Austria-Hungary , nicknamed
Father of the Nation, considered to be father of Croatian nationalism, 1859 In the 19th century, opposition by Croats to Magyarization and desire for independence from
Austria-Hungary led to the rise of Croatian nationalism. The
Illyrian movement sought to awaken Croatian national consciousness and a standardize regional literary traditions which existed in a various dialects on a single standard language. Illyrianists during the
Revolutions of 1848 sought to achieve political autonomy of Croatia within a federalized Habsburg monarchy.
Ante Starčević founded the
Party of Rights in Croatia in 1861 that argued that legally, Croatia's right of statehood had never been abrogated by the Habsburg monarchy and thus Croatia was legally entitled to be an independent state. Starčević regarded Croatia to include not only present-day Croatia but also what is now
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Slovenia (
Duchy of Carinthia,
Carniola,
Styria) and parts of what is today
Serbia (
Sanjak of Novi Pazar,
Syrmia)—all people in this
Greater Croatia whether
Catholic,
Muslim, or
Orthodox were defined as Croats. During the 19th to mid-20th century Croatian nationalists competed with the increasingly Pan-Slavic
Illyrian movement and
Yugoslavists over the identity of Croats. The founder of Yugoslavism, Croatian
Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer advocated the unification of Croat lands into a Yugoslav monarchical federal state alongside other
Yugoslavs. However, in spite of both Starčević's and Strossmayer's competing visions of identity, neither of their views had much influence beyond Croatia's intelligentsia.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia , 1928, a leader of Croatian peasantry class and ideology Croatian nationalism became a mass movement under the leadership of
Stjepan Radić, leader of the
Croatian People's Peasant Party after 1918 upon the creation of
Yugoslavia. Radić opposed Yugoslav unification, as he feared the loss of Croats' national rights in a highly centralized stated dominated by the numerically larger
Serbs. The
assassination of Radić in 1928 provoked and angered Croatian nationalists with the centralized Yugoslav state, and from 1928 to 1939, Croatian nationalism was defined as pursuing either some form of autonomy or independence from
Belgrade. In 1939, a compromise between the Yugoslav government and the autonomist Croatian Peasant Party led by
Vladko Maček was made with the creation of an autonomous Croatia within Yugoslavia known called the
Banovina of Croatia.
Independent State of Croatia Croatian nationalism reached a critical point in its development during
World War II, when the Croatian
ultranationalist and
fascist Ustaše movement took to governing the
Independent State of Croatia (NDH) after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the
Axis Powers and the creation of the NDH at the behest of
Fascist Italy and
Nazi Germany as an Italo-German
client state. The Ustaše committed mass genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma, and persecuted political opponents, including the communist
Yugoslav Partisans and
Chetniks who fought against them.
Communist Yugoslavia After the defeat of the Axis Powers in 1945 and the rise of communist
Josip Broz Tito as leader of a new communist-led Yugoslavia, Croatian nationalism along with other nationalisms were suppressed by state authorities. During the communist era, some Croatian communists were labeled as Croatian nationalists, respectively
Ivan Krajačić and
Andrija Hebrang. Hebrang was accused by Serbian newspapers that he had influenced Tito to act against Serbian interests, in reality Tito and Hebrang were political rivals, since Hebrang advocated Croatian interests at the federal level and was one of the major
Yugoslav Partisan leaders. Hebrang also advocated change of Croatian borders, since, according to him, Croatian boundaries were clipped by
Milovan Đilas' commission. He also argued against unfair exchange rates imposed on Croatia after 1945 and condemning show trials against people labeled as collaborationists. Hebrang was not a serious threat to Serbian interests, since he was demoted several times and in 1948 he was put under house arrest. Croatian nationalism did not disappear but remained dormant until the late 1960s to early 1970s with the outbreak of the
Croatian Spring movement calling for a decentralized Yugoslavia and greater autonomy for Croatia and the other republics from federal government control. These demands were effectively implemented by Tito's regime. Croatian communists started to indicate on Serbian dominance in commanding party posts, posts in the army, police and secret police. However, main subject was the perceived subordinate status of standard
Croatian, at that time regarded as a Western variety of Serbo-Croatian. In 1967
Croatian Writers' Association called for designation of Croatian as a distinct language both for educational and publishing purposes. Because of such demands Tito gave an order to purge reformers in 1971 and 1972. Some 1,600 Croatian communists were ejected from the Communist Party or arrested. Such measures stopped the rise of nationalism in Yugoslavia, but Croatian nationalism continued to grow among Croat diaspora in South America, Australia, North America and Europe. Croatian political emigration was well-financed and often closely co-ordinated. Those groups were anti-communist since they originate from political emigrants who left Yugoslavia back in 1945. Croatian nationalism revived in both radical, independentist, and extremist forms in the late 1980s in response to the perceived threat of the
Serbian nationalist agenda of
Slobodan Milošević who sought a strongly centralized Yugoslavia. Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 leading to the
Croatian War from 1991 to 1995.
Modern Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina , modern Croatia's first president, 1995 Beginning in the 1980s, the Croatian nationalist movement was led by former communist general and historian
Franjo Tuđman. Tuđman was, at first, a prominent communist, but in the 1960s he began to embrace nationalism. He soon earned the favour of the Croat diaspora, helping him to raise millions of dollars toward the goal of establishing an independent Croatia. Tuđman gathered
MASPOK intellectuals and sympathisers from among diaspora Croats and founded the
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in 1989. In 1990, Tuđman's HDZ won the first democratic elections in the
Socialist Republic of Croatia. In 1991,
war erupted in Croatia and the following year, the
Bosnian War broke out. The Croatian ruling elite helped the Bosnian
HDZ to rise to power. The first leaders of the Bosnian HDZ opposed Tuđman's idea of division of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Croatia and Serbia; in response,
Mate Boban was installed as leader of the HDZ. He founded the
Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia with the goal to merge it with Croatia at the end of the war. Boban's project crashed in 1994 with the creation of the
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. ==Political parties==