Croatians: History, Language and Migration ABSTRACTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE HONOURING 30 YEARS OF CROATIAN STUDIES AT MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY / SYDNEY AUSTRALIA 5-7 FEBRUARY 2014 301984-2014 Croatians: History, Language and Migration ABSTRACTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE HONOURING 30 YEARS OF CROATIAN STUDIES AT MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY / SYDNEY AUSTRALIA 5-7 FEBRUARY 2014 Luka Budak editor Croatian Studies Foundation Zaklada hrvatskih studija PubLished by the Croatian studies Foundation & Croatian studies Centre, MaCquarie university / sydney, austraLia 2014 Editor Luka L budak Advisory boArd Danijel džino nevenko bartulin Walter F Lalic´ natasha Levak sub-/Copy? Editing Nevenko bartulin Design i ngrid urh Graphic design [email protected] print Macquarie Press, sydney publishErs Croatian studies Centre department of international studies Faculty of arts, Macquarie university sydney NSW 2109, australia Croatian studies Foundation Po box 1993 Macquarie Centre NSW 2113, australia For thE publishErs Luka budak, director – Croatian studies Centre John Gavljak, President – Croatian studies Foundation CirCulAtion First edition: 100 copies ISBN 978 0 646 91600 2 © 2014 Croatian studies Centre / Macquarie university, sydney, australia all rights reserved. no part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form by print, photo-print, microfilm, microfiche or any other means without written permission from the publishers. Contents introduCtion 7 the social relevance of Croatian studies at an australian university BY L budak & d dŽino ConFerenCe orGanisers 17 Croatian studies Foundation / Zaklada hrvatskih studija 19 Croatian studies Centre 21 abstraCts & PartiCiPants 23 6 Croatians: History, Language and Migration introduCtion the social relevance of Croatian studies at an australian university BY L budak & d dŽino 7 8 Croatians: History, Language and Migration the social relevance of Croatian studies at an australian university or: Why bother maintaining small humanistic disciplines in the age of financial cuts and rationalisation of academic departments and curricula? lukA budAk head of Croatian studies department of international studies / Macquarie university DanijEl dŽino arC Postdoctoral Fellow department of ancient history / Macquarie university The very idea of organising a conference on Croatians and Croatia in Australia may seem strange to an outsider. Yet, the strong cultural ties between Australia and Croatia, established and maintained by numerous Croatian migrants and generations of Australian-Croatians who incorporate the Croatian cultural heritage as an important part of their Australian identity, set the stage for such an event. The long existence of Croatian Studies at Macquarie University undoubtedly belongs to the very core of those cultural ties established between Australia and Croatia. Certainly, there would be no recognition of the Croatian language and consequently no study of the Croatian language or Croatian Studies at the university level in Australia without the consistent implementation of Australian state policies of multiculturalism throughout the 1970s. The synergy between a strong and vibrant migrant community and benevolent state policies enabled Croatian language and culture to be studied at Macquarie University as an academic discipline, beginning in 1983. The very fact that today we mark three decades of Croatian Studies shows not only its resilience and endurance through robust community support, but also highlights the need for the continuing existence of this type of program within Australian academia. From its inception until the present day, Croatian Studies at Macquarie continues to demonstrate its social relevance. This social relevance is not limited to Croatian-Australians but also extends to the wider introduCtion 9 Australian community and academic networks in and outside Australia. The social role of Croatian Studies is fulfilled through the research output of the Croatian Studies Centre; the organisation of conferences; the publication of the annual Croatian Studies Review; scholarly collaboration and exchanges with Croatian universities; and, from 2014, partnership with the Department of Ancient History in archaeological excavations in Croatia. Croatian Studies – What are we talking about? Research into the history, language and culture of Croatia and Croatians who live in neighbouring countries (mostly Bosnia and Herzegovina), as well as the networks of Croatian diasporic communities in Western Europe and overseas countries such as Australia, New Zealand, USA or Canada is a large but insufficiently studied field. It is frequently missing from the macro-narratives of European or Mediterranean (but also American, Canadian, South American, Australian or New Zealand) history and culture, representing a ‘missing link’ in the understanding of their past and the present. Croatian culture, both national and trans-national, provides a unique example for any researcher in the field of humanities. As a whole, it presents a mosaic of different narratives of the past and present written from the perspective of subaltern, peripheral identities – which are often either fully disregarded, or perceived by the Western observers in a very particular way through the discourse on Balkanism.1 The history of the regions inhabited by the Croatians in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina becomes increasingly valuable for an understanding of the past and present, due to its continuing position as a fluid and interactive frontier-zone between different empires. This position of a ‘permanent frontier’ enables a unique insight into the functioning and dynamics of empires – political super-organisms which shaped the human past as well as the human present in its current globalised shape. The change of paradigm in recent decades shows that understanding of ancient and modern empires can be achieved through research of their peripheries, rather than focusing solely on their political metropoles as previously thought.2 Significant material and cultural heritage deriving from ancient Roman and post-Roman Dalmatia and Pannonia, followed by the medieval period of the Croatian kingdom and Archiregnum Hungaricum,3 provide plentiful material for research, even if there were no other periods to follow. 1. Balkanism, as a complex way of perceiving and imagining the inhabitants of the former Ottoman European possessions by western travellers and scholars (comparable to Said’s better known Orientalism) was perhaps best defined by M. Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (New York, 1997). 2. See M. Hardt & A. Negri, Empire (Cambridge, 2000) or H. Münkler, Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to United States (Cambridge & Malden, 2007). 3. ‘High kingdom of Hungary’, the term describing the medieval political commonwealth united in the person of Hungarian king, to which most of Central Europe and the western Balkans belonged until 1526, including Croatia from 1102. 10 Croatians: History, Language and Migration However, the demise of medieval civilisation in Southeastern and Central Europe led to the establishment of a frontier zone between the three empires (Triplex confinium4) – the Habsburgs, Ottomans and Venetian Republic – over the areas of modern-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Those imperial powers fought each other in a life and death struggle but also interacted through complex social networks precisely through this frontier zone, thus directly affecting the construction of modern Croatian culture and identity. In one way, we could say that Croatians are one of the most multicultural nations in Europe, displaying a fascinating cultural diversity, which is deeply embedded in the construction of narratives of a common Croatian identity. Different regions selectively incorporate and manipulate cultural templates of the Mediterranean, Central Europe and Ottoman Europe together with the shared inheritance of the Croatian language as one of the Slav(on)ic languages. The 19th and 20th centuries established the Croatian nation as a member of the European family of nations, but also brought about an internal political split between the supporters of Yugoslavism (i.e. political inclusion in a broader South Slav(on)ic state) and Croatian political independence. Simmering in the era of the unitary and Serb-dominated South Slav kingdom in the 1920s and 1930s, this internal strife culminated in the Second World War with internecine and bloody warfare between Croatians belonging to the different totalitarian ideologies of fascism and communism. This inter-Croatian conflict illustrated in the best way Hobsbawm’s phrase about this era as ‘the age of the extremes’.5 The victorious communists exacted revenge on their opponents after 1945, continuing the vicious circle of violence started in 1941 for a few more years. The communists established Croatia as one of the federal units within the Yugoslav federation, which provided much more autonomy than Croatia ever had after the establishment of a common South Slav state, apart from the short period between 1939 and 1941, when Croatia was established as a special administrative unit within the Yugoslav kingdom.6 At the same time, however, the communists prevented any attempt to allow debate on the self-determination of Croatians in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The fall of communism and the wars of Yugoslav succession ended with Croatia’s full independence. This outcome also brought constitutional equality (which is not necessarily seen in political