Identity politics
( pročitaj Identitetske politike na hrvatskome jeziku )
1 – Introduction
The Third Republic is an expression that marked the beginning of the elections in Croatia in 2024. By the first Republic we mean of course, the Republic of Croatia from Topusko in 1944, which took its final form 30 years later in the Constitution of 1974.
And that's perfectly fine.
That Republic was far from perfect, but whatever it was, it was our Croatian Republic. Later came the second, internationally recognized Croatian Republic of Franjo Tudjman, but today is not the time for the third, but for the fourth Republic.
The third Republic did not have to wait long. It formally began with the departure of Franjo Tudjman in 2000. and continues until today. But the very beginnings of the third republic began in 1994., when the elite of the first republic, the one which was violently created after 1945. and witch is today spiritually impoverished by exclusivity, inherited from the comfort of a one-party society, so when it became very clear to that and such elite, that the Republic of Croatia, just like the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was defended by military operations on the Mountain Dinara and in the Neretva valley, and that the time is coming for a new, post-war democratic Republic. The Third Republic will be remembered for the frantic struggle for the acquired positions of the elites created in the first Republic, against the elites created in the second Republic, who shamefully compete in devaluing the creators of the first two.
Therefore, now is the time, not for the third, but for the fourth Republic. A Republic that above all, treats the creators of the first two with dignity.
2 - Identity politics
Modern identity politics, in addition to demographic ones, are the fundamental challenges of the 21st century. It is important to point out that modern identity politics are conditioned and caused by migrations, both climatic and economic, but much less political. As such their goal is no longer to be a means of conflict and wars, but to be a means of communication and mutual acquaintance and appreciation. Today, identity policies are no longer something secret, but something transparent and easily understood by everyone. As a tourist country, Croatia has an additional motive for the recognition and transparency of its identity policies.
3 - Identity policy of the Republic of Croatia
The identity policies of the Republic of Croatia are a combination of internationally recognizable symbols and geopolitical messages that the Republic of Croatia wants to share with the world and its nearby surroundings.
By no means to be the only ones, in this text, we can point out two, which are internationally the most recognizable Croatian symbols, namely the East Coast of the Adriatic and the name of Josip Broz Tito. Both of these symbols are connected by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which aimed to be a military alliance against the Ottoman conquests and as an Empire under the centuries-old patronage of the Papal State. Croatia was not only a member of that alliance, but also the foundation on which that empire was built upon.
4 – First Croatian States - guardians of the Papal Silk Road
Talking about the Republic of Croatia as the component on which the Austro-Hungarian Empire was built upon, is not at all blasphemous. Since the Peace of Aachen in 812, one of the important diplomatic activities of the Papal States located on the western side of the Adriatic was maintaining the open gate between the Frankish and Byzantine Empires, and thus the open gate between Western and Eastern Christianity.
But what the western coast of the Adriatic did not provide, the eastern coast did, and that was the islands from City of Pula to the Bay of Kotor, which protected Venetian merchant ships from the open sea on their way from Venice to Constantinople. This, what we can freely call the Papal Silk Road which connected Eastern and Western Christendom, the Croatian people first threatened for a short time, but through papal diplomacy, very quickly became the main protector of the hinterland of that road, which led to the creation of the first Croatian states.
The first papal Croatian state is considered to be the one of Prince Branimir from 879. Our beautiful small towns from Pula and all through Dalmatia, originate from such relationships on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Those first Croatian states, protecting the hinterland of the Papal Silk Road, spread deep into the Pannonian lowlands and into the territory of the then non-existent Hungary.
A part of those first Croatian states was also the Serbian people from their ancestral homelands of Raška and Duklja, that is present-day Sandjak and Montenegro, which was back then the border area of the Papal Silk Road. So about 300 years before the founding of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the first Serbian states. At that time, the Serbian people, together with the Croatians, defended that area from the threat posed by then very powerful Bulgarian Empire.
5 – Personal Union of Hungarians and Croats
Some fifty years after the founding of the first Croatian states, the new threats to the hinterland of the eastern Adriatic appeared with the arrival of the Hungarians in the Pannonian plains. But the Hungarians were neither naval oriented nor were to excessive admirers of the Bosnian mountains, so the main conflict between the Croats and the Hungarians was the Pannonial area of Slavonia. An area of exceptional importance for the agricultural and economic viability of the Adriatic hinterland, both then and today as well.
Papal diplomacy was heavily involved in preventing Hungarians and Croats from clashing over Slavonia, so a personal union under the crown of Croatian King Zvonimir, the former Ban of Slavonia and who was enthroned as Croatian King in 1075, was originally envisioned.
But his overthrow in 1089 by the Croatian nobility turned the favor of papal diplomacy in favor of the Hungarian crown. Today it is speculated, that the reason for the overthrow was dissatisfaction with the support for the Crusades against the Muslims in the Holy Land, which were then still in the preparatory phase.
It is interesting that the Pacta Conventa, as a document governing the Hungarian-Croatian personal union, was first found after the Ottoman Empire penetrated into Europe some 260 years later.
6 – Consequences of the personal union with the Hungarians
What happened in those 260 years after 1102. and the papal unification of Croats and Hungarians under the Hungarian crown?
Part of the Croatian nobility, dissatisfied with the union under the the Hungarian crown, went to the Bosnian mountains, establishes the first Bosnian States, rejects Christianity and adopts authentic bogumils worshiping. At the same time Serbs, then in close and friendly relations with the Catholics, completely turn to Orthodoxy, establish their first state and their own Serbian Orthodox Church.
Looking at what happened in those 260 years, we can consider that the Pacta Conventa document was written retrograde, in order to soften the animosity towards Catholics, caused by the papal unification of Croats with Hungarians. From the Battle of Marička in 1371. to the Battle of Mohács Field in 1526., for 155 years Croats and Serbs, divided by the Hungarian crown, resisted the Ottomans. Who knows, if they have not been divided, would they have prevented the Ottomans penetration as they did under King Tomislav against the Bulgarians in 920's?
After the defeat of the Hungarians at Mohács in 1526., papal diplomacy annexed the remnants of its unsuccessful hungarian-croatian project to Austria. Much later, after the Napoleon wars, the Republic of Venice was also annexed to that alliance, thus creating an insurmountable wall to the Ottoman penetration to Europe.
We can only guess what would have happened if the Croats had not overthrown their King Zvonimir in 1089. and thereby pushed the then brotherly Serbian people towards Orthodoxy. We can assume whether the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the first Serbian states would have been formed at all.
Or if on the other hand, Croatia and the Croats would still be recognized as the original guardians of the papal Gate between western and eastern christianity.
7 - Josip Broz Tito and the area from Kumrovac to Sutjeska
In the state community of Josip Broz Tito, people sang about brotherhood and unity from Vardar to Triglav, but what is important to know for today's conditions and the future of friendly relations between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is that Josip Broz Tito united the nations during the national liberation war in the areas, above all, between Kumrovac and Sutjeska. The fundamental strength of the national liberation war was in the unification of peoples who live mixed with each other and with which neither Slovenia nor Serbia as mono-national areas have not much in common. In Tito's movement, Slovenia was only an associate member in defense against Germanization and Italianization, while Tito's movement in Serbia, despite the initial attempts at an uprising, had no significant influence.
Serbia did not become a member of Tito's community by its own will, but by the will of the allied forces. This is the price Tito had to pay to become a recognized part of the international community. And when we talk today about Tito's alleged megalomania to involve in his post-war efforts Bulgaria, Albania and Greece into his community, it was not about any striving for greatness, but about the creation of a federal community in which no single nation could play a dominant role. But what remains as a feature of Tito's partisan path is the space where the simple-minded people needed him and with whom he was accepted as a partisan leader in direct contact.
And that is the area of his war path, between Kumrovac and Sutjeska.
Until his death, the first president of the internationally recognized Republic of Croatia Franjo Tudjman, was a great protector of the character and legacy of Josip Broz Tito. All the pointless controversies that took place in the 90s over the name of the football club Dinamo-Zagreb can only be seen today as a distraction and to gain the necessary time gap to be able to tell us objectively about the character and legacy of Josip Broz Tito.
Or until the political scene permanently leave all of them, as Franjo Tuđman well described them: " ...who preserve the cult of his personality, that is to say his authoritarian rule, as his epigones do in turn, who have never grasped the very essence of its appearance."
8 - Titoism and its epigones
In order to grasp the essence of the appearance of Josip Broz Tito, we first need to understand the original idea of the South Slavic community.
While all over Croatia and the entire former state, the epigones of Josip Broz Tito gather in front of numerous Tito monuments, in the city of Pula there is perhaps the only monument that Josip Broz Tito had built in 1952. in honor of the Bokel sailors' rebellion for himself personally. Just a hundred meters to the south, there is also one of the monuments to the epigones of Titoism in Pula. But what titoism is in reality is what this monument to the Bokel sailors tells us, as well as the symbolism of why it was erected in Pula and not in Boka Kotorska.
9 - Symbol of the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
The revolt of the Bokel sailors is above all a symbol of the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose elite had no regard for the common people. The original monument that was demolished during the Homeland War had 3 fingers raised high, but these were not the threatening three fingers with the palm facing away, which were a symbol of the terror of the wars of the 1990s. Those three fingers are a symbol of the South Slavic community and a project to preserve the empire, no longer as a dualism but as a trialism within a decentralized empire and its respectable nations. Above all, the nations between the River Sutla and River Drina who's languages never needed translators. In the symbolism of the Bokel sailors' rebellion, the city of Pula symbolizes the place from which the rebellion was suppressed, therefore as a place that was supposed to protect the empire and its nations.
The time of social and national inequality is the time of violence of the 20th century that shaped Josip Broz Tito. But what made Josip Broz Tito a great statesman were the values of the then empire as a military alliance of different nations, further enhanced by the care for the common, ordinary people and national equality. And that is exactly what we should consider as Titoism today, thereby purifying that term from the self-interest of countless of its epigones, while retaining empathy for all the innocent victims of that time.
10 - The unrealized Croatian South Slavic community
One of the biggest historical deceptions that still disturbs the establishment of good neighborly relations between Croats and Serbs is the one about Serbia as the creator of the South Slavic community in 1918., and the alleged rejection of the offered expanded Serbia in favor of the creation of a common state of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. In 1918., Serbia was fighting for survival of its own people. Serbia was exhausted and wounded, it was in no condition, just as the international community was not ready for new wars. In 1918., the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes of the then Austro-Hungarian monarchy were nowhere near as exhausted as the Serbs from narrower Serbia.
But they were beheaded and, despite centuries of loyalty to the Papal Austro-hungarian crown, they have been left without political leadership.
In the case that Serbia has tried to violently expand its state, on the other side it would not be met pacifists like Stjepan Radić, but Austro-Hungarian officers like the Serb Borojević who would just like Josip Broz Tito, unite the Croatians and their Serbian neighbors, and in that conflict and especially then, Serbia would never have any chances. In 1918., no one could force a Serbian soldier to leave his own hearthstone, to which he returned after so much suffering. In 1918., the Serbian political elite, in the spirit of its tradition, decided to wait for more favorable times, which thus welcomed the 90s of the last century. But this today especially monstrous policy of waiting and freezing desired conflicts, dates many centuries in the past, when the Ottomans were expected to lose their strength and leave the Balkans on their own.
All that time, Serbia did not provide any resistance. She has just waited.
On the other side Italy, which in 1918. was considered the biggest threat, would have entered to the eastern coast of the Adriatic in the post-war euphoria, but it would have spread over too large a territory and than, in the face of the united Serbs and Croats of the former empire, it would not be able to defend that territory for a long time. Unfortunately, the Italian extremists has then concentrated on the relatively small territory of Istria and Rijeka, where they spread with terror and new born fascist movement. If Serbia had then attacked the South Slavic nations, it would have quickly suffered defeat, and Italy would have been thrown out of the eastern shore of the Adriatic very quickly, and neither the Pits Bleiburg Ustasha nor Fascism, which began its bloody feast exactly in Istria, would never even came to exist in these areas.
Written by: Petar Bačić in Pula, on April 14, 2024