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In recorded history, the area known as Croatia today was inhabited by the Illyrians (not a uniform body of people, but a cluster of many independent tribes connected racially and linguistically) and since the 4th century BC colonized by the Celts (were a group of people who occupied lands stretching from the British Isles to Gallatia) and Greeks. The forefathers Croatia's current Slav population settled in this region in the 7th century.
Croats and other Slavic tribes arrived Croatia and Bosnia in the 7th century. The Croats organized the area into two dukedoms ????? the Pannonian duchy in the north and the Dalmatian duchy in the south. The first native Croatian ruler was Duke Branimir.
The first King of Croatia, Tomislav of the Trpimirovic dynasty, was crowned in 925. He united the two duchies and created a state. However, following the disappearance of the native dynasty by the end of the 11th century, the Croats recognized Hungarian ruler Coloman as their king. | The union led to the introduction of feudalism and the rise of the native noble families such as Frankopan and Šubic. The princes of Šubic family became influential, asserting control over large parts of Dalmatia, Slavonia and Bosnia.
As the Turks invaded Europe, Croatia once again became a border area. The Croats fought but gradually fused with the Ottoman Empire of the Turks. By 1526, the Ottoman Empire further expanded to include most of Slavonia, western Bosnia and Lika.
Later in the same century, large areas of Croatia and Slavonia adjacent to the Ottoman Empire were carved out into the Military Frontier and ruled directly from Vienna's military headquarters. The area became rather deserted and was subsequently resettled by Serbs, Germans and others. By the 1700s, the Ottoman Empire was driven out of Hungary and Croatia, and Austria brought the empire under its control.
With the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797, its areas in eastern Adriatic became a bone of contention between France and Austria. The Habsburgs of Austria eventually got them and by 1815 Dalmatia and Istria became part of the empire.
By mid 19th century Croatian romantic nationalism emerged to counter Germanization and Magyarization
Following the Revolutions of 1848 in Habsburg areas and the creation of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, Croatia lost its domestic autonomy. Autonomy was restored in 1868 with the Hungarian-Croatian Settlement.
Shortly before the end of the First World War in 1918, the Croatian Parliament severed relations with Austria-Hungary as the Allied armies defeated the Habsburgs. The People's Council joined Serbia and Montenegro in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes shortly thereafter.
The Kingdom underwent a crucial change in 1921, when the new constitution centralized authority in the capital of Belgrade and redrew internal borders to favor the Serb majority, to the dismay of the Croatians led by the Peasant Party of Stjepan Radic. In 1928, a Serb deputy mortally wounded Radic during a Parliament session, which caused further, upsets in Zagreb. In 1929, King Aleksandar proclaimed a dictatorship and imposed a new constitution, which among other things renamed the country Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
In 1934, the King Aleksandar was assassinated abroad by banned radical groups. Croatia received some autonomy in 1939 with a reshuffling of the provinces, but the militarist regime in Belgrade crumbled in 1941 and the Axis powers quickly occupied Yugoslavia. |
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