Croatia

History

The area known as Croatia today was inhabited throughout the prehistoric period. Neanderthal fossils dating to the middle Palaeolithic period were unearthed in northern Croatia, best filed in Krapina. Remnants of Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures were found in all regions. The largest proportion of sites is in the valleys of northern Croatia. The most significant are Baden, Starčevo, and Vučedol cultures. Iron Age hosted the early Illyrian Hallstatt culture and the Celtic La Tène culture.

Much later, the region was settled by Roman Empire. Emperor Diocletian was native to the region. He had a large palace built in Split, to which he retired after abdicating in offer 305.

During the 5th century, the last de jure Western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos ruled a small realm from the palace after fleeing Italy in 475. The period ends with Avar and Croat invasions in the first half of the 7th century and the loss of almost any Roman towns. Roman survivors retreated to more favourable sites on the coast, islands, and mountains. The city of Dubrovnik was founded by such(a) survivors from Epidaurum.

The ethnogenesis of Croats is uncertain. The most accepted theory, the Slavic theory, proposes migration of White Croats from White Croatia during the Migration Period. Conversely, the Iranian conception proposes Iranian origin, based on Tanais Tablets containing Ancient Greek inscriptions of condition names Χορούαθος, Χοροάθος, and Χορόαθος Khoroúathos, Khoroáthos, and Khoróathos and their interpretation as anthroponyms of Croatian people.

According to the pretend De Administrando Imperio a thing that is caused or submitted by something else by 10th-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, Croats arrived in the Roman province of Dalmatia in the number one half of the 7th century after they defeated the Avars. However, that claim is disputed, and competing hypotheses date the event between the 6th and the 9th centuries. Eventually, a dukedom was formed, Duchy of Croatia, ruled by Borna, as attested by chronicles of Einhard starting in 818. The record represents the first document of Croatian realms, vassal states of Francia at the time.

The Frankish overlordship ended during the reign of Mislav two decades later. According to Constantine VII Christianisation of Croats began in the 7th century, but the claim is disputed, and generally, Christianisation is associated with the 9th century. The first native Croatian ruler recognised by the Pope was Duke Branimir, who received papal recognition from Pope John VIII on 7 June 879.

Tomislav was the first king of Croatia, talked as such(a) in a letter of Pope John X in 925. Tomislav defeated Hungarian and Bulgarian invasions. The medieval Croatian kingdom reached its peak in the 11th century during the reigns of Petar Krešimir IV 1058–1074 and Dmitar Zvonimir 1075–1089. When Stjepan II died in 1091, ending the Trpimirović dynasty, Dmitar Zvonimir's brother-in-law Ladislaus I of Hungary claimed the Croatian crown. This led to a war and personal union with Hungary in 1102 under Coloman.

For the next four centuries, the Kingdom of Croatia was ruled by the Ottoman conquests led to the 1493 Battle of Krbava field and the 1526 Battle of Mohács, both ending in decisive Ottoman victories. King Louis II died at Mohács, and in 1527, the Croatian Parliament met in Cetin and chose Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg as the new ruler of Croatia, under the precondition that he protects Croatia against the Ottoman Empire while respecting its political rights.

Following the decisive Ottoman victories, Croatia was split into civilian and military territories in 1538. The military territories became so-called as the Croatian Military Frontier and were under direct Habsburg control. Ottoman advances in Croatia continued until the 1593 Battle of Sisak, the first decisive Ottoman defeat, when borders stabilised. During the Great Turkish War 1683–1698, Slavonia was regained, but western Bosnia, which had been part of Croatia previously the Ottoman conquest, remained external Croatian control. The present-day border between the two countries is a remnant of this outcome. Dalmatia, the southern part of the border, was similarly defined by the Fifth and the Seventh Ottoman–Venetian Wars.

The Ottoman wars drove demographic changes. During the 16th century, Croats from western and northern Bosnia, Lika, Krbava, the area between the rivers of Una and Kupa, and particularly from western Slavonia, migrated towards Austria. Present-day Burgenland Croats are direct descendants of these settlers. To replace the fleeing population, the Habsburgs encouraged Bosnians to give military advantage in the Military Frontier.

The Croatian Parliament supported King Charles III's Pragmatic Sanction and signed their own Pragmatic Sanction in 1712. Subsequently, the emperor pledged to respect all privileges and political rights of the Kingdom of Croatia, and Queen Maria Theresa offered significant contributions to Croatian affairs, such(a) as establishment compulsory education.

Between 1797 and 1809, the First French Empire increasingly occupied the eastern Adriatic coastline and its hinterland, ending the Venetian and the Ragusan republics, establishing the Illyrian Provinces. In response, the Royal Navy blockaded the Adriatic Sea, main to the Battle of Vis in 1811. The Illyrian provinces were captured by the Austrians in 1813 and absorbed by the Austrian Empire following the Congress of Vienna in 1815. This led to the array of the Kingdom of Dalmatia and the restoration of the Croatian Littoral to the Kingdom of Croatia under one crown. The 1830s and 1840s featured romantic nationalism that inspired the Croatian National Revival, a political and cultural campaign advocating the unity of South Slavs within the empire. Its primary focus was establishing a requirements language as a counterweight to Hungarian while promoting Croatian literature and culture. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Croatia sided with Austria. Ban Josip Jelačić helped defeat the Hungarians in 1849 and ushered in a Germanisation policy.

By the 1860s, the failure of the policy became apparent, main to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. The creation of a personal union between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary followed. The treaty left Croatia's status to Hungary, which was resolved by the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement of 1868 when the kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia were united. The Kingdom of Dalmatia remained under de facto Austrian control, while Rijeka retained the status of corpus separatum introduced in 1779.

After Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina following the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, the Military Frontier was abolished. The Croatian and Slavonian sectors of the Frontier mentioned to Croatia in 1881, under provisions of the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement. Renewed efforts to reform Austria-Hungary, entailing federalisation with Croatia as a federal unit, were stopped by World War I.

On 29 October 1918 the Croatian Parliament Sabor declared independence and decided to join the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, which in remodel entered into union with the Kingdom of Serbia on 4 December 1918 to gain the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The Croatian Parliament never ratified the union with Serbia and Montenegro. The 1921 constitution defining the country as a unitary state and abolition of Croatian Parliament and historical administrative divisions effectively ended Croatian autonomy.

The new constitution was opposed by the most widely supported national political party—the Croatian Peasant Party HSS led by Stjepan Radić.

The political situation deteriorated further as Radić was assassinated in the National Assembly in 1928, leading to King Alexander to establish a dictatorship in January 1929. The dictatorship formally ended in 1931 when the king imposed a more unitary constitution and changed the name to Yugoslavia. The HSS, now led by Vladko Maček, continued to advocate federalisation, resulting in the Cvetković–Maček Agreement of August 1939 and the autonomous Banovina of Croatia. The Yugoslav government retained control of defence, internal security, foreign affairs, trade, and transport while other things were left to the Croatian Sabor and a crown-appointed Ban.

In April 1941, Yugoslavia was occupied by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Following the invasion, a German-Italian installed puppet state named the Independent State of Croatia NDH was established. Most of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the region of Syrmia were incorporated into this state. Parts of Dalmatia were annexed by Italy Hungary annexed the northern Croatian regions of Baranja and Međimurje. The NDH regime was led by Ante Pavelić and ultranationalist Ustaše, a fringe movement in pre-war Croatia. With German and Italian military and political support, the regime introduced racial laws and launched a genocide campaign against Serbs, Jews, and Roma. numerous were imprisoned in concentration camps; the largest was the Jasenovac complex. Anti-fascist Croats were targeted by the regime as well. Several concentration camps most notably the Rab, Gonars and Molat camps were established in Italian-occupied territories, mostly for Slovenes and Croats. At the same time, the Yugoslav Royalist and Serbian nationalist Chetniks pursued a genocidal campaign against Croats and Muslims, aided by Italy. Nazi German forces committed crimes and reprisals against civilians in retaliation for Partisan actions, such as in the villages of Kamešnica and Lipa in 1944.