Dino Mujadžević 1

1 Muslim Populations

The last national census from 2011 for the Republic of Croatia provides very reliable data on the number and dispersion of Muslim population and other religions, as well as ethnic groups, in this country. There are 62,977 persons in Croatia who identified themselves as , which is 1.47% of the total population of 4,284,889. This is a fairly significant increase from 54,814 persons according to 1991 census and 56,777 (1.28% of total population) according to 2001 census.2 According to administra- tive division the largest part of Muslim population resides in the of (18,044; 2,28%) and the following counties (županije):3 Primorsko- goranska (; 10,667; 3.60%), Istarska (; 9,965; 4.79%), Sisačko- moslavačka (; 4,140; 2.40%), Dubrovačko-neretvanska (, 2,927, 2.39%), Vukovarsko-srijemska (; 2,619; 1.46%), Karlovačka (; 2,163; 1.68%). Muslims are largely concentrated in urban areas, most notably in the capital and the largest industrial centre Zagreb and other major towns and industrial centres in mainland Croatia: Sisak (2,442; 5.11%), (1,173; 1.98%) and Karlovac (705; 1.27%). Muslims are significantly present in ports, industrial and tourist centers of Northern Adriatic: Rijeka (5,820; 4.52%), Pula (3.275; 5.70%), (1,243; 10.68%), Vodnjan (858; 14.02%), Poreč (710; 4.25%), (669; 4.97%), Raša (569; 17.88%), (507, 3.55%), (240; 3.91%) and (207; 3.99%). The historical city of Dubrovnik in the Southern Adriatic also has relatively large Muslim population (2,310; 5.28%). Relatively large popu- lation of Muslims live in rural communities situated right next to state

1 Dino Mujadžević, Ph. D., works as research fellow at Croatian Institute for History in Slavonski Brod. 2 Popis stanovništva, kućanstava i stanova 2011 (Census of the population, households and apartements 2011). The new, as well the previous censuses, are published on the offi- cial web site of State Statistical Institute (www.dzs.hr), accessed 31 December 2012. 3 Županija (pl. županije) is Croatian term for administrative region, sometimes trans- lated as district or county. City of Zagreb is administratively and statistically independent from županije system. 164 dino mujadžević border of and : Gunja (1,295; 34.70%) and Drenovci (376; 7.27%) in Vukovarsko-srijemska, and Vojnić (742; 15.58%) and (418; 20.62%) in Karlovačka županija.4 The largest Muslim ethnic group in Croatia is (31,479; 0.73% of the total Croatian population), also the second largest ethnic minority. Among Bosniaks in Croatia 88% (27,959) identified themselves as Mus- lims. This traditionally exclusively Muslim ethnic group is composed of immigrants from Bosnia, and Montenegro, who came largely in the second half of the 20th century, and their descendants. The number of Bosniaks has increased sharply when compared to only 20,755 Bosniaks according to the 2001 census. This change is not the result of migrations and/or high birth rate, but the product of the transformation of ethnic (narodnost according to Croatian classification) self-perception among the population of Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin Muslim roots in Croatia. The relatively high number of persons who identified themselves as ethnically “Muslim” (according to 2001 census 19,677) decreased in a decade dramatically (according to 2011 census only 7,558). The ethnonym “Muslim” was used until 1993 as the official term for Bosniaks in Bosnia and elsewhere and, sometimes, for other Slavic Muslims in Macedonia and Kosovo. The 1991 census lists 43 thousands “Muslims” in Croatia. It is fair to assume that almost all of “Muslims” of the 2001 census were of Bosniak origin, but due to different factors—such as ignorance about the changed terminology or desire to assimilate into Croatian society by accepting more neutral ethnic identification—they did not identify themselves as Bosniaks.5 This situation has changed drastically due to the propagation of Bosniak ethnic identification, which was one of the main activities of Bosniak minority organisations during the 2001–2011 period. The second largest Muslim ethnic group in Croatia are , ethnic majority of over- all Croatian population (3,874,321; 90.42%). In the 2011 census 9,647 Croats (0,002% of their total number) identified themselves as Muslims. The rela- tively large number of is the result of ethnic and cultural assimilation of non-Croat Muslim immigrants, and their descendants, from other parts of former Yugoslavia during the 20th century. A large number of Muslims in Croatia are to be found among (17,513; 0.41% of the total population), a community mainly consisting of immigrants

4 Popis stanovništva 2011 (www.dzs.hr), accessed on 31 December 2012. 5 ŠemsoTanković, Bošnjaci u Republici Hrvatskoj. Bosniaks in Republic of Croatia. (Sara- jevo: Vijeće Kongresa bošnjačkih intelektualaca, 1997).