tensions between Croats and Serbs. Thus, when Hapsburg heir Franz Ferdinand visited the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo in 1914, the mood of the city was hostile.

On June 28, Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip assassinated Franz Joseph and his wife, and a month later Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Germany sided with Austria; Russia, France, and Great Britain countered by forming an alliance of their own, thus drawing a line in the sand for World War I.

For a time, the Croats sided with the Hapsburg contingent, but on December 1, 1918, after the Austro-Hungarian empire had been defeated, Serb Prince Aleksandar Karadordevic broke ranks and created the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The unification seemed reasonable in theory, but it did not allow for autonomy of any of the nations or provide any guidelines to facilitate cooperation among diverse people suddenly thrown together under a single umbrella.

Only one Croat raised an alarm about the ramifications of unification. Stjepan Radic, leader of the Croatian Peasant's Party, urged caution, but his pleas went unheeded. In 1927, after the new Croatian government failed to move in the direction of autonomy, Radic and Serbian Svetozar Pribicevic[c] of the Independent Democratic Party joined forces to unite the Serbs and Croats. But on June 20, 1928, extremists from Belgrade fatally shot Radic and two members of the Peasant's Party while parliament was in session. Fearing that the assassination would incite further ethnic violence, King Aleksandar dissolved parliament, established a dictatorship, and changed the name of the state to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (South Slavia).

World War II -- Aleksandar's dictatorship resembled a police state in which 90% of the police and government officials were Serbian, a situation that invited trouble. As a reaction to this state of affairs, in 1929 Croat Ante Pavelic founded the Ustase, an organization dedicated to the overthrow of Aleksandar's state. Five years later, in 1934, the Ustase, with Italy's help, assassinated the king in Marseilles, an act that threw Yugoslavia into turmoil and made it vulnerable to Nazi exploitation.

Yugoslavia tried to remain neutral at the start of World War II, but pressure to support the Axis was great, and on March 25, 1941, Yugoslavia's Prince Pavle aligned the country with the fascists. Within 2 days the prince was overthrown and the pact nullified, but the Nazis would not let the cancellation stand. On April 6, they bombed Belgrade and invaded Yugoslavia. It took the Nazis just 10 days to defeat the Yugoslav army. Shortly after that, the Ustase formed the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska, NDH), leaving the rest of Yugoslavia to fend for itself.

The Ustase at first attempted to drive the Serbs out of Croatia, but when that proved impossible, they set up several concentration camps, the most infamous being the camps at Jasenovac, about 97km (60 miles) south of Zagreb on the Sava River. No one knows how many people died in Jasenovac at the hands of the Ustase, but reports did chronicle acts of inhumanity and barbarism in the camps. Not all Croats condoned the Ustase and their methods.

The Resistance Movement -- A resistance movement to counter the Ustase was organized almost immediately after Germany invaded in 1941, but it was divided between the pro-Serbian Cetniks and the pro-Communist Partisans led by Josip Broz "Tito." Committed as these groups were, they were not very effective in combating the Ustase because they were more intent on competing with and killing each other. However, the Allies recognized Tito's Partisans as the official resistance at the Tehran Conference and funneled all aid to the Communist group, which helped liberate Belgrade.

Ironically, the internal conflict between opposing resistance groups in Yugoslavia helped the Allied victory because it tied up hundreds of thousands of Axis troops, who then were unavailable to fight the Allies. Even so, when the war ended in 1944, more than 1.7 million Yugoslavs had died as a result of the fighting, a number that represented a staggering 10% of the country's population.

Tito & Post-War Yugoslavia -- After the war, Tito's Communist Party won the Yugoslav election with 90 percent of the vote, but Tito was not in lockstep with Stalin and declared Yugoslav non-alignment in 1948, which allowed him to function as a cafeteria Communist.

Non-alignment was a double-edged sword for Yugoslavia. On the one hand, the country had to endure a Soviet blockade in the 1950s as a result of Tito's nonconformity, but on the other, Tito's position helped tourism flourish along the Adriatic coast. His approval of site management allowed competition and created efficiencies in the workplace. He also gave each of Yugoslavia's six republics -- Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro -- control over its own internal affairs.

Tito's largesse had its limits. In 1967 the Croatian economy was booming, which buoyed national sentiment. The first expression of renewed nationalism surfaced in the cultural realm: The Croatian intelligentsia, worried by attempts to create a single Serb-Croat literary language, issued a declaration stating that Croatian was a language distinct from Serbian. Croatian Serbs issued a retort stating that they had a right to their own language, too, and that they wanted to use the Cyrillic script. Tito quickly suppressed both sides of the argument, which put an end to the nascent nationalist movement dubbed "Croatian Spring."

For a while, other efforts at liberalization -- demands for autonomy, student strikes, calls for government reform -- were attempted, but in 1971 Tito cracked down on those reformers, too, effectively putting an end to the Croatian Spring once and for all. Tito's hard line had a chilling effect on reform efforts not only in Croatia but also in the rest of Yugoslavia, though his iron hand didn't stop Yugoslavs outside the country from criticizing his style of government.

Yugoslavia in Turmoil -- On May 4, 1980, after decades of balancing Communist ideology with Western capitalism in Yugoslavia, Josip Broz "Tito" died at the age of 88. His funeral in Belgrade was attended by thousands of Yugoslavs and more than 100 heads of state.

Unfortunately, like many authoritarian leaders, Tito had not developed a plan of succession, which left the Yugoslav state without a strong leader. To complicate matters, the region's economy was deteriorating in the wake of the 1970s oil crisis, a huge national debt, and the disappearance of foreign credit sources. The republics once again became restless, and old problems resurfaced.

The first hot spot was Kosovo, a region in southwest Serbia with a large Muslim Albanian population. Kosovo, which had enjoyed a modicum of autonomy, decided in 1981 that it wanted republic status. Six years later, the emboldened Serb minority in Kosovo took the position that the Albanians there were a threat to them. That inspired Serbs in Croatia to almost simultaneously express the same sentiment about the Croats. A collective angst spread, pushing Yugoslavia to crack along national, religious, and ethnic lines.

In 1987, a relatively unknown Serb politician named Slobodan Milosevic began to proclaim Serb superiority while working toward installing a Communist government in Yugoslavia. Two years after Milosevic's debut as a champion of Serbs, the Berlin Wall came down, leaving him holding an unpopular position while the rest of Europe raced off in the opposite ideological direction.

War in Croatia -- Despite Milosevic's efforts to expand his bloc of followers, Croatia and other Yugoslav republics were trying to make the transition to democracy. In May 1989 the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), led by former general and historian Franjo Tuddman, became one of the first non-Communist organizations in Croatia, and in less than a year began campaigning for Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia. By April, free elections were held in Croatia and Tuddman was sworn in as president the next month. He promptly declared Croatian statehood, a preliminary stage before independence. At the same time Stjepan Mesic was chosen as Croatia's first post-Communist prime minister, and a constitution was written that declared the Serbs in Croatia a national minority rather than a unique nation within the republic.

This classification fomented outrage in the Serb community. In 1991, Milosevic, seeing that the breakup of Yugoslavia was inevitable, began gathering support for a Greater Serbia, which would include all the areas of Croatia and Bosnia/Herzegovina where Serbs were in residence. Worse, Milosevic developed a plan to "ethnically cleanse" Eastern Croatia of Croats living there. Under such conditions, civil war was inevitable.

Hostilities broke out in 1991 with Milosvic pulling Serb forces into Croatia from all over Yugoslavia. During the violence, cities such as Dubrovnik, Vukovar, and Osijek suffered heavy damage, thousands of Croatians were forced to leave their homes, and thousands more were killed. The fighting also spread to other republics in Yugoslavia -- most notably Bosnia -- as Milosevic and the Serbs kept advancing and pressuring Croats and Muslims in Bosnia to fight each other.

Finally, hostilities between the Croats and the Muslims in Bosnia were ended by the U.S., and peace was declared in northern Yugoslavia in 1995. But it was 3 more years before the last Serb military units left Croatia. A year later, Tuddman died, paving the way for the election of Stjepan Mesic, who had opposed Tuddman's war policies in Bosnia/Herzegovina, and he has served as President of Croatia ever since.

Postwar Croatia -- Croatia's economy was a shambles as the war drew to a close: Employment hovered at 20%; industry was almost non-existent; agricultural output was drastically low; and some companies were unable to pay their workers even the depressed average monthly wage of $400.

In some business sectors, the country's economy is still struggling, but tourism and service industries are reviving as people return to Croatia's captivating landscape.

The bad taste from the Croat-Serb civil war hasn't completely disappeared, and many people are still trying to recover from the horrors of ethnic cleansing, poverty, and loss. In April 2001, Slobodan Milosevic, architect of the campaign to "cleanse" certain areas of all but Serbs, was arrested and charged with corruption after a 26-hour armed standoff with police at his Belgrade home. Two months later Milosevic was turned over to the United Nations and charged with committing crimes against humanity in Kosovo and Croatia.

In November of that year, the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal charged Milosevic with genocide stemming from his alleged activity during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Milosevic, known as the "Butcher of the Balkans," is the first head of state to face an international war-crimes court. He died March 12, 2006, while in custody at The Hague, while his trial was in progress and before a verdict could be reached.

The 21st Century & Beyond -- After a decade of war, Croatia is still rebuilding its image as a tourist destination and as a democratic nation. At the same time, the country is determined to take its place at the world table. Signs of economic recovery are everywhere, from packed luxury hotels on the Adriatic coast to the thriving upscale shopping malls and gourmet restaurants in Zagreb. Croatia is beginning to show signs that it is shaking off its down-in-the-mouth persona and presenting a more sophisticated, savvy face to the world.

The Croatian government is working to reduce foreign debt, boost the economy, and promote the country's natural treasures while it waits for admittance to the European Union, an event that is expected to occur by 2010. If Croatia achieves its economic and social goals, there are no limits to its future.