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Croats (Croatian: Hrvati) are a South Slavic people mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There is a notable Croat diaspora in western Europe, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The Croats are predominantly Catholic and their language is Croatian.
Locations Croatia is the nation state of the Croats, while in the adjacent Bosnia and Herzegovina they are one of the three constitutive nations. Autochthonous Croat minorities exist in: The population estimates are reasonably accurate domestically: around four and a half million in Croatia and around 600,000 (roughly 17%) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Diaspora A large number of Croats was forced in the course of the time for economic or political reasons to leave the old homeland, thus today there exists quite a large Croat diaspora outside of their traditional homeland of the Balkans. The first large emmigration of Croats took place in the 15th and 16th centuries, at the beginning of the Ottoman conquests in today's Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. People fled into safer areas within today's Croatia, and other areas of the Habsburg Empire (today's Austria and Hungary). This migration resulted in Croat communites in Austria and Hungary. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, larger numbers of Croats emmigrated, particularly for economic reasons, to overseas destinations. Some destinations included North America, South America (above all Chile and Argentina), Australia and New Zealand. A further larger emigration wave, this time for political reasons, took place immediately after the end of the Second World War. Here fled both collaborators of the Ustaša regime, and refugees who did not want to live under a communist regime. It is estimated that during and immediately after the Second World War (from 1939 to 1948) about 250,000 Croats had to leave the country. In the second half the 20th century numerous Croats, to a large extent due to difficult economic living conditions, left the country as immigrant workers particularly to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In addition some emigrants left for political reasons. This migration made a lowering of unemployment for communist Yugoslavia possible at that time and created at the same time by the transfers of the emigrants to its families an enormous foreign exchange source of income. The last large wave of Croat emmigration occurred during and after the Yugoslav Wars, when many people from the region (not only Croats but Serbs, Bosniaks and others as well) had to leave as refugees. Migrant communities that were already established in countries such as Australia, the USA, Germany, grew as a result of this. Abroad, the count is only approximate because of incomplete statistical records and naturalization, but (highest) estimates suggest that the Croatian diaspora numbers between a third of the total number of Croats. The largest emigrant groups are in Western Europe, mainly in Germany, where it is estimated that there are around 450,000 people with direct Croatian ancestry. Overseas, the United States contains the largest Croatian emigrant group (409,458 in the 1990 census, mostly in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and California), followed by Australia (105,747 according to 2001 census, with concentrations in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth) and Canada (Southern Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta). Croats have also emigrated in several waves into South America, chiefly Argentina, Brazil and Chile; estimates of their number wildly vary. There are also smaller groups in Peru, Brazil, New Zealand and South Africa. The most important organization of the Croatian diaspora are the Croatian Fraternal Union, Croatian Heritage Foundation and the Croatian World Congress. Origins The origin of the Croatian tribe before the great migration of the Slavs is uncertain. According to the most widely accepted by the mid-19th century, the homeland of Slavs is actually in the area of southern Croatia, and they spread northwards and westwards rather than the other way round. The "revised" theory, developed by Ivan Muzić argues that Slav migration from north did happen, but the actual number of Slavic settlers was small and that the Illyrian ethnic substratum was prevalent for formation of Croatian ethnicity. The "Iranian" theory suggests that the Croats are descendants of ancient Persia (cf. Alans), this theory is based purely on linguistic correlation and development of Croatian name. Allegedly the earliest mention of the Croatian name, Horouathos, can be traced on two stone inscriptions in the Greek language and script, dating from around the year 200 AD, found in the seaport Tanais on the Azov sea, Crimea peninsula (near the Black Sea). Both tablets are kept in the Archaeological museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. However, whether the term Hourathos is related to the Croat ethnonym is open to conjecture, as the two words may have separate origins. History
Culture and traditions The area settled by Croats has a large diversity of historical and cultural influences, as well as diversity of terrain and geography. The coastland areas of Dalmatia and Istria were subject to Roman empire, Venetian and Italian rule; central regions like Lika and western Herzegovina were a scene of battlefield against Ottoman Empire, and have strong epic traditions. In the northern plains, Austro-Hungarian rule has left its marks. Despite that, Croats have maintained a strong, distinctive culture and sense of national identity. The most distinctive features of Croatian folklore include klapa ensembles of Dalmatia, tamburitza orchestras of Slavonia. Folk arts are performed at special events and festivals, perhaps the most distinctive being Alka of Sinj, a traditional knights' competition celebrating the victory against ottoman Turks. The epic tradition is also preserved in epic songs sung with gusle. Various types of kolo circular dance are also encountered throughout the Croatia. Croatian language has the longest written tradition of all South Slavic languages, with documents like Baška Tablet dating as early as 1100. The modern standard language is based on ijekavian shtokavian dialect (like Serbian and Bosnian, with which it's mutually intelligible). There are two other dialects, chakavian (spoken in Istria and Dalmatia) and kajkavian, (spoken in Zagorje and wider Zagreb area), which to an extent have been influenced and superseded by the standard, yet they still color the respective vernacular speaches. Despite that diversity, Croats take their language as a strong issue of national consciousness and are fairly negative towards foreign influences. Croats are vastly Roman Catholic, and the church has had a significant role in fostering of the national identity. The confession played a significant role in the Croatian ethnogenesis. Dubrovnik Republic and Dalmatia are the homeland of Croatian literature. It was developed largely in the renaissance period, with works of Dalmatian and Ragusan authors like Marko Marulić and Marin Držić, and continued through baroque with Ivan Gundulić, romanticism with Ivan Mažuranić and August Šenoa up to the modern days. Symbols The Flag of Croatia consists of a red-white-blue tricolor, and in the middle is the Coat of Arms of Croatia. The red-white-blue tricolor was chosen, as it was the colors of Pan-Slavism, popular in the 19th Century. The coat of arms consists of the traditional red and white "chessboard" or "šahovnica". It has been used to symbolise Croats for centuries; some speculate that it was derived from Red and White Croatia, historic lands of the Croatian tribe. The current design added the five crowning shields which represent the historical regions from which Croatia originated. Notes See also | ||||||||||
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