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I DEMOCRATIC LEAGUE OF TIE CROATS IN VOJVODINA DOCUMENTS January 1994 Address: Democratic League of the Croats in Vojvodina Trg Lazara Nesica 1/X 24000 Subotica Yugoslavia Tel/fax: (381) 24 51 348 39 459 a CONTENTS I. MAPS OF THE EX FORMER SOCIALIST FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA II. INTRODUCTION III. BACKGROUND INFORMATION IV. POPULATION V. CULTURAL AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS VI. HISTORICAL EVENTS VII. THE CROATS IN VOJVODINA VIII. JURIDICAL SITUATION OF CROATS IN VOJVODINA IX. VIOLATION OF HUMAN CIVIL AND COLLECTIVE RIGHTS EX SFR Yugoslavia ~F_. HUNGARY. ROMANIA Belgrade CROATS IN BACKA, SRIJEM AND BANAT (VOJVODINA) POSITION OF CROATS IN VOJVODINA REGARDING THEIR CULTURAL, POLITICAL, AND OTHER FUNDAMENTAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS Introduction As a result of the Croats in Vojvodina being deprived of their rights and the assimilatory policies which have calculatedly been implemented for over 70 years, the Croatian population has constantly been in decline. The war against Croatia and the destruction the war has caused directly reflect upon the status of Croats in Vojvodina. All too often they are insulted and taunted. They are attacked through public media, the Croatian media are blocked, they are mistreated by Serbian government authorities and rendered powerless in all areas of public life. Croatian cultural and historic monuments are being destroyed (Baa, Subotica, among others), and Croatian homes in Novi Slankamen have been blasted by machine gun fire, besides a whole line of similar occurrences. With that kind of politics, Serbia, especially after the cessation of the constitutional autonomy of Vojvodina, would like to destroy the will of the Croats to live in the areas of Barka, Banat, and Srijem, where Croats had already been living for thirteen hundred years. Background Information Vojvodina is name of the region consisting of three where Croats live: Barka, Srijem and Banat. Todays name was officially accepted after 1945, with the obvious intention to add the adjective Serbian, as a tribute to the mid-14th century name. For the Croatian population, the Barka area is especially important as. their number there is the greatest. Ba~ka, as a part of Vojvodina, is the southern part of Panonian lowlands between the Danube and the Tisa rivers. During the time of the migration of peoples, it was a cross-roads. in establish -their new settlements. Excavations around Ba~, Somnbor and Subotica proved that the Slays situated there were christened, .. bishopric in Ba .Slavic forefathers saved their settlements, terminology, and emblems. The indigenous population in Bad was Croatian even earlier, but especially after the Battle of Mohad in 1526. Unfortunately, they were not always known by their proper name but by groups such as Bunjevci and iokci. It is historically accurate that the Croats from Dalmatia and Bosnia already settled in Barka during the time of King Zigmund (14th century) and Matija Korvin (mid-15th century). There are records of settlements from Bosnia in 1437, from Dalmatia (Pozrmanja) about 1620, the most notable in 1686. Most of the settlements were centred in Bad, Sombor, Baja, Subotica and Szeged. Historically, Srijem is a Croatian region that stretches all the way to Zemun (a suburb of Belgrade). Historians are familiar with the Srijem diocese, which as such entered the new state in 1918. Regardless, in the regional reorganisation of the former kingdom into regions called "Banovina", one part was included in the Danube Banovina, the other in the Sava Banovina. With the changing of the borders that followed in 1945, Croatia lost part of Srijem. Thus the eastern part of Srijem was ceded to Vojvodina, and the western par to Croatia. In the part of Srijem, in Vojvodina, there are Croats in most areas. According to data from 1981 there were about 10,000 Croats in Sremska Mitrovica, about 3,500 in Petrovaradin, about 3,300 in Novi Slankamen, in Golubinci about 2,500,in Kukujevci about 2,300, in Bedka about 2,100, in Nikinci about 1,800, in Hrtkovci about 1,700, in Sremski Karlovci about 1,600, and in other areas such as Erdevik, Maradik, Morovim, Gibarac, Sot Sremska Kamenica, Beodin, Indjija, Novi Banovci, Neradin, Platidevo, and Surdin Hrvata, Croats number less than 1,000. Banat is the area in which the fewest Croats live; they comprise abut 1% of the population. Intermixed with the other inhabitants they live in the larger settlements in that area, primarily in Stardevo, Opovo, Perlez, Neuzina, and Boka, which is located in the settlements around Zrenjanin and Kikinda. SIZE OF THE CROATIAN POPULATION According to the first post-war census in Vojvodina there lived 132,893 Croats; 127,027 in 1956; 145,341 in 1961; 138,561 in 1971; 109,203 in 1981, but according to the 1991 census there were only 74,232 Croats, and those that declared themselves as Bunjevci (21,552) and [okci (1,866), altogether 97,650. As the size of the Croatian population changed, the data showed Subotica as the most significant centre of Croatian population. In 1918 Subotica had 101,000 inhabitants, of those 72,000 Croats, 5,000 Serbs, 20,000 Hungarians, and other ethnic groups. In 1927 data was made public, according to which, Subotica r: _., .,. v. changed: 42,792 Croatians, 10,520 Serbs, 30,860 Hungarians. The reason for the decline in the Croatian population in unknown. The 1948 census gives the following information: 48,362 Croats in Subotica, 39,1% of the population whereas in 1934 the figure was 43,5%. In 1953 Subotica had 46,574 Croats which is 36,8%. The 1961 census showed 46,330 Croats in Subotica. The 1971 census showed 46,330 Croats in Subotica. The 1981 showed 32,589 Croats in Subotica and 8,895 Bunjevci, who were accounted as "Others" in Serbian statistics. In the 1991 census there were 16,282 Croats, and 17,527 declared themselves as Bunjevci, all together 33,809. In Serbia including Vojvodina, there were the following numbers of Croats: 196,499 in 1961; 184,913 in 1971; 149,368.in 1981. This data leads one to think, not only about the time when they were collected, but also about today. A lesson for all! In only ten years the number of Croats in Vojvodina dropped almost 40,000, and in Subotica 13,644. All the censuses show a constant decline in the number of Croats as well as a percentage decline of their representation in the population. CROATIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIETIES From the mid-1960 s, the Croats in Vojvodina have had neither schools nor cultural institutions nor organisations. Croats in Vojvodina do not have a single Croatian school and in school they do not learn their native language, their literature, their history, and they are not represented on television or the radio nor do they have their own newspapers. They must endure an antiCroatian media war, implemented by leading politicians and actively supported by state authorities, the Serbia Orthodox Church and Great-Serbia-oriented organisations and their factions. They do not have their own printing house and do not have a single cultural institution. According to information, in BaZka there were 43 Bunjeva~ko- [okayka publications. Today, if you exclude "Badko Klasje" (trans. "Wheat Shoots of Barka") issued- by the Roman Catholic Church (since 1971) and "Glas Ravnice" which, as you can tell from its name (trans."Voice of the Plains"), is issued by the Democratic Union of Croats of Vojodina (since 1990), there are none. "Hrvatska Rijed" (trans. "Croatian Word") changed its name overnight to "Subotioke Novine" (trans. "Subotica News") and Hrvatsko Narodno Kazali .te (trans .Croatian National Theatre) to "Narodno pozori ste" (translated from Serbian: Peoples Theatre) . Other cultural institutions have also been discontinued. -- OVERVIEW OF HISTORICAL EVENTS 535. Caesar Justinijan mentions the bishopric in Bad. Surely the diocese was already arranged. The bishopric in Srijem/Sirmium was founded in the time St. Andronik, a student of apostles primates. 873. The Salzburg Annual mentions BaJ, as a fortress, in the time of migration and movement of the peoples in Podunavlje. 1092. Ladislav I restores the archbishopric in Bad, which was united with the Kalo~ka archbishopric (canonicae unita) in the mid-12th century for economic and political reasons. 1169. The first mention'of the Templar monastery in Bad; todays bell tower is from the same year. 1183. The first mention of Baja town (Francavilla, Waja, Baja, Baya). Originally it was a fortress, a defence fortification against Tatars. There were Croatia settlements around the town: AljmaE, Bikim, ::atalja, ..'avolj, Du nok, Jankovac, Gara, Ka 'mar etc. 1234. The hospital in Bad entrusted to Cistercites. At the end of the 13th century, the Franciscans took over the Templar monastery and the church in Bad. Apparently, it was a present from King Karl Robert. 1241. Tatar soliders were staying in the area of Sombor during the winter. Sombor was mentioned in written documents in 1256 and then again in 1332. There were Croatian settlements around Sombor: Conoplja and LemeS On March 21, 1747, Sombor became a free town. Bosnian Franciscans were running the diocese until November 1, 1784. 1366. Ludovic I (the Great, Nagy Lajos) asked the Bosnian Franciscans to send missionaries to southern Hungary, surely not for people who were not Croats. 1370. Queen Elizabeth restored the Franciscan monastery and the church in Bad. Franciscans were running the dioceses in Bukin, Plavna, Bodjani and Sonta. 1391. Most probably, the first written mention of Subotica. The town was developing fast, so that in 1743 it became a privileged commercial town, and on January 22, 1799, it became a free town known as Maria Theresiopolis. There were Croatian settlements around Subotica: Bajmok, Djurdjin, Kelebija, LudoG,, debesic, Tavankut, Pavlovac, Verufim, Zednik.

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