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A major part in the History section is missing, about the genocidal "Independent state of Croatia", a puppet nazi state in which the most monstrous crimes against humanity were commited. Hunders of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Romas where slaughtered in concentration camps. There is NO! word about it in the history section !!
Did you actually read the history section? NDH is mentioned here:
"In the Second World War, the Axis forces created a puppet state - the Independent State of Croatia which inluded a lot of territories where Croats lived in the former Yugoslav Kingdom; but many littoral Croats remained outside that country. During and after the war, between 40,000 and 200,000 Croats lost their lives in genocides such as the Bleiburg massacre committed by the Yugoslav Partisans, as well as in many actions committed by chetniks. Many ended their lives in concentration camps such as Jasenovac." Mihovil 13:29, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
so, Mihovil, is there ANY sense of NDH article here? This is senseless, first because statement that 'many littoral Croats remained outside NDH' which is just without sense - we all know that NDH was oversized till moon, occupying much of what was not Croatia and not croatian at all. Second - about war crimes. Genocides by Yugoslav partisans - that's pure rethorics. Many actions commited by chetniks - that could be clarified more. "Many ended their lives in concentration camps such Jasenovac' - now this is a SHAME of humanity. Jasenovac wsa THIRD largest death camp in THE WORLD, estimated victims are (from all sources) between 370 and 700 thousand of victims, man, this MUST be said! NDH was NAZI country with pre-planned ideology of mass murdering of all non-Croats! Serbs were forming 31% of Croatian population before 1941, to be scaled to only 11 percent in 1945!! Not only to mention Jews and Roma! This MUST BE SAID, you dont have nothing in hiding this facts, this is something which MAN KIND should not forget, and we can't do anything about it now - genocide IS part of Croatian past.
So, Bleiburg was "just rhetoric?" I guess you're saying that the Partisans only committed "rhetoric," but the Croats are all crazed killers, right? Go ahead and add more if you want, but there are already separate pages for NDH and Jasenovac. Mihovil 22:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
wait, you're quoting me wrong. I said 'pure rethorics' because me and you know how posh became blaming Partisans for even genocides, in last decade or two, in order to distract view from the things one side or the other side doesn't want to show. That's rethorics. As well as every side in every war in any period of human kind, Partisans were contributing into war crimes. This Talk section is not about it, here we shall UNDERLINE bestial Nazi Croatian crimes in WW2, and your original post to this issue was obviously putting it into the third plan (making it minor topic to think about). That's how you wrote it. There are separate pages about NDH and Jasenovac, but what we are talking here is inpropriate mentioning of things which matter for the topic, in this page.
Ok, sorry for misinterpreting what you said, but I'm not sure that I really understand what you're trying to say. If you want to add to the WWII section of this article, go ahead. Mihovil 16:16, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Mpetrovic 15:58, 9 October 2006 (UTC)marko
I have made some changes to the numbers as i though the estimates were way down
eg in New Zealand most Croats call themselves Dalmatian and the number of them is extremly high. Probably the 4th highest migrant group. So the number in NZ estimated seems wrong. In Australia Croats are 12th highest (in 1988 they were 6th highest)..testimony to this would be the Australian soccer team which can have up 8 players at one time all of Croat background (Australia v Uruguay 2006) Argentia have 400,000 which i have dropped in. Even Maradona has some Croat blood hahhaah.
Yeah that sounds too much for UK. It might include Bosnian Croats who have left due to war in Bosnia Hercegovina, Iam not sure.... 400,000 + in Argentina is common knowledge and many South American countries like Chile and even Brazil have some sizable Croatian communities....i don't know why not list them. I don't why someone has the authority to delete that fact.
You've put the number of Croats in Bosnia to about 600,000 which is true, but you wrote that it represented 23% of the overall population which is way wrong!!!!! That would mean that Bosnia had 2,5 million residents and Bosnia has 4,1 million people! So I've corrected your percentage to 15%, which is the real number. Serbs consist another 1,5 million (37%) and Bosniaks about 2 million. Serbs and Croats together suprpass the number of Bosniaks in this country.
As for the genetic makeup of Croats, this field of investigation is only at the beginning (more extensive research in the future etc.). Be as it may, here are relevant linx, one in English and other in Croatian:
http://grokhovs1.chat.ru/legacy.html
http://pub145.ezboard.com/fimotacaffefrm24.showMessage?topicID=68.topic Mir Harven 23:06, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)
the newest links
http://www.vecernji-list.hr/newsroom/news/bih/96205/index.do
The Genetics section discussion is currently being mediated in an attempt to come to agreement. Please see my comments on that page if you have a position on this debate. Eberhart 22:40, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
That is old propaganda that croats would be slavs. This is taken for granted just because they once happened to be part of the union called Yugoslavia. Recent studies start to show that croats are not indeed slavs. They settled in the area long before the slavs even came to the balkans. So the only thing slavic about the croats is their language. Please note that croats and serbs are not of the same origin. Anyone can see that the appearance of these two people are different with the serbs being a lot darker for example.
I refuse to see such lies being presented to the people when modern day scientists are certain croats are not of slav origin.
The nazis did not see the croats as slavs either, that is wrong information. My grandfather fought for the ustashe during ww2 and came in contact with high ranking germans and he rejects this information as being false.
It needs to be clarified whether by "origin of Croats" we are talking about genetic origin, linguistic, or what? From a purely linguistic/cultural viewpoint, Croats are 100% Slavic. When you take genetics into account, they are only partially Slavic. They did assimilate the pre-Slavic (Illyrian) poplation of the Balkans, who may have been even greater in number than the invading Croats. So from a genetic point of view, Croats are mostly Illyrian. Although this applies to Serbs as well, so it wouldn't differentiate Croats from the Serbs. As for Serbs being "darker" than Croats, there is no difference in pigmentation or hair color between Serbs and Croats (or Bosnian Muslims for that matter), as can be confirmed by anyone who has travelled the region. Individuals in the Balkans who appear darker have Gipsy (or possibly Vlach) ancestry.
As for Hitler, the fact that he did not consider the Croats Slavic means aboslutely nothing. Hitler simply said anything that he thought would get them on his side as cannon fodder. - Anonymous 16:57, 28 June 2005 (UTC)
it is pretty scary to find that some people still consider adolf hitler to be an authority on ethnicity. at least i am scared. as to croats being slavs/non-slavs - slavs are a linguitic community, which basically means that slavic nations are the nations that speak slavic languages. there is no "slavic race", the same as there is no "nordic race", that is nonsense concocted by nazis. as to the ethnic background of the present-day slavic-speakinig communities - like it or not, it is highly varied as the part of europe inhabited by slavs witnessed a huge number of invasions, migrations etc. so the genetic stock unavoidably got all mixed up, what the slavs share now is only their language. to sum up: croats are by all means slavic because their language is slavic. pseudo-scientists denying it simply support modern-day official croat propaganda which aims to present croats as radically different from (implicitly: superior to) the neighbouring slavs. (s.korchashko, undoubtedly slavic)
ok, this might have been far-fetched, but: there are people, also scientists, making efforts to prove that croats are different from slavs (and if you strive to prove that you are different from someone else this usually means you want to demonstrate your superiority - but that may be just me being paranoid :) ). judging from what my friends, students of the croatian language (and frequent visitors in croatia) tell me this view seems to be predominant in the academic circles. if they teach so at the universities it would seem to be the official line, wouldn't it? i do not mean to offend anyone, i spent some time this year in croatia myself and liked the country and the people a lot. just trying to get some facts straight. yours truly, s.korchashko
ok then, my sources of information on the subject are the folks i mentioned earlier, students of croatian who go to croatia every now and then (to study there, to be more precise). arguably, they might not be the most reliable source of information one can imagine, but then most of the things i know about the world come from books, tv and the internet, which, come to think of it, are not very reliable either. going back to those friends of mine, some time ago i was upbraided by one of them for saying that croats are slavic. she told me that they had been taught at a university in croatia (don't ask me which university, i don't know that) that croats were not slavic, that they had nothing to do with the slavs except that they happened to speak a language nearly identical with the languages of their slavic neighbors. the others said the same thing, adding that this was the predominant view in croatia.
it is possible that they just incidentally happened to find themselves at a school run by pseudo-scientists (or maybe just its linguistic department was run by lunatics) and therefore got their perceptions on the subject all screwed up (which in turn screwed up my perceptions). having done some research on the internet i am happy to find that serious croatian scientists reject this line of thinking as crap. i hope i did not hurt your feelings, it is just that i react rather emotionally when i see people quoting nazis as authorities on any subjects, and especially on subjects of race and ethnicity. yours truly, s.k.
Oh, dear not this discussion again. I just want to add a comment regarding the genetics, which is so misunderstood. There has never been any research showing a significant genetic difference between Croats and Serbs - or Egyptians and Eskimoes for that matter. It took them 5 years to just sequence one DNA molecule (
HUGO project) - it's a bigass molecule. It is today not possible to do it on a scale where you would have statistically significant results for a population.
What we have is Y-DNA haplogroups which are determined by analyzing a very, very small part of the DNA. As Y-Chromosomes are inherited directly father to son, this can be used to determine male-line heritige. Very rarely mutations occur and these define the haplogroups. Now, Y-DNA only gives you information about one single line of genetic inheritence - about your father, your father's father, your father's father's father etc It says absolutely nothing about for instance your mother or your father's mother or any other line that isn't directly male-line. So it says nothing about the general genetic difference or similarities. What we know about through current DNA testing is about deep origins which is quite interesting for analyzing past human migrations. But that's it. As the results are only from the direct male-line ancestry, it is quite useless for distinguishing population groups on a genetic level. And moreover what we have learned through this DNA testing is that the ethnicity and race are very simplified models of population makeup - the picture is far more complex.
It does however leave us with one relevant metric - culture (language included). And from a cultural basis, there is no doubt that the Croats are a Slavic population. -- Denoir 08:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
That's the first time I've read someone refer to Germanic/Romanic people are more homogenous than Slavs. A single noun such as "Slav" has no equivalent to describe the big peoples of Europe. I won't go into it here but I can explain something else: it is correct that there is nothing more than language which links the Slavic people, however, there is nothing more than language to identify anyone at all, anywhere for any reason. Language, entire of itself, is more complex than most people realise. There is no neautral language, or group of dialects/languages. Each tells its own story of its past and presents world views in its own unqique way. Now, a so-called "nation" (Nation A) who today share scores of characteristics may tomorrow leave their homeland and settle in other parts of the world. One may go and live in a place where Nation B will subjugate the A-people. Many years from now, Nation A's people living under Nation-B's rule may have developed many characteristics influenced by Nation-B. The Nation-A affiliates on the other hand, who live in another region of the world under Nation-C, totally different from Nation-B may very probably assimilate aspects of Nation-C's culture, in their language, religion etc. Meanwhile, the third group from Nation-A could be said to have met another destiny. Living under Nation-D, those Nation-A people have decided to take Nation-D's language and make it theirs. Now in Nation-D territory, there is no more evidence that Nation-A once dwelled there except for the odd municipal name descending from their old language etc. I doubt anyone will disagree with this. As for the ethnic Nation-A people living under Nations B and C: they have NOT assimilated the language and can thus be still identified. Genetically they may have changed too, through mixing etc, HOWEVER, the fact that a child may be born to a Nation-A mother and a Nation-B father, even under Nation-B rule but still decides to identify as a Nation-A person even after two centuries - means that Nation-A's influence has come out on top; it has survived. Now when Nation A who lived under B and those who lived under C return to meet each other for the first time in centuries, things have changed drastically between them, but this can never be a reason for the two of them to consider each other different from the other: a now battered and bruised language on both their parts may be the only thing that can link them to a common ancestor BUT unlike their Nation-A affliliates who lived under Nation D - these people had their chances to become members of their overlord race, and their existance as Nation-A affiliates many years down the line reflects a decision to maintain their identity and reject becoming one of the overlords. Those living under Nation-D may have had the same choice but because they took the language of Nation-D, nothing more is attributable to Nation-A and it becomes impossible to go to a town which is 100% Nation-D language speaking, and say "this town is 75% D, and 25% A", in the way that you could if 'A' had maintained its language.
Accross Europe and the world there are many examples of these phenomena. Croatia, as a country, occupies a strategic position in the heart of the South Slavic linguistic and cultural community. Just as not all Slavic-speaking people of Croatia declare themsleves Croats, there are many people living outside of Croatia's borders who speak a Slavic language and DO call themselves Croat. If you draw a ring around a region which Croatian Nationalists consider Croatian land, and even go as far as to regard all people who speak a Slavic language in that zone as Croats - you now have a pure Croatian territory. Look inside it, and you will find as much cultural diversity as anywhere else. Croats are united in that they speak a Slavic language, one who does not speak a Slavic language but lives among Slavic-speaking Croatians is unlikely to call himself a Croat (and even less likely to be accepted by the masses). Now remove Croatia's standard language from the equation and take people for who they are by choice, and consider the rural speech of the people. Not only will you find diversity stretching east to west, south or north, north-east to south-west and back round again, in custom, costume, language usage, food and social attitude, you will ALSO find that all of this forms a part of a wider continuum which encompasses ALL OTHER South Slavic people. There is nothing that people living close to the Slovene border and speak Kajkavian (to take an example) can say to a Slovene accross the border to say "you see them people in Dubrovnik? we have more culturally in common with them than with you!", Likewise the people of Dubrovnik, call them ALL Croats if you will, will still have had more contact and cultural connection with people from near-by Trebine (where they identify as Serbs) and Kotor (where they are mostly Montenegrins) than with people from Istria or Vukovar. I have been ALL over Eastern Europe, on a few occasions too. All of this can be said about West/East Slavic too. Remove the borders, you don't know you're Poland from your Belarus, or your Ukraine from your Slovakia, there are no abrupt changes in people once you get to a town where people start to identify by the other name. Even if they are MIXED like in Vojvdodina, their presence for centuries speaking the same language has maintained similarity, but the tradition of calling yourself by another Slavic nation there ONLY indicates ceremonial differences, the odd celebration twice a year etc.
To end this long passage, these continua are found all over the world, in the Arab world, all through most of China, South America (natives disregarding European culture) etc. Closer to home, the Alpine borders between France and Italy host Occitan speaking people, denied their rights in both countries largely who may well have more in common with each other than with Normans and Sicilians. What do Piedmontese have in common with Sicilians asides a government? A related language and nothing else, and again, linked by a continuum with the two points at either end different from centuries of independent evolution. Nobody dares to call them different. Holland-Germany-Austria-Swiss Germany, the same... Nordic Scandinavia too, the list grows. So if anything apart from a goverment (or desire for a greater governent) unites ALL Croats in ANY WAY what so ever, in a way that excludes ALL OTHER people except one who is Croat, please tell me...I will apologose. Celtmist 21 Mar 2006
A single noun such as "Slav" indeed has no equivalent to describe "small" or "big" peoples of Western Europe. It is probably why so many "Slavs" feel they should not be referred to as "Slavs", but as Croats, Poles, Russians, Czechs, Bulgarians etc. I suppose one is taking away a great deal of our separate cultural identities when one indiscriminately lumps us together as Slavs. As for the South Slavic continuums. I agree that we may be talking about a linguistic one encompassing the countries from Croatia and Slovenia in the north-west to Bulgaria and Macedonia in the south-east. As for a cultural continuum, I have my doubts there. Especially in the light of the fact that such supposedly a cultural continuum was often abused in the past which had devastating consequences on every nation involved. I agree that you can mention Dubrovnik in conjunction with Kotor, though not with Trebinj. As for the former, try to establish a link between Kotor - a place in today's Montenegro which until 1918 was part of the Croatian territories - and the near-by Montenegrin capital Podgorica and you will have to come to a conclusion that those two places are very different indeed. Vojvodina is another good example. The Serbs who lived there for centuries (not the post-WWII colonizers) have little in common with the Serbs from Serbia proper. And the differences do not boil down to occasional celebration of a religious festivity. It is enought to cross the Danube and the Save into Serbia and you will feel you're on another planet. It is a cultural rift that is a result of complex historical realities that lasted for a thousand years. The same rift also separates Transilvania from the rest of Romania. Language and 50 years of a shared political/social system can only play a secondary role under such circumstances. Also (to answer Denoir) a German from Chemnitz and a German from Hamburg may have lived under different political/social circumstances, but despite the resultant differences a German from Chemnitz had not become more similar to a Pole in Krakow than to his fellow German from Hamburg. Also, a Pole from Krakow or, for that matter, a Ukrainian from Lvov are much more similar to an Austrian from Vienna than to a Slavic-speaking Russian from St.Petersburg. Why? It is a thousand years of distinct historic experiences which cannot be erased by a social/political system that lasted half a century or by the fact that respective languages are related. Peoples from outside Trieste to Vladivostok did learn from similar textbooks in schools or lived (some of them at least) in the same drab blocks of flats, but 50 years is not enough to make a substantial and a lasting change.
Do Croatians and, say, Poles have a common cultural basis or not? I think yes. Do Croatians and Russians or Croatians and their fellow South-Slavic Bulgarians and Serbs share a common cultural basis? The answer, in my opinion, is no. The re-introduction of a market economy to all Slavic speaking countries and the process of globalization will have important consequences on the cultures of the Slavic speaking countries, but in a century or so northern Croatia will still have much more in common with eastern Austria or Hungary than with neighbouring Serbian and Slavic speaking parts of Bosnia.
Perhaps another paragraph from the article in Britannica about the developments after the migrations in the 5th and 6th century will more clearly outline how diverse Slavic speaking countries/nations/regions are:
In the centuries that followed, there developed scarcely any unity among the various Slavic peoples. The cultural and political life of the west Slavs was integrated into the general European pattern. They were influenced largely by philosophical, political, and economic changes in the West, such as feudalism, Humanism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the French and Industrial revolutions. As their lands were invaded by Mongols and Turks, however, the Russians and Balkan Slavs remained for centuries without any close contact with the European community; they evolved a system of bureaucratic autocracy and militarism that tended to retard the development of urban middle classes and to prolong the conditions of serfdom. The state's supremacy over the individual tended to become more firmly rooted.
In such a context I don't feel that the differences between the English and the Germans are greater than the differences between the Slovaks and the Bulgarians. EurowikiJ 12:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
This issue of "Slav" or "non-Slav" is irrelevant. Genetic science is leading to a strongly supported conclusion that Croats are largely indigenous to Croatia since the paleolithic period. (See "The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective"). This would lead to a hypothesis that the original "Croat tribes" or whatever their name was were a small group that was assimilated into the larger indigenous population. Somehow this indiginous population was speaking or started speaking a Slavic language. The Celts of Gaul far outnumbered their Roman masters, yet they too succumbed to the Latin language, as did the Dacians of Romanian, Celtiberians of Spain, Dalmatians of Illyria, etc. Perhaps "Slavic" became a "lingua franca" for the region and the local population that probably spoke "Illyrian" and Latin started, over the years, to speak Slavic?
Take the Croatian province of Dalmatia. The, now extinct, Dalmatian langauge was still spoken by some Croats until as late as the late 1800's. There are many words still spoken that are based in Latin and "Illyrian". All the Dalmatian coastal cities spoke a Latin-based language. The OFFICIAL LANGUAGE of the Croatian Sabor was LATIN until 1847. Most educated people in Croatia spoke Latin until the late 1800's. No doubt the first and second Yugoslavia's had a "slavicizing" effect. Was Croatia a Slavic-speaking country in the 700's or 800's? Well, if the Paleolithic theory is true, then most likely it was not. There was likely a progression over the years where a Slavic language replaced Latin or "Illyrian" as the language of choice. For hundreds of years Croats called themselves Illyrians and their Slavic-based language was known as Illyrian. It was in 1843 the Habsburg Monarchy banned the name "Illyria" and "Illyrian" for fear that it would forment independence.
Does it matter? Not really. Croats are largely indiginous to Croatia. That means they have been thereabouts for around 25,000 years regardless of the language we speak. Also, as a side note, this theory of Iranian origins.... well, genetic science doesn't support it at all. If there was a "tribe" or "Croats" that came from Iran, they had little to do genetically with the current Croatian population except maybe lend a name, but even this is speculation. Croats are not Slavs or Iranians or anything else except..... Croats. Simple this way.
It's pronounced 'Cro-at', right? - Litefantastic 16:50, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Someone added this, but I don't see how it's true. Removing until verified. They may exist as a minority but are they really autochthonous? -- Joy [shallot] 09:19, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Can someone add a side-bar population statistics thing like in the Serbs and Slovenes articles?
The Side-bar population statistics are incorrect.
This is Serbian Propaganda, Worldwide >7.000.000 Croats, Argentina with about 400.000 immigrant Croats is not in the list etc.
Tommy, 02.12.2006
Currently they are (on the picture):
Now, undoubtedly they're all worthy people, but I think Gotovac and Zrinski (the great-grandson) aren't exactly among the most popular or influential Croats.
Gundulić is from old Dubrovnik, and those people weren't necessarily descended from Croats and weren't part of the Croatian nation at the time, so it's better to avoid such a moot point. Ruđer Bošković and Marin Držić would be such candidates if I was proposing them.
I would suggest replacements for the first three, partly ordered by relevance/age:
If we're talking in sets of four, then I'd say Marulić-ŠubićZrinski-Strossmayer-Meštrović would be a rather appropriate group. This would then include:
As far as regions are concerned, we'd have a Dalmatian, a continental Croatian, a Slavonian, and a Dalmatian who was born in Slavonia. That's pretty evenly matched too :)
Anyone have any thoughts? -- Joy [shallot] 23:51, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
I think, the fact The Gondola familie, your origin was a Venetian city, age 1100, the next generation, since Ivan Gondola count of Konvale, marriage with Dziva Gradic, your son Franon Gondola, marriage in 1681 with MºGenovefa von Bemelberg, the descendent of this all were Austrian people, which Joseph Franz Graf (Count) Von Gondola who died in 1774, bishop. don´t forget than the nobles families marriage between them. -- Ragusino 18:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
---
How is Gundulic not descended from Croats just because he's an old Dubroniker? I don't get it.
Anyway, you're selections are good, I guess, but we can always switch the images later; anytime someone makes a new one.
Also, the person in the image is actually Faust Vrancic, not Nikola Zrinski; the label is wrong.
I feel like making a better picture. The one I made for Slovenes looks better. Can you point me to some good photos and/or individuals?
The new pictures sound OK, but why not add
Franjo Tuđman?
HolyRomanEmperor
12:16, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that the Genetics section is, um, silly. Even if it's backed up with some (pseudo?-)scientific data, apart from being difficult to read for an average reader, I think it's counter-productive -- it more shows the level of national (not universally shared, I know) frustrations over "wannabe an Aryan". It would be better to expand a bit on History (giving a brief overview on History of Croatia) and add e.g. a Customs and Culture section, and move this part somewhere to Origin of Croats, where such theories are listed.
I live in Serbia and I think most readers from here will laugh on this paragraph (I don't care if Croats or Serbs originate from Martians by the way), and I'm affraid most people from elsewhere will get at least an eyebrow raised about it. But I want to assure you I'm saying this out of good faith; this part IMO gives the impression of national frustration rather than presenting a scientific proof of anything. Duja 08:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Unless a good reason is given why "Croatian cuisine" belongs here and not in Croatian Culture or why "Genetics" belongs here and not origin of Croats, I will move both shortly. Antidote 03:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I move to strike this whole section for a number of reasons:
1. It appears to still be unclear exactly how to interpret the genetic studies. For example, it does not mean that Serbs and Croats are different racial groups or of different origin. As there is no way of interpreting the studies (or of knowing how representative they are) I don't think they add any real information to the article.
2. The whole DNA/racial debate adds to the unfair characterization of modern day Croats as racists. Imagine if someone added a similar section to the article on Germans.
Croats, like Serbs, are Slavic by virtue of speaking a Slavic language. The etymology of their names are likely to be Iranian in origin, though this is not 100% certain. For example, Bulgarians are also Slavic, although their ancestors were a Turkic people.
Finally, if one is to have a discussion about race/DNA, then it should be noted that the Croat Slavs coming to the region in the 600s most certainly mixed with the existing peoples in the region. These people were not only the " Illyrians" but also Romans/ Latins, Goths, Huns, Gepids, Alans, Avars, Sarmatians, to name a few. Add to this later population influences from Turkey, Italy and other surrounding coutries.
All in all it makes little sense to talk about Croatians in a genetic or racial sense. Croatian is a nationality and an ethnicity. It is definately not a race. Osli73 15:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I've reread the article and have two comments:
1. It's really only a study of populations on certain Dalmatian islands and thus says little about Croatians, the majority of whom don't live in the Dalmatian archipelago.
2. Even the authors themselves say that Croats are Slavs: "In conclusion, the investigated Croatian populations show the presence of Y chromosomal haplogroups specific to Western, Southern and Eastern Europe. Moreover, Croatian Y chromosomal lineages testify to different migrational movements carrying mostly Palaeolithic European ancestry, a minor Neolithic impact from the Near East, as well as a Slavic (Croatian) influence which is today clearly expressed in the Croatian language which belongs to the Southern Slav linguistic group."
So, why not just take out the section alltogether? Osli73 22:11, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Mirhaven,
I'd even say that it is totally irrelevant for the purposes of this article on Croats. It doesn't give the reader any further information on who the Croats are and maybe even makes them more confused. The study which the text refers to was obviously not intended to be a study of the origin of the Croat people or the inhabitants of Croatia, be they Catholic or Orthodox, Croat or Serb.
If there is to be anything on the ancestry/origin of the Croats, then I think it should mention the migration of the Slav tribes and the theory of the Iranian origin/etymology of the Croat name. Osli73 22:49, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
And it is not about how different genetically people are (the Y-DNA and mtDNA regions are very small compared to the rest of the DNA), but how related they are. And that coupled with geographical information gives a very valuable and exact tool for studying the migrations of populations.
-- Denoir 13:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm not so sure you guys are interpreting the DNA analyses correctly or maybe you are making too sweeping conclusions from them.
For example, a 2004 article in the Croatian Geneology Newsletter [1] concludes that:
It goes on to say:
Another article [2] concludes that:
It goes on to say:
So, in light of this, I think the conclusions of the genetics section should be rewritten. Osli73 08:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
It would be, I think, good to explain why this genetic stuff at least. It's an ideological counterbalance to the pan-Slavic ideology which has been coined by romantic pan-Slavic nationalists (including many Croats-actually, a Croat, Juraj Križanić, was the founder of the pan-Slavic ideology). This ideology is, let's be frank-"racialist" (not racist). It lumps all Slavic langauges speaking peoples in a froup called "Slavs". OK, so far, so good. But, the language-phenotype-genotype mental association established by this ideology has caused annoyance to many Slavic peoples & individuals. An example ? Do Poles speak a Slavic language ? Yes. Hence, Poles are Slavs. Do African-Americans speak English language ? Yes. Is English a Germanic langauge ? Yes. So, African-Americans are "Germans" or "Teutons". This "racialist" implication, encoded in the langauge-genotype association, is, I guess, the source of certain aversion of not few "Slavic" peoples towards "Slavic ideology". It can be further elaborated on, but, I'm tired... Mir Harven 23:50, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
If we're talking about the Alans, then they came from the Caucasus and the Ossetians are their descendents and not the Persians who live further to the south. Tombseye 16:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
To those who might be interested: please take a look at the Croatian Wikipedia counterpart of this article. It is abysmal... If you're willing and able (I might be able, but unfortunately I'm really not willing), try and spread some of the good stuff from here to there. GregorB 08:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Why not putting the picture of Josip Broz Tito, he was the most notorious Croat in the world, everyone knew who he was (founder of the non-alingment)-- TheFEARgod 13:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
The history section needs organisation and the genetics section needs proper referencing and removal of speculative and/or erroneous bits so original research is avoided. Genomist 23:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Genomist, I'm not sure what your agenda is, but please understand that a newsletter does not qualify as a valid scientific article. It is original research as it has not been [[Peer review|peer reviewed]. In addition, the text you are trying to add is pointless. Saying that there is no support for the Iranian theory but that it doesn't exclude the possibility says nothing. There is nothing that supports the theory that Croats are in fact from Alaska, but you can't with 100% certainty rule out that either. You don't however see that written in the article. Besides, the section that you are so desperately trying to remove already implicitly states that: "Modern-day Iranians have a significantly different haplogroup distribution, although millennia ago Persia may have been home to altogether different peoples."
As for references, all the statements except yours are supported by provided references, and unlike your newsletter reference, these are peer reviewed and published article and books. The LGM theory and Croat haplogroup distributions are discussed in the Baric reference. The Iranian and Mid Eastern haplogroup distributions you can find in Cavalli-Sforza and Olson. The neolithic migrations you can find in Sforza, Olson and Semino - Olson. And finally, although it is mentioned implicitly by Baric, the Slavic migration to the Balkans is covered explicitly by Olson.
So I'm not sure what exactly is your problem. You are trying to remove a text with proper references that says that there is no support for the Iranian origin theory with a text with a dubious reference that says that there is no support for the Iranian origin theory. Please, before you do further editing, explain what exactly you are trying to accomplish and also please use peer reviewed references. -- Denoir 09:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I hope you don't take this post as hateful. I have absolutely nothing against Croatia, Croat people or Croat culture. But I think there is something you should know. According to well documented sources, Croat immigrants had a hand in the extermination of some 5,000 indians in the island of Tierra del Fuego, which is now divided between Argentina and Chile. There is evidence indicating that death squads made up largely by Croat mercenaries hired by British immigrants were assigned to hunt down every indian in that island, no matter if they were man, woman or child, until there was virtually no indian left by the 1930s. I repeat, I have nothing against Croats. But I think this piece of information is worth posting, for the sake of reflection.
Marcelo, from Salta, Argentina.
if you speak croatian: http://www.croatia.ch/tjedan/041204_1.php -- User:84.176.238.6 00:58, 9 July 2006
i have put the following etymology up twice on this site, only to have it removed by someone who apparently wants to censor information.
the etymology is: The word Croat comes from Serbian-Croatian Hrvat, from Old Church Slavonic Chǔrvatinǔ "Croat", literally "mountaineer, highlander", from churva "mountain".
the flimsy links with Iranians are mostly due to outdated scholarship riddled with holes. i'd go into more detail, but needless to say, the croats are slavs who are very closely related to the serbs.
genetics are not the basis of an ethnic group. read a sociology or anthropology book....
i'm not sure what mihovil wanted me to expand on, so i'll assume he wanted me to expand on everything.
this message is centered around the silly iranian theory.
to begin with, the fact that the Serbo-Croatian language (there is no dispute by linguists that Serbian and Croatian are in fact the same language) is completely and utterly Slavic and that archaeology has unearthed artefacts (pottery, iron swords, metal decorations, glagolitic writing, etc.) that are undeniably slavic in their design, should lead no one to question the Slavic origin of the Croats. and yet...
the word Harauvatis was found in an inscription of King Darius I and was assumed by a small minority of overzealous pseudo-scholars to perhaps be connected to Croatian Hrvat. The transcription, however, was missing a middle h, HaraHuvatis, which is in fact the name of a holy river in the Avesta (Zoroastrian holy book), and appears in Sanskrit as Sarasvati. This word could not possibly refer to early Croats.
similarly, some have tried to explain the remnants of Slavic (pagan) religion found in Croatia that seems to express a certain dualism by attaching it to Zoroastrianism. of course, the two dualisms are nothing alike....
the legend about the five brothers who led the clans to their new homeland, and the colors selected to represent the cardinal directions (White Croatia, Red Croatia, etc.) is similar to the Scythian/Sarmatian customs of planting colored flags to deliniate the center and the four cardinal points when establishing a camp site or on the battlefield. of course, the same tradition is found among the Serbs and Bulgarians, and is very similar to Hungarian beliefs. this would indicate that the legend became popular and spread to the slavs BEFORE they invaded the Balkans. it does not indicate an Iranian origin at all.
in fact, there is not tangible evidence, cultural, linguistic, or otherwise which points to an Iranian origin. nothing about traditional or modern Croatian culture seems Iranian. absolutely nothing about the Croatian language is Iranian, unless you can suddenly understand Farsi, or Kurdish, or Pashto, etc.
what can you conclude except that the Croats are not Iranian.
Flibjib8 23:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
In short, I think you are misreading the Iranic theory; no one (that I know of) has ever argued that the Croats came directly to the balkans from Persia. Nor do many (if any) scholars argue that the Croats retain any of the cultural characteristics of their Iranian past. When the Croats mixed with the slavs to the north of the Pripet marshes, they were wholly slavicised. That being said, there is some evidence, scanty as it may be, to sugest that there is a Persian stratum to the Croats' history prior to slavicisation; i.e. the Tanais inscription. Similar arguments have been been made about the Bulgars, who were originally a Turkic people. Do the Bulgarians today retain any traces of their Turkic past? Not really, because they were assimilated by the slavs over whom they ruled. But this does not change the fact that, although the Bulgarians are today considered to be slavic, their origin is completely non-slavic. That same can perhaps be said of the Croats, and, incidentally, of the Serbs. Some have suggested that the Serbs were originally of Scythian or Sarmatian origin, despite having retained none of the cultural elements of such an origin. -- Mihovil 03:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
part 2 '
== THIS STUFF IS NOT TRUE!!! GO TO A DIFFERENT WEBSITE TO GET THE DESIRED INFORMATION YOU NEED!
PLEASE GO TO A DIFFERENT WEBSITE ANOTHER WEBSITE WILL BE MORE ACCURATE AND YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO FIND THE TRUE FACTS YOU ARE LOOKING FOR!!!!
PLEASE TAKE THIS INTO GOOD PERCIPITANCE ==
he trait almost assuredly exists in some other population. in fact, usually, every biological trait or gene is represented somewhere else in the world. european populations, which are notoriously variable like the middle eastern populations, cannot be distinguished genetically from each other except in the most relative way. what is "original", or "traditional", or "better", or "purer", is generally determined by who ranks highest on the system of social inequality. currently, that would be the serbs.
the croats can be proven to be culturally slavic and their physical traits do not differ noticably from neighboring slav populations. how then can we consider the serbs and croats trully separate? do you think a Chinese man or an African could tell the difference between a Serb and a Croat? Flibjib8 23:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I am in no way disputing the fact that the Croats are, and have been for more than fifteen hundred years, slavic, both linguistically, culturally, and otherwise...see my comment above. -- Mihovil 03:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
oh, dear, mihovil, i had no idea you were so stubborn and entrenched in your views. it is clear that i need to compose an entire paper, not only about croats and serbs, but also about population genetics, history, ethnic studies, and common slavic cultural heritage in order to convince you of anything... assuming you were in any way remotely convinceable.
even if i did, i couldn't get the thing to you, and i also do not have the proper resources at my disposal. furthermore, i do not see the discussion area of wikipedia as an appropriate venue for such a long and drawn-out discussion. but now i'm absolutely intrigued!
i'm surprised you would give any credence to the iranian theory. there is no substantial proof, historical, linguistic, or cultural which would suggest a population of iranian (and this would have to be sarmatians or alanians from the eurasian steppe) ever crossed the danube. preposterous. in fact, the sarmatian and alanian populations had already been eclipsed by the hunnic peoples (who established Bulgaria and Hungary) and relegated to areas around the black sea (north of the danube). they were in no position to move south after about 250 AD, and no one broke through the Danube border except the Huns, Goths, and Slavs until the 7th century.
if there could ever be proven any lasting cultural influences on the croats or serbs, they would include illyrian influences which are somewhat extensive. they include the famous serbo-croatian kolo dances, panpipes, bread-making moulds, early stone-lined graves, tattooing, use of a lid (pekva) to bake bread in the fireplace, s^ubara hats, opanci shoes, the Balkan headscarf, and early worship of the goddess 'mother Jana' all point to Illyrian influence. why do we not find a similar amount of iranian influence, especially since they allegedly gave their tribal name to the Croats but do not appear to have ruled them or been a majority among them? how do croatian genetics compare to those of the iranian peoples?
as for the bulgars, the slavs first overran the area and then in the 7th century a group of Hunnic Bulgars crossed the Danube and quickly took control of the area. they gave their name to the region, but did not remain in control for very long. nor were they in a position to influence slavic society, being a small minority ruling class. hungary was established in a similar fashion.
your use of population genetics to establish so-called lineages smacks of ethnocentrism. it is not until that data is compared first to neighboring southern slavs, then to eastern and western slavs, and third to neighboring populations (hungarians, albanians, greeks, romanians), can one construct anything useful for tracing migrations or "lineages". besides, given the likely high genetic variation in the Balkans, archaeology is really the only reliable way of tracking ethnic groupings. once again, racial or biological distinctions between neighboring peoples are likely to reflect similar variation WITHIN those same peoples.
once i have done more research, i will be better able to respond to your specific questions.
Flibjib8 23:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. First of all, you need to be much less condescending if we are going to get anywhere. Second, I made no mention of population genetics; Denoir did. Third, I never said that I was completely convinced of the Iranic hypothesis! Sometimes it helps to play devil's advocate, right? Anyway, it seems to me that you are just as deeply entrenched in your anti-Iranic dogma as you assert that I am in a corresponding pro-Iranic stance. Your original refutation reads almost like a cut-and-paste of what Radoslav Katičić wrote for "Croatia in the Early Middle Ages." I'm not fully convinced of any theory of the Croats' origin, but I think it's very shortsighted to completely throw out the Iranic theory. -- Mihovil 00:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't you agree that something very important is missing on the croatian page of Wikipedia? I'm talking about modern croatian flag and historical coat(s) of arms of croatian lands. Also, I think that croatian history and culture deserves at least twice more space than now presented here. Maybe instead of that dubious and uncivilised genetics section. Knowing that most of the stuff was written by our own people, what did we try to prove with that? Do we really think that someone in the World wants to know us for "our" chromosomes?
Or, what about that enormous wasting of space counting Croats around the World, resulting only in conclusion that unfortunately there's a nation which fled from it's native grounds. That once lived there, but now reading about it in New York, Berlin or Sydney. And please, don't only mention Byzantines, Venetians, Hungarians, Turks, Austrians, Serbs, communists or World globalisation to me.
Afrika paprika, I'm afraid you will have to back up your inflated numbers with a reliable source. Even the current number of 5.5-6 mil is unsourced, but at least it represents an approximate sum of sourced figures below (and plus some). "Estimates" do not include your own estimate and/or wishes. There are not many references available on web, but e.g. this one says 4.8 mil. I don't know where you find the 7-8 mil except if you have tools to remotely analyse Purely Croatian (TM) blood cells in every living person. Until you find a source (which I sincerely doubt), you will be reverted. "Tracing their origin back in Croatia" is too vague criteria, and, apparently, it will include every person whose (grand-)grandparents came from Croatia. If you want to count this way, then the total sum of all worlds ethnic groups would amount to some 20 billion. Duja 09:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
9,000,000 seems like a gross overestimate. For instance, the 4,8 million is stated by primary sources (that's not a primary source that we have on it - the Croatian World Congress), and calculating up all that we have amassed so far we'll get to 6,000,000 tops. For isntance, the Serbian Unity Congress claims that up to 700,000 Americans are ethnic Serbs (and numerious other sources state 500,000), and all incinuating that 300,000 alone live in Chicago, the informal 3rd largest Serb city in the world. A similiar applies to the Serbian population in Germany. I don't see why we should accept the Croatian World Congress' statement that's even less likely possible here - it might trigger the (in)famous inflations on the Serbs article. -- HolyRomanEmperor 22:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Completely agree with HolyRomanEmperor. These numbers are complete nationalistic overestimates. 250,000 Croatians in Argentina is a ridiculous overestimate. Indeed, the 150,000 in Chile is just plain laughable. I think we need to find some very very very steadfast numbers and not just put whatever some guy's website says. Horvat Den 04:40, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
In truth, we have around 4,000,000 Croats in Croatia and 600,000 in BiH - and 100,000 Serbia (Vojvodina); 100,000 is the least imaginable figure for Croats living elsewhere (and is sourced by primary sources) that we can accept. Compare that to the Serbs - 6,250,000 Serbs in Serbia (of whom 1,350,000 live in Vojvodina and 150,000 live on Kosovo); there are 200,000 Serbs in Montenegro (although one might encircle this figure to 450,000); 1,700,000 Bosnian Serbs and 200,000 Serbs in Croatia; this doesn't even account up to 9,000,000. Croats and Serbs everywhere else is just inflating numbers. -- PaxEquilibrium 11:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I think we have very similar gross overestimates brewing on Poles. Anyone care to take a gander? Horvat Den 01:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Partly thanks to the edit war by now-banned User:Afrika paprika, I rewrote the article, stubbing the "Culture and traditions" section (moderate expansion welcome)—shouldn't this be mostly what the article is about?. "Genetic origins" is moved to Theories on the origin of Croats, which is now more or less a copy/paste of the "Origins" section here. I find the "genetics" too dense for an overview article like this one. Denoir et al, I hope you'll give the due weight to the appropriate theories (and "theories") in that article. Katičić's article at hercegbosna.org (thanks Mir (?)) offers a good overview on the subject.
As for the "number inflation", well, what the heck, I retained (and sourced) the 6-9 milion figure. While I myself consider the 9 milion a gross exaggeration (applicable only if one "counts blood cells" of many English-speaking Americans, Spanish-speaking Argentinians etc.), I hope the readers can conclude that the lower figures in such infoboxes are usually the more reliable ones. Duja 11:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I just want all real Croats (the ones with Slav* surnames**) to pay attention to the fact of severe importance that there is a serious organisation of Austrians in Croatia (organisation of those Austrians that remained in Croatia after break-up of Austro-hungarian empire) - influential INDIVIDUALS*** that wisdomfully claim (decieve) that they are Croats, but they are actually not - simply they are representatives of Austrian national minority that remained in the land of Croats after Austro-hungarian empire collapsed ("Oster reich" - the "Eastern Reich" (Eastern Germanic Empire of Roman-catholicism)).
It is obvious that destruction of the federation of south Slav people (known by name of 'Yugoslavia') was a revange of such organisation of Oster-Reichans (based on false reasons) against Slavs (Serbs, in particular, as the integrative factor (because the other two religions are actualy allien hegemonial influences)). Of course, everyone asks a question "Wasn't Yugoslavia starting to break-apart exacly when Germany united?" - and IT IS when it started to happen, that is not just a coincidence.
Volksdeutschers (Osterreichans (ex-Austrian empire's national minority in Crioatian lands)) would gladly proclaim that term 'Croat' implies simply one of the Germanic nations, but today it's too early for such an aditude; for now they just do not see the term "Croat" as a term that implies a 'specific definitive nation'*; instead, Osterreichians ("Volksdeutschers") consider word "Croat" in terms of citizenship (Croat can be anyone - a German in their case - it just depends on what poeple are majority on that land (and they intend to own it again (and slowly they are achieving it))) - their oppinion is that Croats(Slavs) are people stupid enough to believe them (because - they are Slavs - and thus Osterrechans (Austrians) keep silent about it yet of course consider them a lower race - slaves - naive people that can be bought thorough lies and perfidiousity - people who cannot see what they are doing to them because they are blinded with their sweetalks, traid-offs, falacies and simply - lies).
You see, long ago in XIII century (two centuries after Christianity finaly officialy failed to convert Rome to democracy) Romans sent legions to Jerusalem to provoke Islam (def. Islam: cultural (etc.) hegemony of Arabian group of people) and lure them bloodlustly enraged here on the (so-called) "Balkans" so they would do the dirty job instead of them - destruction of Christianity (def. Christianity: Jesus Christ's movement againt Roman hegemony; a movement for democracy of people (def.democracy: self-rule of people instread of hegemony over them and multitude of others (claiming that "there is only God above pople" (not human (such as Cesar or Pope)))); for which he was arrested, tortured and killed by Roman forces of order), and Rome almost achieved what it planed, but when Islam started weakening and withdrawing from "Balkans" ancient Roman organisation* ordered OsterReich to attack and occupy Bosnia, and subsequently Serbia (which then finaly got free after half of millenia of slavership under Islam which Romans brought on them). That (atack of German OsterReich on Serbia) caused World War 1. Justice won, and OsterReich empire decomposed giving freedom to multitude of nations (such as Croats among all the others).
NOW COMES THE IMPORTANT PART: Osterraichans (Austrians) disregarded the fact that their greed and evil* was responsible and guilty for decomposure of their precious empire, no - instead - they simply blamed Serbs... Needless to say, they planed revange (the result was 1:1, and they seeked 2:1 for them (notice that term 'revange' is illogical here)).
Carying the OsterReichan racial ideology of Iliria and the Aryian race one Austrian came to Germany. Adolf Hitler. World War 2 folowed shortly.
Nazi Osterreichans of WW2 then commited genocide against Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia thorough so-called "Croat movement" of 'ustashe'. It is not a Croat movement, it is Austrian movement (hiding diabolicaly behind the name 'Croatian') - with them there were only massively naive Slav Croats that took words of those fascist quasi-croat's for truth (not filtering it throuh their minds - just blindly falling into hateriot and evil which Austrians were massively inducing in them against Serbs (in this case) (let's notice that Austrians were lead by Roman Catholic organisation which did practicaly nothing to stop the ever so obvious evil that was going on at that time in history (there is no excuse for it))).
Further more, Josip Broz (Tito) fought for Austro-hungarian army in WW1 and even achieved higher rank there; he then infected Serbs with communism and killed everyone who opposed it. (And after that - look - Serbs are the bad guys because they are communists and they have tickheaded dumb polititians! how convinient! (so then some bunch of "incredibly naive" ex-Vietnam veteran U.S. generals with metal plates in their heads ever-so against the "commies" help anyone claiming to be fighting against the ever so bad communism (never mind their lack of knowledge (their dumb ignorance) of history (having in mind that Catholics infected Serbs with communism (and look Churchil helped them (monarchy against the other monarchy? supporting communists in WW2???))))); so there is no just reason to atack Serbs - well, heck, we'll invent one! oh, look, Serbs think that it's injustice that hundreds of thousands of their close realtives were murdered in WW2 at-hock and in nazi concentration camps for no reason by us, quasi-Croats, (how it's convinient to hide behind other nation's name, isn't it, Austrians?).
Serbs sacrificed their oppinion for peace in the new country (Tito's communist SFRY) and for unity of people - the injustice was never rectified - victims were never properly burried, and now all of the sudden we* are destroying the federal state having it all in mind - YET - still Serbs are the ones that are bad. And then we* intentionaly OPENLY provocate the unsuspecting -them- to accordingly violent reactions using filthy perfidious ways in order to get them enraged so we could point our fingers at them saying "Look how agressive they are!" and blame them for everything in the eyes of the so-called "international public" using our sensless moneydriven and/or childeren-of-an-ex-nazi news reporters. Unsuspecting people don't have a clue (or don't give a damn) that their oppinions are being disgustingly maniupulated by western media. ...And Serbs can do nothing about it because - heck - we* controll media - what we say IS the truth - we say that truth is lie and that lie is truth, yet Serbs are evil - shame on them and their thicheaded commie governments (we first superimosed on them). About Tito (the Roman catholic pretending to be a comunist (and let's have in mind that he joined the comunist party when it supported separatism in Yugoslavia between the two world wars)): - he had forbidden Christianity to Serbs (on basis of being a communist - how convinient), he made Kosovo an autonomous province (although it never was before!), latter he induced absolutely disguistingly abnormal natality of Albanians in Kosovo (so Serbian government could be blamed for poor living conditions instead of the real rason - the abnormal overpopulation induced by Tito's government and who knows what else anti-Christian organisation), and finaly his government gave Kosovo even greater autonomy - so Albanian individuals in charge could provoke Serbs (regular citizens - ordinary people just wanting to lead their ordinary lives) in Kosovo (in Serbia - in their own country!) buy misusing their jurisdiction and creating social injustice, and so when Serbs finaly fell for that provocation and said "What's enouh is enough!" - we* then just TURN THE STORY AROUND: BECAUSE - SEE - SERBS DURING EXISTANCE OUR ROMAN-CATHOLIC AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE WERE ALWAYS NOTICING AND COMPLAINING HOW WE ARE TRYING TO SPREAD THE "GREAT AUSTRO-HANGARIAN HEGEMONY" AND MAKE IT EVEN GREATER - HAH - NOW WE'RE GONNA BE SARKASTIC - AND WE WILL SIMPLY SAY EXACTLY THAT FOR SERBS ALTHOUGH IT IS OBVIOUS (AND WE* ARE AWARE OF IT) THAT THEY ARE JUST TRYING TO SAVE THEIR COUNTRY WHICH IS A LOGICAL ENTITY BECAUSE IN IT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT RELIGIONS THAT SPEAK ONE LANGUAGE (WHICH (ANYHOW YOU LOOK AT IT!) MEANS THAT THEY ARE ONE CULTURAL ENTITY) ARE FINALY UNITED AFTER SO MUCH CENTURIES OF SLAVEDOM UNDER ROMAN AND/OR ARABIAN HEGEMONY. AND WHEN SERBS START THEIR PERSONAL REVANGES FOR OUR* NAZI GENOCIDAL CRIMES, AND THE KILLING STARTS INTENTIONALY INDUCED BY OUR* SHAMELESS PROVOCATIONS TO NOTHING ELSE BUT VIOLENCE - THEN WE* WILL USE THAT SAME DIABOLICAL SARKASM, AND WE *WILL TURN THE STORY AROUND - WITH A DIFFERENCE THAT THEY SAID IT RIGHTFULY, BUT NEVERMIND - WE* WILL BE OBSCENE AND WE* WILL TURN IT ON THEM ANYWAY - AND SAY WHAT THEY SAID FOR US: "YOU ARE GENOCIDAL! LOOK AT ALL THOSE MASS GRAVES! SERB CONCENTRATION CAMPS! MASS MURDERS!"**. FIRSTLY: THEIR REVANGE AGAINST WHOM WE (OSTERREICHANS) MADE THEM BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE THEIR REAL ENEMIES (THEIR SLAV BROTHERS - CROATS); AND SECONDLY: A FIGHT FOR WHAT IS JUSTICE AND LOGIC (THAT UNION OF PEOPLE THAT SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE) - WE* WILL ALL OF IT SHAMELESSLY SIMPLY CALL "THE GREAT-SERBIAN HEGEMONIAL POLITICS" (the ever so popular sentence of diabolical sarkasm of all the DEMONS in these lands: "Velikosrpska hegemonija." (One man, obviously non-Serb at least according to his surname (Voyislav Sheshely), will be THE MAIN EVIDENCE of Serbian "violent nature" - which would make them (the naive Serbs who don't have a clue what this is all about) the bad guys and us* the victims - the climax of irony (no matter it is obvious that we* are the ones who need the BLOODY WAR - the bloodier the better - because that is the only way to deepen the gap between nations of this one people (Croats and Serbs, Bosnians and Serbs, Croats and Bosnians), and secure our (Roman-catholic/Oster-reich) victory against the inferior fools).)) - JUST LIKE WE WERE DOING IT CENTURIES AGO, WE WILL NOW MAKE THEM BURN ON STAKE JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE CLAIMING THE EARTH IS AROUND.
--- Pay special attention to all the low-minded (impartialy said) ways Osterreich is CONSTANTLY trying to convince Croats that they are not of Slav origin (all but not Slav - everything - no matter how stupid those quasi-claims sound (or intentionaly missliding (like the Iranian theory (those 'Iranoids' are not today's Croats - today's Croats speak Slav language ergo they are Slavs - FACT)))). Slavs didn't have a hugely advanced civilisations (heck - they didn't even have their own alphabet before IX century! and even then - it was invented - by a Greek!) - nor were they the ones who where conducting the enslaving (it was always the other way around - Slavs were always the ones which various hegemonies were acting against), yet these people still speak Slav languages - that's a fact - no matter how it coincided - that's a fact. Croats, Serbs and Bosnians speak the same language - one people divided only by actions and perfidious political needs of different hegemonies (Latin and Arabic (but, hey, we are Slavs, not Latins, not Arabians; Slavs (from the word 'Glory' ('Slava') - and what submitting yourself to someone else's dividing hegemony has to do with glory???))).
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A major part in the History section is missing, about the genocidal "Independent state of Croatia", a puppet nazi state in which the most monstrous crimes against humanity were commited. Hunders of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Romas where slaughtered in concentration camps. There is NO! word about it in the history section !!
Did you actually read the history section? NDH is mentioned here:
"In the Second World War, the Axis forces created a puppet state - the Independent State of Croatia which inluded a lot of territories where Croats lived in the former Yugoslav Kingdom; but many littoral Croats remained outside that country. During and after the war, between 40,000 and 200,000 Croats lost their lives in genocides such as the Bleiburg massacre committed by the Yugoslav Partisans, as well as in many actions committed by chetniks. Many ended their lives in concentration camps such as Jasenovac." Mihovil 13:29, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
so, Mihovil, is there ANY sense of NDH article here? This is senseless, first because statement that 'many littoral Croats remained outside NDH' which is just without sense - we all know that NDH was oversized till moon, occupying much of what was not Croatia and not croatian at all. Second - about war crimes. Genocides by Yugoslav partisans - that's pure rethorics. Many actions commited by chetniks - that could be clarified more. "Many ended their lives in concentration camps such Jasenovac' - now this is a SHAME of humanity. Jasenovac wsa THIRD largest death camp in THE WORLD, estimated victims are (from all sources) between 370 and 700 thousand of victims, man, this MUST be said! NDH was NAZI country with pre-planned ideology of mass murdering of all non-Croats! Serbs were forming 31% of Croatian population before 1941, to be scaled to only 11 percent in 1945!! Not only to mention Jews and Roma! This MUST BE SAID, you dont have nothing in hiding this facts, this is something which MAN KIND should not forget, and we can't do anything about it now - genocide IS part of Croatian past.
So, Bleiburg was "just rhetoric?" I guess you're saying that the Partisans only committed "rhetoric," but the Croats are all crazed killers, right? Go ahead and add more if you want, but there are already separate pages for NDH and Jasenovac. Mihovil 22:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
wait, you're quoting me wrong. I said 'pure rethorics' because me and you know how posh became blaming Partisans for even genocides, in last decade or two, in order to distract view from the things one side or the other side doesn't want to show. That's rethorics. As well as every side in every war in any period of human kind, Partisans were contributing into war crimes. This Talk section is not about it, here we shall UNDERLINE bestial Nazi Croatian crimes in WW2, and your original post to this issue was obviously putting it into the third plan (making it minor topic to think about). That's how you wrote it. There are separate pages about NDH and Jasenovac, but what we are talking here is inpropriate mentioning of things which matter for the topic, in this page.
Ok, sorry for misinterpreting what you said, but I'm not sure that I really understand what you're trying to say. If you want to add to the WWII section of this article, go ahead. Mihovil 16:16, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Mpetrovic 15:58, 9 October 2006 (UTC)marko
I have made some changes to the numbers as i though the estimates were way down
eg in New Zealand most Croats call themselves Dalmatian and the number of them is extremly high. Probably the 4th highest migrant group. So the number in NZ estimated seems wrong. In Australia Croats are 12th highest (in 1988 they were 6th highest)..testimony to this would be the Australian soccer team which can have up 8 players at one time all of Croat background (Australia v Uruguay 2006) Argentia have 400,000 which i have dropped in. Even Maradona has some Croat blood hahhaah.
Yeah that sounds too much for UK. It might include Bosnian Croats who have left due to war in Bosnia Hercegovina, Iam not sure.... 400,000 + in Argentina is common knowledge and many South American countries like Chile and even Brazil have some sizable Croatian communities....i don't know why not list them. I don't why someone has the authority to delete that fact.
You've put the number of Croats in Bosnia to about 600,000 which is true, but you wrote that it represented 23% of the overall population which is way wrong!!!!! That would mean that Bosnia had 2,5 million residents and Bosnia has 4,1 million people! So I've corrected your percentage to 15%, which is the real number. Serbs consist another 1,5 million (37%) and Bosniaks about 2 million. Serbs and Croats together suprpass the number of Bosniaks in this country.
As for the genetic makeup of Croats, this field of investigation is only at the beginning (more extensive research in the future etc.). Be as it may, here are relevant linx, one in English and other in Croatian:
http://grokhovs1.chat.ru/legacy.html
http://pub145.ezboard.com/fimotacaffefrm24.showMessage?topicID=68.topic Mir Harven 23:06, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)
the newest links
http://www.vecernji-list.hr/newsroom/news/bih/96205/index.do
The Genetics section discussion is currently being mediated in an attempt to come to agreement. Please see my comments on that page if you have a position on this debate. Eberhart 22:40, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
That is old propaganda that croats would be slavs. This is taken for granted just because they once happened to be part of the union called Yugoslavia. Recent studies start to show that croats are not indeed slavs. They settled in the area long before the slavs even came to the balkans. So the only thing slavic about the croats is their language. Please note that croats and serbs are not of the same origin. Anyone can see that the appearance of these two people are different with the serbs being a lot darker for example.
I refuse to see such lies being presented to the people when modern day scientists are certain croats are not of slav origin.
The nazis did not see the croats as slavs either, that is wrong information. My grandfather fought for the ustashe during ww2 and came in contact with high ranking germans and he rejects this information as being false.
It needs to be clarified whether by "origin of Croats" we are talking about genetic origin, linguistic, or what? From a purely linguistic/cultural viewpoint, Croats are 100% Slavic. When you take genetics into account, they are only partially Slavic. They did assimilate the pre-Slavic (Illyrian) poplation of the Balkans, who may have been even greater in number than the invading Croats. So from a genetic point of view, Croats are mostly Illyrian. Although this applies to Serbs as well, so it wouldn't differentiate Croats from the Serbs. As for Serbs being "darker" than Croats, there is no difference in pigmentation or hair color between Serbs and Croats (or Bosnian Muslims for that matter), as can be confirmed by anyone who has travelled the region. Individuals in the Balkans who appear darker have Gipsy (or possibly Vlach) ancestry.
As for Hitler, the fact that he did not consider the Croats Slavic means aboslutely nothing. Hitler simply said anything that he thought would get them on his side as cannon fodder. - Anonymous 16:57, 28 June 2005 (UTC)
it is pretty scary to find that some people still consider adolf hitler to be an authority on ethnicity. at least i am scared. as to croats being slavs/non-slavs - slavs are a linguitic community, which basically means that slavic nations are the nations that speak slavic languages. there is no "slavic race", the same as there is no "nordic race", that is nonsense concocted by nazis. as to the ethnic background of the present-day slavic-speakinig communities - like it or not, it is highly varied as the part of europe inhabited by slavs witnessed a huge number of invasions, migrations etc. so the genetic stock unavoidably got all mixed up, what the slavs share now is only their language. to sum up: croats are by all means slavic because their language is slavic. pseudo-scientists denying it simply support modern-day official croat propaganda which aims to present croats as radically different from (implicitly: superior to) the neighbouring slavs. (s.korchashko, undoubtedly slavic)
ok, this might have been far-fetched, but: there are people, also scientists, making efforts to prove that croats are different from slavs (and if you strive to prove that you are different from someone else this usually means you want to demonstrate your superiority - but that may be just me being paranoid :) ). judging from what my friends, students of the croatian language (and frequent visitors in croatia) tell me this view seems to be predominant in the academic circles. if they teach so at the universities it would seem to be the official line, wouldn't it? i do not mean to offend anyone, i spent some time this year in croatia myself and liked the country and the people a lot. just trying to get some facts straight. yours truly, s.korchashko
ok then, my sources of information on the subject are the folks i mentioned earlier, students of croatian who go to croatia every now and then (to study there, to be more precise). arguably, they might not be the most reliable source of information one can imagine, but then most of the things i know about the world come from books, tv and the internet, which, come to think of it, are not very reliable either. going back to those friends of mine, some time ago i was upbraided by one of them for saying that croats are slavic. she told me that they had been taught at a university in croatia (don't ask me which university, i don't know that) that croats were not slavic, that they had nothing to do with the slavs except that they happened to speak a language nearly identical with the languages of their slavic neighbors. the others said the same thing, adding that this was the predominant view in croatia.
it is possible that they just incidentally happened to find themselves at a school run by pseudo-scientists (or maybe just its linguistic department was run by lunatics) and therefore got their perceptions on the subject all screwed up (which in turn screwed up my perceptions). having done some research on the internet i am happy to find that serious croatian scientists reject this line of thinking as crap. i hope i did not hurt your feelings, it is just that i react rather emotionally when i see people quoting nazis as authorities on any subjects, and especially on subjects of race and ethnicity. yours truly, s.k.
Oh, dear not this discussion again. I just want to add a comment regarding the genetics, which is so misunderstood. There has never been any research showing a significant genetic difference between Croats and Serbs - or Egyptians and Eskimoes for that matter. It took them 5 years to just sequence one DNA molecule (
HUGO project) - it's a bigass molecule. It is today not possible to do it on a scale where you would have statistically significant results for a population.
What we have is Y-DNA haplogroups which are determined by analyzing a very, very small part of the DNA. As Y-Chromosomes are inherited directly father to son, this can be used to determine male-line heritige. Very rarely mutations occur and these define the haplogroups. Now, Y-DNA only gives you information about one single line of genetic inheritence - about your father, your father's father, your father's father's father etc It says absolutely nothing about for instance your mother or your father's mother or any other line that isn't directly male-line. So it says nothing about the general genetic difference or similarities. What we know about through current DNA testing is about deep origins which is quite interesting for analyzing past human migrations. But that's it. As the results are only from the direct male-line ancestry, it is quite useless for distinguishing population groups on a genetic level. And moreover what we have learned through this DNA testing is that the ethnicity and race are very simplified models of population makeup - the picture is far more complex.
It does however leave us with one relevant metric - culture (language included). And from a cultural basis, there is no doubt that the Croats are a Slavic population. -- Denoir 08:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
That's the first time I've read someone refer to Germanic/Romanic people are more homogenous than Slavs. A single noun such as "Slav" has no equivalent to describe the big peoples of Europe. I won't go into it here but I can explain something else: it is correct that there is nothing more than language which links the Slavic people, however, there is nothing more than language to identify anyone at all, anywhere for any reason. Language, entire of itself, is more complex than most people realise. There is no neautral language, or group of dialects/languages. Each tells its own story of its past and presents world views in its own unqique way. Now, a so-called "nation" (Nation A) who today share scores of characteristics may tomorrow leave their homeland and settle in other parts of the world. One may go and live in a place where Nation B will subjugate the A-people. Many years from now, Nation A's people living under Nation-B's rule may have developed many characteristics influenced by Nation-B. The Nation-A affiliates on the other hand, who live in another region of the world under Nation-C, totally different from Nation-B may very probably assimilate aspects of Nation-C's culture, in their language, religion etc. Meanwhile, the third group from Nation-A could be said to have met another destiny. Living under Nation-D, those Nation-A people have decided to take Nation-D's language and make it theirs. Now in Nation-D territory, there is no more evidence that Nation-A once dwelled there except for the odd municipal name descending from their old language etc. I doubt anyone will disagree with this. As for the ethnic Nation-A people living under Nations B and C: they have NOT assimilated the language and can thus be still identified. Genetically they may have changed too, through mixing etc, HOWEVER, the fact that a child may be born to a Nation-A mother and a Nation-B father, even under Nation-B rule but still decides to identify as a Nation-A person even after two centuries - means that Nation-A's influence has come out on top; it has survived. Now when Nation A who lived under B and those who lived under C return to meet each other for the first time in centuries, things have changed drastically between them, but this can never be a reason for the two of them to consider each other different from the other: a now battered and bruised language on both their parts may be the only thing that can link them to a common ancestor BUT unlike their Nation-A affliliates who lived under Nation D - these people had their chances to become members of their overlord race, and their existance as Nation-A affiliates many years down the line reflects a decision to maintain their identity and reject becoming one of the overlords. Those living under Nation-D may have had the same choice but because they took the language of Nation-D, nothing more is attributable to Nation-A and it becomes impossible to go to a town which is 100% Nation-D language speaking, and say "this town is 75% D, and 25% A", in the way that you could if 'A' had maintained its language.
Accross Europe and the world there are many examples of these phenomena. Croatia, as a country, occupies a strategic position in the heart of the South Slavic linguistic and cultural community. Just as not all Slavic-speaking people of Croatia declare themsleves Croats, there are many people living outside of Croatia's borders who speak a Slavic language and DO call themselves Croat. If you draw a ring around a region which Croatian Nationalists consider Croatian land, and even go as far as to regard all people who speak a Slavic language in that zone as Croats - you now have a pure Croatian territory. Look inside it, and you will find as much cultural diversity as anywhere else. Croats are united in that they speak a Slavic language, one who does not speak a Slavic language but lives among Slavic-speaking Croatians is unlikely to call himself a Croat (and even less likely to be accepted by the masses). Now remove Croatia's standard language from the equation and take people for who they are by choice, and consider the rural speech of the people. Not only will you find diversity stretching east to west, south or north, north-east to south-west and back round again, in custom, costume, language usage, food and social attitude, you will ALSO find that all of this forms a part of a wider continuum which encompasses ALL OTHER South Slavic people. There is nothing that people living close to the Slovene border and speak Kajkavian (to take an example) can say to a Slovene accross the border to say "you see them people in Dubrovnik? we have more culturally in common with them than with you!", Likewise the people of Dubrovnik, call them ALL Croats if you will, will still have had more contact and cultural connection with people from near-by Trebine (where they identify as Serbs) and Kotor (where they are mostly Montenegrins) than with people from Istria or Vukovar. I have been ALL over Eastern Europe, on a few occasions too. All of this can be said about West/East Slavic too. Remove the borders, you don't know you're Poland from your Belarus, or your Ukraine from your Slovakia, there are no abrupt changes in people once you get to a town where people start to identify by the other name. Even if they are MIXED like in Vojvdodina, their presence for centuries speaking the same language has maintained similarity, but the tradition of calling yourself by another Slavic nation there ONLY indicates ceremonial differences, the odd celebration twice a year etc.
To end this long passage, these continua are found all over the world, in the Arab world, all through most of China, South America (natives disregarding European culture) etc. Closer to home, the Alpine borders between France and Italy host Occitan speaking people, denied their rights in both countries largely who may well have more in common with each other than with Normans and Sicilians. What do Piedmontese have in common with Sicilians asides a government? A related language and nothing else, and again, linked by a continuum with the two points at either end different from centuries of independent evolution. Nobody dares to call them different. Holland-Germany-Austria-Swiss Germany, the same... Nordic Scandinavia too, the list grows. So if anything apart from a goverment (or desire for a greater governent) unites ALL Croats in ANY WAY what so ever, in a way that excludes ALL OTHER people except one who is Croat, please tell me...I will apologose. Celtmist 21 Mar 2006
A single noun such as "Slav" indeed has no equivalent to describe "small" or "big" peoples of Western Europe. It is probably why so many "Slavs" feel they should not be referred to as "Slavs", but as Croats, Poles, Russians, Czechs, Bulgarians etc. I suppose one is taking away a great deal of our separate cultural identities when one indiscriminately lumps us together as Slavs. As for the South Slavic continuums. I agree that we may be talking about a linguistic one encompassing the countries from Croatia and Slovenia in the north-west to Bulgaria and Macedonia in the south-east. As for a cultural continuum, I have my doubts there. Especially in the light of the fact that such supposedly a cultural continuum was often abused in the past which had devastating consequences on every nation involved. I agree that you can mention Dubrovnik in conjunction with Kotor, though not with Trebinj. As for the former, try to establish a link between Kotor - a place in today's Montenegro which until 1918 was part of the Croatian territories - and the near-by Montenegrin capital Podgorica and you will have to come to a conclusion that those two places are very different indeed. Vojvodina is another good example. The Serbs who lived there for centuries (not the post-WWII colonizers) have little in common with the Serbs from Serbia proper. And the differences do not boil down to occasional celebration of a religious festivity. It is enought to cross the Danube and the Save into Serbia and you will feel you're on another planet. It is a cultural rift that is a result of complex historical realities that lasted for a thousand years. The same rift also separates Transilvania from the rest of Romania. Language and 50 years of a shared political/social system can only play a secondary role under such circumstances. Also (to answer Denoir) a German from Chemnitz and a German from Hamburg may have lived under different political/social circumstances, but despite the resultant differences a German from Chemnitz had not become more similar to a Pole in Krakow than to his fellow German from Hamburg. Also, a Pole from Krakow or, for that matter, a Ukrainian from Lvov are much more similar to an Austrian from Vienna than to a Slavic-speaking Russian from St.Petersburg. Why? It is a thousand years of distinct historic experiences which cannot be erased by a social/political system that lasted half a century or by the fact that respective languages are related. Peoples from outside Trieste to Vladivostok did learn from similar textbooks in schools or lived (some of them at least) in the same drab blocks of flats, but 50 years is not enough to make a substantial and a lasting change.
Do Croatians and, say, Poles have a common cultural basis or not? I think yes. Do Croatians and Russians or Croatians and their fellow South-Slavic Bulgarians and Serbs share a common cultural basis? The answer, in my opinion, is no. The re-introduction of a market economy to all Slavic speaking countries and the process of globalization will have important consequences on the cultures of the Slavic speaking countries, but in a century or so northern Croatia will still have much more in common with eastern Austria or Hungary than with neighbouring Serbian and Slavic speaking parts of Bosnia.
Perhaps another paragraph from the article in Britannica about the developments after the migrations in the 5th and 6th century will more clearly outline how diverse Slavic speaking countries/nations/regions are:
In the centuries that followed, there developed scarcely any unity among the various Slavic peoples. The cultural and political life of the west Slavs was integrated into the general European pattern. They were influenced largely by philosophical, political, and economic changes in the West, such as feudalism, Humanism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the French and Industrial revolutions. As their lands were invaded by Mongols and Turks, however, the Russians and Balkan Slavs remained for centuries without any close contact with the European community; they evolved a system of bureaucratic autocracy and militarism that tended to retard the development of urban middle classes and to prolong the conditions of serfdom. The state's supremacy over the individual tended to become more firmly rooted.
In such a context I don't feel that the differences between the English and the Germans are greater than the differences between the Slovaks and the Bulgarians. EurowikiJ 12:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
This issue of "Slav" or "non-Slav" is irrelevant. Genetic science is leading to a strongly supported conclusion that Croats are largely indigenous to Croatia since the paleolithic period. (See "The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective"). This would lead to a hypothesis that the original "Croat tribes" or whatever their name was were a small group that was assimilated into the larger indigenous population. Somehow this indiginous population was speaking or started speaking a Slavic language. The Celts of Gaul far outnumbered their Roman masters, yet they too succumbed to the Latin language, as did the Dacians of Romanian, Celtiberians of Spain, Dalmatians of Illyria, etc. Perhaps "Slavic" became a "lingua franca" for the region and the local population that probably spoke "Illyrian" and Latin started, over the years, to speak Slavic?
Take the Croatian province of Dalmatia. The, now extinct, Dalmatian langauge was still spoken by some Croats until as late as the late 1800's. There are many words still spoken that are based in Latin and "Illyrian". All the Dalmatian coastal cities spoke a Latin-based language. The OFFICIAL LANGUAGE of the Croatian Sabor was LATIN until 1847. Most educated people in Croatia spoke Latin until the late 1800's. No doubt the first and second Yugoslavia's had a "slavicizing" effect. Was Croatia a Slavic-speaking country in the 700's or 800's? Well, if the Paleolithic theory is true, then most likely it was not. There was likely a progression over the years where a Slavic language replaced Latin or "Illyrian" as the language of choice. For hundreds of years Croats called themselves Illyrians and their Slavic-based language was known as Illyrian. It was in 1843 the Habsburg Monarchy banned the name "Illyria" and "Illyrian" for fear that it would forment independence.
Does it matter? Not really. Croats are largely indiginous to Croatia. That means they have been thereabouts for around 25,000 years regardless of the language we speak. Also, as a side note, this theory of Iranian origins.... well, genetic science doesn't support it at all. If there was a "tribe" or "Croats" that came from Iran, they had little to do genetically with the current Croatian population except maybe lend a name, but even this is speculation. Croats are not Slavs or Iranians or anything else except..... Croats. Simple this way.
It's pronounced 'Cro-at', right? - Litefantastic 16:50, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Someone added this, but I don't see how it's true. Removing until verified. They may exist as a minority but are they really autochthonous? -- Joy [shallot] 09:19, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Can someone add a side-bar population statistics thing like in the Serbs and Slovenes articles?
The Side-bar population statistics are incorrect.
This is Serbian Propaganda, Worldwide >7.000.000 Croats, Argentina with about 400.000 immigrant Croats is not in the list etc.
Tommy, 02.12.2006
Currently they are (on the picture):
Now, undoubtedly they're all worthy people, but I think Gotovac and Zrinski (the great-grandson) aren't exactly among the most popular or influential Croats.
Gundulić is from old Dubrovnik, and those people weren't necessarily descended from Croats and weren't part of the Croatian nation at the time, so it's better to avoid such a moot point. Ruđer Bošković and Marin Držić would be such candidates if I was proposing them.
I would suggest replacements for the first three, partly ordered by relevance/age:
If we're talking in sets of four, then I'd say Marulić-ŠubićZrinski-Strossmayer-Meštrović would be a rather appropriate group. This would then include:
As far as regions are concerned, we'd have a Dalmatian, a continental Croatian, a Slavonian, and a Dalmatian who was born in Slavonia. That's pretty evenly matched too :)
Anyone have any thoughts? -- Joy [shallot] 23:51, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
I think, the fact The Gondola familie, your origin was a Venetian city, age 1100, the next generation, since Ivan Gondola count of Konvale, marriage with Dziva Gradic, your son Franon Gondola, marriage in 1681 with MºGenovefa von Bemelberg, the descendent of this all were Austrian people, which Joseph Franz Graf (Count) Von Gondola who died in 1774, bishop. don´t forget than the nobles families marriage between them. -- Ragusino 18:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
---
How is Gundulic not descended from Croats just because he's an old Dubroniker? I don't get it.
Anyway, you're selections are good, I guess, but we can always switch the images later; anytime someone makes a new one.
Also, the person in the image is actually Faust Vrancic, not Nikola Zrinski; the label is wrong.
I feel like making a better picture. The one I made for Slovenes looks better. Can you point me to some good photos and/or individuals?
The new pictures sound OK, but why not add
Franjo Tuđman?
HolyRomanEmperor
12:16, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that the Genetics section is, um, silly. Even if it's backed up with some (pseudo?-)scientific data, apart from being difficult to read for an average reader, I think it's counter-productive -- it more shows the level of national (not universally shared, I know) frustrations over "wannabe an Aryan". It would be better to expand a bit on History (giving a brief overview on History of Croatia) and add e.g. a Customs and Culture section, and move this part somewhere to Origin of Croats, where such theories are listed.
I live in Serbia and I think most readers from here will laugh on this paragraph (I don't care if Croats or Serbs originate from Martians by the way), and I'm affraid most people from elsewhere will get at least an eyebrow raised about it. But I want to assure you I'm saying this out of good faith; this part IMO gives the impression of national frustration rather than presenting a scientific proof of anything. Duja 08:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Unless a good reason is given why "Croatian cuisine" belongs here and not in Croatian Culture or why "Genetics" belongs here and not origin of Croats, I will move both shortly. Antidote 03:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I move to strike this whole section for a number of reasons:
1. It appears to still be unclear exactly how to interpret the genetic studies. For example, it does not mean that Serbs and Croats are different racial groups or of different origin. As there is no way of interpreting the studies (or of knowing how representative they are) I don't think they add any real information to the article.
2. The whole DNA/racial debate adds to the unfair characterization of modern day Croats as racists. Imagine if someone added a similar section to the article on Germans.
Croats, like Serbs, are Slavic by virtue of speaking a Slavic language. The etymology of their names are likely to be Iranian in origin, though this is not 100% certain. For example, Bulgarians are also Slavic, although their ancestors were a Turkic people.
Finally, if one is to have a discussion about race/DNA, then it should be noted that the Croat Slavs coming to the region in the 600s most certainly mixed with the existing peoples in the region. These people were not only the " Illyrians" but also Romans/ Latins, Goths, Huns, Gepids, Alans, Avars, Sarmatians, to name a few. Add to this later population influences from Turkey, Italy and other surrounding coutries.
All in all it makes little sense to talk about Croatians in a genetic or racial sense. Croatian is a nationality and an ethnicity. It is definately not a race. Osli73 15:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I've reread the article and have two comments:
1. It's really only a study of populations on certain Dalmatian islands and thus says little about Croatians, the majority of whom don't live in the Dalmatian archipelago.
2. Even the authors themselves say that Croats are Slavs: "In conclusion, the investigated Croatian populations show the presence of Y chromosomal haplogroups specific to Western, Southern and Eastern Europe. Moreover, Croatian Y chromosomal lineages testify to different migrational movements carrying mostly Palaeolithic European ancestry, a minor Neolithic impact from the Near East, as well as a Slavic (Croatian) influence which is today clearly expressed in the Croatian language which belongs to the Southern Slav linguistic group."
So, why not just take out the section alltogether? Osli73 22:11, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Mirhaven,
I'd even say that it is totally irrelevant for the purposes of this article on Croats. It doesn't give the reader any further information on who the Croats are and maybe even makes them more confused. The study which the text refers to was obviously not intended to be a study of the origin of the Croat people or the inhabitants of Croatia, be they Catholic or Orthodox, Croat or Serb.
If there is to be anything on the ancestry/origin of the Croats, then I think it should mention the migration of the Slav tribes and the theory of the Iranian origin/etymology of the Croat name. Osli73 22:49, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
And it is not about how different genetically people are (the Y-DNA and mtDNA regions are very small compared to the rest of the DNA), but how related they are. And that coupled with geographical information gives a very valuable and exact tool for studying the migrations of populations.
-- Denoir 13:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm not so sure you guys are interpreting the DNA analyses correctly or maybe you are making too sweeping conclusions from them.
For example, a 2004 article in the Croatian Geneology Newsletter [1] concludes that:
It goes on to say:
Another article [2] concludes that:
It goes on to say:
So, in light of this, I think the conclusions of the genetics section should be rewritten. Osli73 08:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
It would be, I think, good to explain why this genetic stuff at least. It's an ideological counterbalance to the pan-Slavic ideology which has been coined by romantic pan-Slavic nationalists (including many Croats-actually, a Croat, Juraj Križanić, was the founder of the pan-Slavic ideology). This ideology is, let's be frank-"racialist" (not racist). It lumps all Slavic langauges speaking peoples in a froup called "Slavs". OK, so far, so good. But, the language-phenotype-genotype mental association established by this ideology has caused annoyance to many Slavic peoples & individuals. An example ? Do Poles speak a Slavic language ? Yes. Hence, Poles are Slavs. Do African-Americans speak English language ? Yes. Is English a Germanic langauge ? Yes. So, African-Americans are "Germans" or "Teutons". This "racialist" implication, encoded in the langauge-genotype association, is, I guess, the source of certain aversion of not few "Slavic" peoples towards "Slavic ideology". It can be further elaborated on, but, I'm tired... Mir Harven 23:50, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
If we're talking about the Alans, then they came from the Caucasus and the Ossetians are their descendents and not the Persians who live further to the south. Tombseye 16:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
To those who might be interested: please take a look at the Croatian Wikipedia counterpart of this article. It is abysmal... If you're willing and able (I might be able, but unfortunately I'm really not willing), try and spread some of the good stuff from here to there. GregorB 08:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Why not putting the picture of Josip Broz Tito, he was the most notorious Croat in the world, everyone knew who he was (founder of the non-alingment)-- TheFEARgod 13:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
The history section needs organisation and the genetics section needs proper referencing and removal of speculative and/or erroneous bits so original research is avoided. Genomist 23:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Genomist, I'm not sure what your agenda is, but please understand that a newsletter does not qualify as a valid scientific article. It is original research as it has not been [[Peer review|peer reviewed]. In addition, the text you are trying to add is pointless. Saying that there is no support for the Iranian theory but that it doesn't exclude the possibility says nothing. There is nothing that supports the theory that Croats are in fact from Alaska, but you can't with 100% certainty rule out that either. You don't however see that written in the article. Besides, the section that you are so desperately trying to remove already implicitly states that: "Modern-day Iranians have a significantly different haplogroup distribution, although millennia ago Persia may have been home to altogether different peoples."
As for references, all the statements except yours are supported by provided references, and unlike your newsletter reference, these are peer reviewed and published article and books. The LGM theory and Croat haplogroup distributions are discussed in the Baric reference. The Iranian and Mid Eastern haplogroup distributions you can find in Cavalli-Sforza and Olson. The neolithic migrations you can find in Sforza, Olson and Semino - Olson. And finally, although it is mentioned implicitly by Baric, the Slavic migration to the Balkans is covered explicitly by Olson.
So I'm not sure what exactly is your problem. You are trying to remove a text with proper references that says that there is no support for the Iranian origin theory with a text with a dubious reference that says that there is no support for the Iranian origin theory. Please, before you do further editing, explain what exactly you are trying to accomplish and also please use peer reviewed references. -- Denoir 09:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I hope you don't take this post as hateful. I have absolutely nothing against Croatia, Croat people or Croat culture. But I think there is something you should know. According to well documented sources, Croat immigrants had a hand in the extermination of some 5,000 indians in the island of Tierra del Fuego, which is now divided between Argentina and Chile. There is evidence indicating that death squads made up largely by Croat mercenaries hired by British immigrants were assigned to hunt down every indian in that island, no matter if they were man, woman or child, until there was virtually no indian left by the 1930s. I repeat, I have nothing against Croats. But I think this piece of information is worth posting, for the sake of reflection.
Marcelo, from Salta, Argentina.
if you speak croatian: http://www.croatia.ch/tjedan/041204_1.php -- User:84.176.238.6 00:58, 9 July 2006
i have put the following etymology up twice on this site, only to have it removed by someone who apparently wants to censor information.
the etymology is: The word Croat comes from Serbian-Croatian Hrvat, from Old Church Slavonic Chǔrvatinǔ "Croat", literally "mountaineer, highlander", from churva "mountain".
the flimsy links with Iranians are mostly due to outdated scholarship riddled with holes. i'd go into more detail, but needless to say, the croats are slavs who are very closely related to the serbs.
genetics are not the basis of an ethnic group. read a sociology or anthropology book....
i'm not sure what mihovil wanted me to expand on, so i'll assume he wanted me to expand on everything.
this message is centered around the silly iranian theory.
to begin with, the fact that the Serbo-Croatian language (there is no dispute by linguists that Serbian and Croatian are in fact the same language) is completely and utterly Slavic and that archaeology has unearthed artefacts (pottery, iron swords, metal decorations, glagolitic writing, etc.) that are undeniably slavic in their design, should lead no one to question the Slavic origin of the Croats. and yet...
the word Harauvatis was found in an inscription of King Darius I and was assumed by a small minority of overzealous pseudo-scholars to perhaps be connected to Croatian Hrvat. The transcription, however, was missing a middle h, HaraHuvatis, which is in fact the name of a holy river in the Avesta (Zoroastrian holy book), and appears in Sanskrit as Sarasvati. This word could not possibly refer to early Croats.
similarly, some have tried to explain the remnants of Slavic (pagan) religion found in Croatia that seems to express a certain dualism by attaching it to Zoroastrianism. of course, the two dualisms are nothing alike....
the legend about the five brothers who led the clans to their new homeland, and the colors selected to represent the cardinal directions (White Croatia, Red Croatia, etc.) is similar to the Scythian/Sarmatian customs of planting colored flags to deliniate the center and the four cardinal points when establishing a camp site or on the battlefield. of course, the same tradition is found among the Serbs and Bulgarians, and is very similar to Hungarian beliefs. this would indicate that the legend became popular and spread to the slavs BEFORE they invaded the Balkans. it does not indicate an Iranian origin at all.
in fact, there is not tangible evidence, cultural, linguistic, or otherwise which points to an Iranian origin. nothing about traditional or modern Croatian culture seems Iranian. absolutely nothing about the Croatian language is Iranian, unless you can suddenly understand Farsi, or Kurdish, or Pashto, etc.
what can you conclude except that the Croats are not Iranian.
Flibjib8 23:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
In short, I think you are misreading the Iranic theory; no one (that I know of) has ever argued that the Croats came directly to the balkans from Persia. Nor do many (if any) scholars argue that the Croats retain any of the cultural characteristics of their Iranian past. When the Croats mixed with the slavs to the north of the Pripet marshes, they were wholly slavicised. That being said, there is some evidence, scanty as it may be, to sugest that there is a Persian stratum to the Croats' history prior to slavicisation; i.e. the Tanais inscription. Similar arguments have been been made about the Bulgars, who were originally a Turkic people. Do the Bulgarians today retain any traces of their Turkic past? Not really, because they were assimilated by the slavs over whom they ruled. But this does not change the fact that, although the Bulgarians are today considered to be slavic, their origin is completely non-slavic. That same can perhaps be said of the Croats, and, incidentally, of the Serbs. Some have suggested that the Serbs were originally of Scythian or Sarmatian origin, despite having retained none of the cultural elements of such an origin. -- Mihovil 03:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
part 2 '
== THIS STUFF IS NOT TRUE!!! GO TO A DIFFERENT WEBSITE TO GET THE DESIRED INFORMATION YOU NEED!
PLEASE GO TO A DIFFERENT WEBSITE ANOTHER WEBSITE WILL BE MORE ACCURATE AND YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO FIND THE TRUE FACTS YOU ARE LOOKING FOR!!!!
PLEASE TAKE THIS INTO GOOD PERCIPITANCE ==
he trait almost assuredly exists in some other population. in fact, usually, every biological trait or gene is represented somewhere else in the world. european populations, which are notoriously variable like the middle eastern populations, cannot be distinguished genetically from each other except in the most relative way. what is "original", or "traditional", or "better", or "purer", is generally determined by who ranks highest on the system of social inequality. currently, that would be the serbs.
the croats can be proven to be culturally slavic and their physical traits do not differ noticably from neighboring slav populations. how then can we consider the serbs and croats trully separate? do you think a Chinese man or an African could tell the difference between a Serb and a Croat? Flibjib8 23:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I am in no way disputing the fact that the Croats are, and have been for more than fifteen hundred years, slavic, both linguistically, culturally, and otherwise...see my comment above. -- Mihovil 03:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
oh, dear, mihovil, i had no idea you were so stubborn and entrenched in your views. it is clear that i need to compose an entire paper, not only about croats and serbs, but also about population genetics, history, ethnic studies, and common slavic cultural heritage in order to convince you of anything... assuming you were in any way remotely convinceable.
even if i did, i couldn't get the thing to you, and i also do not have the proper resources at my disposal. furthermore, i do not see the discussion area of wikipedia as an appropriate venue for such a long and drawn-out discussion. but now i'm absolutely intrigued!
i'm surprised you would give any credence to the iranian theory. there is no substantial proof, historical, linguistic, or cultural which would suggest a population of iranian (and this would have to be sarmatians or alanians from the eurasian steppe) ever crossed the danube. preposterous. in fact, the sarmatian and alanian populations had already been eclipsed by the hunnic peoples (who established Bulgaria and Hungary) and relegated to areas around the black sea (north of the danube). they were in no position to move south after about 250 AD, and no one broke through the Danube border except the Huns, Goths, and Slavs until the 7th century.
if there could ever be proven any lasting cultural influences on the croats or serbs, they would include illyrian influences which are somewhat extensive. they include the famous serbo-croatian kolo dances, panpipes, bread-making moulds, early stone-lined graves, tattooing, use of a lid (pekva) to bake bread in the fireplace, s^ubara hats, opanci shoes, the Balkan headscarf, and early worship of the goddess 'mother Jana' all point to Illyrian influence. why do we not find a similar amount of iranian influence, especially since they allegedly gave their tribal name to the Croats but do not appear to have ruled them or been a majority among them? how do croatian genetics compare to those of the iranian peoples?
as for the bulgars, the slavs first overran the area and then in the 7th century a group of Hunnic Bulgars crossed the Danube and quickly took control of the area. they gave their name to the region, but did not remain in control for very long. nor were they in a position to influence slavic society, being a small minority ruling class. hungary was established in a similar fashion.
your use of population genetics to establish so-called lineages smacks of ethnocentrism. it is not until that data is compared first to neighboring southern slavs, then to eastern and western slavs, and third to neighboring populations (hungarians, albanians, greeks, romanians), can one construct anything useful for tracing migrations or "lineages". besides, given the likely high genetic variation in the Balkans, archaeology is really the only reliable way of tracking ethnic groupings. once again, racial or biological distinctions between neighboring peoples are likely to reflect similar variation WITHIN those same peoples.
once i have done more research, i will be better able to respond to your specific questions.
Flibjib8 23:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. First of all, you need to be much less condescending if we are going to get anywhere. Second, I made no mention of population genetics; Denoir did. Third, I never said that I was completely convinced of the Iranic hypothesis! Sometimes it helps to play devil's advocate, right? Anyway, it seems to me that you are just as deeply entrenched in your anti-Iranic dogma as you assert that I am in a corresponding pro-Iranic stance. Your original refutation reads almost like a cut-and-paste of what Radoslav Katičić wrote for "Croatia in the Early Middle Ages." I'm not fully convinced of any theory of the Croats' origin, but I think it's very shortsighted to completely throw out the Iranic theory. -- Mihovil 00:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't you agree that something very important is missing on the croatian page of Wikipedia? I'm talking about modern croatian flag and historical coat(s) of arms of croatian lands. Also, I think that croatian history and culture deserves at least twice more space than now presented here. Maybe instead of that dubious and uncivilised genetics section. Knowing that most of the stuff was written by our own people, what did we try to prove with that? Do we really think that someone in the World wants to know us for "our" chromosomes?
Or, what about that enormous wasting of space counting Croats around the World, resulting only in conclusion that unfortunately there's a nation which fled from it's native grounds. That once lived there, but now reading about it in New York, Berlin or Sydney. And please, don't only mention Byzantines, Venetians, Hungarians, Turks, Austrians, Serbs, communists or World globalisation to me.
Afrika paprika, I'm afraid you will have to back up your inflated numbers with a reliable source. Even the current number of 5.5-6 mil is unsourced, but at least it represents an approximate sum of sourced figures below (and plus some). "Estimates" do not include your own estimate and/or wishes. There are not many references available on web, but e.g. this one says 4.8 mil. I don't know where you find the 7-8 mil except if you have tools to remotely analyse Purely Croatian (TM) blood cells in every living person. Until you find a source (which I sincerely doubt), you will be reverted. "Tracing their origin back in Croatia" is too vague criteria, and, apparently, it will include every person whose (grand-)grandparents came from Croatia. If you want to count this way, then the total sum of all worlds ethnic groups would amount to some 20 billion. Duja 09:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
9,000,000 seems like a gross overestimate. For instance, the 4,8 million is stated by primary sources (that's not a primary source that we have on it - the Croatian World Congress), and calculating up all that we have amassed so far we'll get to 6,000,000 tops. For isntance, the Serbian Unity Congress claims that up to 700,000 Americans are ethnic Serbs (and numerious other sources state 500,000), and all incinuating that 300,000 alone live in Chicago, the informal 3rd largest Serb city in the world. A similiar applies to the Serbian population in Germany. I don't see why we should accept the Croatian World Congress' statement that's even less likely possible here - it might trigger the (in)famous inflations on the Serbs article. -- HolyRomanEmperor 22:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Completely agree with HolyRomanEmperor. These numbers are complete nationalistic overestimates. 250,000 Croatians in Argentina is a ridiculous overestimate. Indeed, the 150,000 in Chile is just plain laughable. I think we need to find some very very very steadfast numbers and not just put whatever some guy's website says. Horvat Den 04:40, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
In truth, we have around 4,000,000 Croats in Croatia and 600,000 in BiH - and 100,000 Serbia (Vojvodina); 100,000 is the least imaginable figure for Croats living elsewhere (and is sourced by primary sources) that we can accept. Compare that to the Serbs - 6,250,000 Serbs in Serbia (of whom 1,350,000 live in Vojvodina and 150,000 live on Kosovo); there are 200,000 Serbs in Montenegro (although one might encircle this figure to 450,000); 1,700,000 Bosnian Serbs and 200,000 Serbs in Croatia; this doesn't even account up to 9,000,000. Croats and Serbs everywhere else is just inflating numbers. -- PaxEquilibrium 11:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I think we have very similar gross overestimates brewing on Poles. Anyone care to take a gander? Horvat Den 01:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Partly thanks to the edit war by now-banned User:Afrika paprika, I rewrote the article, stubbing the "Culture and traditions" section (moderate expansion welcome)—shouldn't this be mostly what the article is about?. "Genetic origins" is moved to Theories on the origin of Croats, which is now more or less a copy/paste of the "Origins" section here. I find the "genetics" too dense for an overview article like this one. Denoir et al, I hope you'll give the due weight to the appropriate theories (and "theories") in that article. Katičić's article at hercegbosna.org (thanks Mir (?)) offers a good overview on the subject.
As for the "number inflation", well, what the heck, I retained (and sourced) the 6-9 milion figure. While I myself consider the 9 milion a gross exaggeration (applicable only if one "counts blood cells" of many English-speaking Americans, Spanish-speaking Argentinians etc.), I hope the readers can conclude that the lower figures in such infoboxes are usually the more reliable ones. Duja 11:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I just want all real Croats (the ones with Slav* surnames**) to pay attention to the fact of severe importance that there is a serious organisation of Austrians in Croatia (organisation of those Austrians that remained in Croatia after break-up of Austro-hungarian empire) - influential INDIVIDUALS*** that wisdomfully claim (decieve) that they are Croats, but they are actually not - simply they are representatives of Austrian national minority that remained in the land of Croats after Austro-hungarian empire collapsed ("Oster reich" - the "Eastern Reich" (Eastern Germanic Empire of Roman-catholicism)).
It is obvious that destruction of the federation of south Slav people (known by name of 'Yugoslavia') was a revange of such organisation of Oster-Reichans (based on false reasons) against Slavs (Serbs, in particular, as the integrative factor (because the other two religions are actualy allien hegemonial influences)). Of course, everyone asks a question "Wasn't Yugoslavia starting to break-apart exacly when Germany united?" - and IT IS when it started to happen, that is not just a coincidence.
Volksdeutschers (Osterreichans (ex-Austrian empire's national minority in Crioatian lands)) would gladly proclaim that term 'Croat' implies simply one of the Germanic nations, but today it's too early for such an aditude; for now they just do not see the term "Croat" as a term that implies a 'specific definitive nation'*; instead, Osterreichians ("Volksdeutschers") consider word "Croat" in terms of citizenship (Croat can be anyone - a German in their case - it just depends on what poeple are majority on that land (and they intend to own it again (and slowly they are achieving it))) - their oppinion is that Croats(Slavs) are people stupid enough to believe them (because - they are Slavs - and thus Osterrechans (Austrians) keep silent about it yet of course consider them a lower race - slaves - naive people that can be bought thorough lies and perfidiousity - people who cannot see what they are doing to them because they are blinded with their sweetalks, traid-offs, falacies and simply - lies).
You see, long ago in XIII century (two centuries after Christianity finaly officialy failed to convert Rome to democracy) Romans sent legions to Jerusalem to provoke Islam (def. Islam: cultural (etc.) hegemony of Arabian group of people) and lure them bloodlustly enraged here on the (so-called) "Balkans" so they would do the dirty job instead of them - destruction of Christianity (def. Christianity: Jesus Christ's movement againt Roman hegemony; a movement for democracy of people (def.democracy: self-rule of people instread of hegemony over them and multitude of others (claiming that "there is only God above pople" (not human (such as Cesar or Pope)))); for which he was arrested, tortured and killed by Roman forces of order), and Rome almost achieved what it planed, but when Islam started weakening and withdrawing from "Balkans" ancient Roman organisation* ordered OsterReich to attack and occupy Bosnia, and subsequently Serbia (which then finaly got free after half of millenia of slavership under Islam which Romans brought on them). That (atack of German OsterReich on Serbia) caused World War 1. Justice won, and OsterReich empire decomposed giving freedom to multitude of nations (such as Croats among all the others).
NOW COMES THE IMPORTANT PART: Osterraichans (Austrians) disregarded the fact that their greed and evil* was responsible and guilty for decomposure of their precious empire, no - instead - they simply blamed Serbs... Needless to say, they planed revange (the result was 1:1, and they seeked 2:1 for them (notice that term 'revange' is illogical here)).
Carying the OsterReichan racial ideology of Iliria and the Aryian race one Austrian came to Germany. Adolf Hitler. World War 2 folowed shortly.
Nazi Osterreichans of WW2 then commited genocide against Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia thorough so-called "Croat movement" of 'ustashe'. It is not a Croat movement, it is Austrian movement (hiding diabolicaly behind the name 'Croatian') - with them there were only massively naive Slav Croats that took words of those fascist quasi-croat's for truth (not filtering it throuh their minds - just blindly falling into hateriot and evil which Austrians were massively inducing in them against Serbs (in this case) (let's notice that Austrians were lead by Roman Catholic organisation which did practicaly nothing to stop the ever so obvious evil that was going on at that time in history (there is no excuse for it))).
Further more, Josip Broz (Tito) fought for Austro-hungarian army in WW1 and even achieved higher rank there; he then infected Serbs with communism and killed everyone who opposed it. (And after that - look - Serbs are the bad guys because they are communists and they have tickheaded dumb polititians! how convinient! (so then some bunch of "incredibly naive" ex-Vietnam veteran U.S. generals with metal plates in their heads ever-so against the "commies" help anyone claiming to be fighting against the ever so bad communism (never mind their lack of knowledge (their dumb ignorance) of history (having in mind that Catholics infected Serbs with communism (and look Churchil helped them (monarchy against the other monarchy? supporting communists in WW2???))))); so there is no just reason to atack Serbs - well, heck, we'll invent one! oh, look, Serbs think that it's injustice that hundreds of thousands of their close realtives were murdered in WW2 at-hock and in nazi concentration camps for no reason by us, quasi-Croats, (how it's convinient to hide behind other nation's name, isn't it, Austrians?).
Serbs sacrificed their oppinion for peace in the new country (Tito's communist SFRY) and for unity of people - the injustice was never rectified - victims were never properly burried, and now all of the sudden we* are destroying the federal state having it all in mind - YET - still Serbs are the ones that are bad. And then we* intentionaly OPENLY provocate the unsuspecting -them- to accordingly violent reactions using filthy perfidious ways in order to get them enraged so we could point our fingers at them saying "Look how agressive they are!" and blame them for everything in the eyes of the so-called "international public" using our sensless moneydriven and/or childeren-of-an-ex-nazi news reporters. Unsuspecting people don't have a clue (or don't give a damn) that their oppinions are being disgustingly maniupulated by western media. ...And Serbs can do nothing about it because - heck - we* controll media - what we say IS the truth - we say that truth is lie and that lie is truth, yet Serbs are evil - shame on them and their thicheaded commie governments (we first superimosed on them). About Tito (the Roman catholic pretending to be a comunist (and let's have in mind that he joined the comunist party when it supported separatism in Yugoslavia between the two world wars)): - he had forbidden Christianity to Serbs (on basis of being a communist - how convinient), he made Kosovo an autonomous province (although it never was before!), latter he induced absolutely disguistingly abnormal natality of Albanians in Kosovo (so Serbian government could be blamed for poor living conditions instead of the real rason - the abnormal overpopulation induced by Tito's government and who knows what else anti-Christian organisation), and finaly his government gave Kosovo even greater autonomy - so Albanian individuals in charge could provoke Serbs (regular citizens - ordinary people just wanting to lead their ordinary lives) in Kosovo (in Serbia - in their own country!) buy misusing their jurisdiction and creating social injustice, and so when Serbs finaly fell for that provocation and said "What's enouh is enough!" - we* then just TURN THE STORY AROUND: BECAUSE - SEE - SERBS DURING EXISTANCE OUR ROMAN-CATHOLIC AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE WERE ALWAYS NOTICING AND COMPLAINING HOW WE ARE TRYING TO SPREAD THE "GREAT AUSTRO-HANGARIAN HEGEMONY" AND MAKE IT EVEN GREATER - HAH - NOW WE'RE GONNA BE SARKASTIC - AND WE WILL SIMPLY SAY EXACTLY THAT FOR SERBS ALTHOUGH IT IS OBVIOUS (AND WE* ARE AWARE OF IT) THAT THEY ARE JUST TRYING TO SAVE THEIR COUNTRY WHICH IS A LOGICAL ENTITY BECAUSE IN IT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT RELIGIONS THAT SPEAK ONE LANGUAGE (WHICH (ANYHOW YOU LOOK AT IT!) MEANS THAT THEY ARE ONE CULTURAL ENTITY) ARE FINALY UNITED AFTER SO MUCH CENTURIES OF SLAVEDOM UNDER ROMAN AND/OR ARABIAN HEGEMONY. AND WHEN SERBS START THEIR PERSONAL REVANGES FOR OUR* NAZI GENOCIDAL CRIMES, AND THE KILLING STARTS INTENTIONALY INDUCED BY OUR* SHAMELESS PROVOCATIONS TO NOTHING ELSE BUT VIOLENCE - THEN WE* WILL USE THAT SAME DIABOLICAL SARKASM, AND WE *WILL TURN THE STORY AROUND - WITH A DIFFERENCE THAT THEY SAID IT RIGHTFULY, BUT NEVERMIND - WE* WILL BE OBSCENE AND WE* WILL TURN IT ON THEM ANYWAY - AND SAY WHAT THEY SAID FOR US: "YOU ARE GENOCIDAL! LOOK AT ALL THOSE MASS GRAVES! SERB CONCENTRATION CAMPS! MASS MURDERS!"**. FIRSTLY: THEIR REVANGE AGAINST WHOM WE (OSTERREICHANS) MADE THEM BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE THEIR REAL ENEMIES (THEIR SLAV BROTHERS - CROATS); AND SECONDLY: A FIGHT FOR WHAT IS JUSTICE AND LOGIC (THAT UNION OF PEOPLE THAT SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE) - WE* WILL ALL OF IT SHAMELESSLY SIMPLY CALL "THE GREAT-SERBIAN HEGEMONIAL POLITICS" (the ever so popular sentence of diabolical sarkasm of all the DEMONS in these lands: "Velikosrpska hegemonija." (One man, obviously non-Serb at least according to his surname (Voyislav Sheshely), will be THE MAIN EVIDENCE of Serbian "violent nature" - which would make them (the naive Serbs who don't have a clue what this is all about) the bad guys and us* the victims - the climax of irony (no matter it is obvious that we* are the ones who need the BLOODY WAR - the bloodier the better - because that is the only way to deepen the gap between nations of this one people (Croats and Serbs, Bosnians and Serbs, Croats and Bosnians), and secure our (Roman-catholic/Oster-reich) victory against the inferior fools).)) - JUST LIKE WE WERE DOING IT CENTURIES AGO, WE WILL NOW MAKE THEM BURN ON STAKE JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE CLAIMING THE EARTH IS AROUND.
--- Pay special attention to all the low-minded (impartialy said) ways Osterreich is CONSTANTLY trying to convince Croats that they are not of Slav origin (all but not Slav - everything - no matter how stupid those quasi-claims sound (or intentionaly missliding (like the Iranian theory (those 'Iranoids' are not today's Croats - today's Croats speak Slav language ergo they are Slavs - FACT)))). Slavs didn't have a hugely advanced civilisations (heck - they didn't even have their own alphabet before IX century! and even then - it was invented - by a Greek!) - nor were they the ones who where conducting the enslaving (it was always the other way around - Slavs were always the ones which various hegemonies were acting against), yet these people still speak Slav languages - that's a fact - no matter how it coincided - that's a fact. Croats, Serbs and Bosnians speak the same language - one people divided only by actions and perfidious political needs of different hegemonies (Latin and Arabic (but, hey, we are Slavs, not Latins, not Arabians; Slavs (from the word 'Glory' ('Slava') - and what submitting yourself to someone else's dividing hegemony has to do with glory???))).