The Serbian question in the Republic of Croatia

The Serbian question in the Republic of Croati a

My thoughts on this sensitive topic have been present for a long time, but I have not managed to organise them into a coherent text.

I am currently in the Republic of Croatia, where I am resolving certain property issues. This is the fifth or sixth time since 1995 that I have briefly visited the region where my mother comes from, specifically Lika or, more formally, Lika-Senj County in the Republic of Croatia. The places where I stayed were the village of Podum, near Otočac in the Gacka Valley, and Korenica in the Krbavsko Polje, near the Plitvice Lakes.

I observe the lives of people today in this region, both Serbs and Croats.

What do I conclude?

Some pretend that others do not exist or, if they do, that they are primarily loyal to the state of Croatia so that they can be noticed. These are nationalists. The nationalists on the Serbian side are not thinking any better either, and increasingly, on certain portals dedicated to the territory of the former unrecognised Republic of Serbian Krajina, the slogan is published: We will return!

And where does it lead? Well, nowhere or into an even bigger problem, and everyone who thinks rationally is aware of that.

Well, the idea of this text is to look for a rational explanation of the situation regarding the Serbian issue in the Republic of Croatia. The views of nationalists are not relevant to me, and I do not want to devote my attention to them. I am aware that complex issues in solving problems involve everyone relevant in politics, but my thinking does not refer to politics and politicians, but to people and society as a whole.

Why do I mention the often-repeated phrase in history: The Serbian question in Croatia?

Because that question still exists today. Not resolved. After the combat operations ended in 1995, through the military-police operations »Flash« and »Storm«, the Serbian issue was not finally resolved once and for all and eternity. The issue of Serbian nationalism was resolved, but not the Serbian issue.

We simply cannot say that 250,000 people evaporated, disappeared, erased, as if they never existed. Whether and what political agreements existed and preceded the events of 1995, and who promised what to whom and who finally ruled in those socio-political transactions as the previous step of the events that the general public sees or, unfortunately, directly participates in their realization, we will not easily find out as citizens, either as observers or as participants. It will not be easy for those who are scientifically and professionally trained for such research to find out either: historians, sociologists, political scientists, etc. And perhaps no one will ever know about some agreements, especially oral ones, without any recorded trace or traces that lead in the wrong direction, were deliberately created.

But that is less important, the aforementioned experts will deal with it in the future.

Let's go back to the mentioned number of people who don't exist in Croatia. However, they exist, many are still alive, and behind those who are not, there are living descendants, and there will be living descendants of descendants. In the Republic of Croatia, their enormous assets, exceptional cultural and historical heritage, and indelible traces of their existence remain, and not only in the abstract sense. But what is very important to tell everyone who wants to hear it sincerely in the modern Republic of Croatia is the fact that these people and their ancestors and ancestors built the foundations of today's modern social community.

The formal-legal fact is contained in the decisions of AVNOJ (Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia) and ZAVNOH (National Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Croatia) regarding the constitution of the predecessor of the current Republic of Croatia, which is SR (Socialist Republic) Croatia as a member of DFJ (Democratic Federal Yugoslavia), FNRJ (Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia) and eventually SFRJ (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).

By excluding the Serbian people as a constituent people from the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, it only formally annuls the status and constitutionality of this people, following the above-mentioned historical facts.

Essentially and truly, the Serbian people, together with the Croatian people, created the foundations of today's Republic of Croatia, and this is an axiomatic historical fact.

The act of exclusion is a momentary, political move at a given time, although with lasting consequences, for, in my opinion, two reasons:

1. Annulment of the possibility of legal instrumentalisation of the Serbian people by the state of Serbia to achieve its interests in the independent and sovereign state of Croatia.

2. Additionally, mobilisation of the national feelings of the Croatian people in defence of the integrity of the state of Croatia

At that moment, the HDZ (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica/Croatian Democratic Union) and its president, Dr. Franjo Tuđman, primarily protect the interests of citizens of the Republic of Croatia of Croatian nationality, without considering the interests of citizens of the Republic of Croatia of Serbian nationality as equally important. The primary goal, as seen by the makers of this decision, is the protection of the vital national interests of the new state that is being created, and the control of all processes taking place on its territory.

Whether this act committed a historical injustice against the Serbian people in Croatia is not a subject of consideration, nor is it a priority decision in the expected development of the war scenario, which is mainly based on the premise: Either us or them!

And there is the main problem of nationalists from both the Croatian and Serbian sides.

The idea that in one society, there can be common interests between Croats and Serbs, that there can be common goals and paths to achieving those goals.

The painful memories of the suffering of both peoples in the period 1941-1945 and in the period 1991-1995 cannot be ignored and especially never forgotten, but in the name of that memory, they must not be and are not a real obstacle to living together in this region. Not to coexist, but to live together.

What am I saying? Nonsense? Am I promoting utopian ideas?

Well, now is the time to use a saying that my professor from the Faculty of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Prof. Dr. Zdravko Bazdan, used in his latest book about the war events in the Dubrovnik area, who exists not only in my memory but also in the memory of numerous generations as an exceptional teacher in higher education and as an exceptional man, with whom I still gladly exchange thoughts when given the opportunity. The saying is: People are brothers! (Bazdan, 2025; pp.12-15.)

All major religions claim this, and all key moral principles of social action are based on it.

We must understand that every man is proud of his existence and the existence of his ancestors. It is the same with all nations in the world.

Both Croats and Serbs should be proud of their ancestors, of their exceptional legacy in all aspects of the modern society in which they live. Both Croats and Serbs should be ashamed of their compatriots and ancestors, murderers, rapists, arsonists, robbers and robbers of all kinds, and all those who encouraged and sometimes targeted their actions to achieve »higher state interests«. Those people, »guides«, are mostly unknown to the public because that is their job; they prepare the ground for the execution of certain political and state interests. Of course, this process is not quite so simple, especially when the international factor is included, but mostly that »explosive mixture« when it gets out of control, is what it will be.

For an ordinary person like me, and I believe a large number of other people, it is not easy to understand that a person can threaten a person's life, the life of his family and his property, that's just because he can and has the opportunity to do it! But that's a story for another post on the topic of when a man becomes a criminal.

Let's return to the topic of this reflection. Can the Serbs in Croatia today publicly state that they are proud of their origins, their ancestors, their culture and history and that together with the Croats, hundreds of years ago, they created the foundations of today's modern Croatia.

I don't think so.

I think it is even very inconvenient to express it publicly, and in some situations or in some locations, it is quite dangerous.

Why is that?

I cannot be satisfied with the explanations that the memories of the Homeland War and the victims of that same war are still fresh. There were also fresh memories of the Second World War in which the Ustashas killed Serbs and communists, the Chetniks killed Croats, Muslims and communists, and communists killed both, and there was no shortage of mutual confrontations between the communists themselves, especially in 1948, but the common goals of all peoples existed and were achieved. Specifically for Montenegro, I can compare the period from 1945 to 1985 and the period from 1989 to 2024 and draw a clear conclusion regarding the quantification of what was done in both periods. We can count schools, hospitals, kindergartens, kilometres of roads, energy networks, water supply systems, not to mention factories and cultural institutions. After the quantification of the development process has been carried out, it is simple to compare the levels of ability of managers or, as they are called in modern times, decision-makers in both periods. Who is not even up to the knees, according to abilities, when it comes to social or common interest, you can judge for yourself.

Can a similar quantification be made for the modern Republic of Croatia?

Croats must understand, as people, that the departure of the Serbs in 1995 certainly does not mean their disappearance, because they simply exist, they are currently in a different location, but they exist and struggle with similar life problems. They must also understand that the legacy of the Serbs who left is in front of their eyes every day.

They did not leave because they deserved it, because they were destroying the constitutional order of the Republic of Croatia. Serbian nationalists indeed had this very intention, but when it comes to nationalists, there are no "ours" and "theirs", "good and patriotic" and "bad and occupier-hostile". All nationalists are very similar to each other (Serbian and Croatian); they are essentially not interested in the interests of their people, but in exercising control over them. By controlling the national feeling (love or fear, it doesn't matter), they confidently defend the identity and survival of the population and its key characteristics. All others who are not »theirs« can be a threat.

The problem becomes bloodily solvable or unsolvable when nationalities manage to mobilise a large or larger portion of the people whose interests they supposedly »protect«.

The collapse of the SFRJ is another topic, but it is also the framework for the current state of relations between Croats and Serbs in the Republic of Croatia. In the geopolitical situation at the macro and micro level of the 90s, I believe that there were several solutions, but the worst possible solution for the SFRJ happened. I refer again to the book by Tvrtko Jakovina about Budimir Lončar, the last federal secretary of foreign affairs of the SIV (Federal Executive Council-Government) of Ante Marković, which somewhat, although not completely, explains some of the causes of the collapse (Jakovina, 2020).

I will consciously avoid discussing who was the aggressor and who was the victim, who destroyed Yugoslavia and who saved, who was the occupier and who the defender, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys of the 1991-1995 war, and I will especially avoid the concept of the international community and the application of international law at that time.

The geopolitical situation at the macro level today is changing dramatically compared to the 1990s, and very soon, measured in a few years in the future, the USA will not be the only decisive factor in building international relations. It is inevitable and very soon that the decisive factors will be the USA, China, Russia, India and others. I did not mention the EU, not because it will not be a decisive factor, but because the change in relations at the global level will affect the future configuration of the EU. My opinion is that a realistic scenario is a community with more or less strong ties between several groups of states and individual independent states that will only coordinate joint action on certain issues, on a case-by-case basis and depending on their interests. This community will also include countries that are currently in the accession process. I would like to emphasise that Croatia and Serbia will not be in the same group of states, but they will cooperate much more closely in certain areas, simply because both sides will benefit significantly from such cooperation.

Such an outcome of the geopolitical situation at both the macro and micro levels, in my opinion, is very realistic, and it also implies changes in the relations between the countries that are currently defined as the Western Balkans.

The cause will be the balanced interests of global determinants, as the US will certainly no longer be able to independently determine the main trends in the world. It will be forced to coordinate its actions with new determinants, and this will significantly affect the situation in relations between the countries of the Western Balkans.

Where are the Serbs and Croats in the Republic of Croatia?

Global changes do not mean changing the constitutional, legal and geographical frameworks as a consequence of the events of the 1990s when it comes to relations between Serbs and Croats in the Republic of Croatia. Serbs will have to understand that they cannot change the given situation and turn the wheel of history back with any kind of violence, including verbal violence. On the other hand, Croats must understand that Serbs, both those who live in the Republic of Croatia and those who left in 1995 and their descendants, must and can be proud of their history, culture, customs, language and script, and that certain forms of cultural autonomy are not unrealistic if there is a consensus for this between the two states of Croatia and Serbia. This means that it will be treated as uncivilised behaviour, imposing collective guilt on the instigators of the war in the 1990s and humiliating Serbs in the state of Croatia as a second-class group of people who should be collectively punished, either by ignoring them or by imposing all kinds of barriers to their normal life. In particular, there is the issue of the free return and restoration of property for Serbs who left in 1995. Formally, this was resolved several years after the end of the war, but in essence, the issue was never resolved, and that is a well-known fact, even to the writer of these lines. What would politicians say: There was no political will at the highest level.

Croats and Serbs should freely and proudly wave their flags and sing their songs in the Republic of Croatia, and this must essentially happen and not be the result of an agreement between the Croatian party in power and the political party representing Serbian interests, because these agreements do not last long, political alliances are made and broken, and relationships between people are built over a long and painstaking process.

The European future of the Republic of Croatia in the new constellation of relations between European states will, among other things, certainly be determined by the essential building of new relations between Serbs and Croats in Croatia.

This is how I see the solution, or at least parts of the solution, of the Serbian issue in the Republic of Croatia.

I don't have enough knowledge from various professional fields to better argue my thesis, but in the domain of building economically beneficial relationships, I use my professional knowledge, and this is how I see the future.

And I claim that my thoughts are not utopian, meaningless, impossible, nor are they intellectual fantasies.

We will read this text in ten years, for example, in 2034, and it will be interesting then to see what I wrote now.

Literature:

Bazdan, Z. (2025) RATNA MOKOŠICA ona u kojoj smo patili više i starjeli brže. Dubrovnik.

Jakovina, T. (2020) Budimir Lončar Od Preka do vrha svijeta. Drugo izda. Zagreb: Fraktura.

In Korenica, 08.01.2024.

Prof. Dr. Darko Lacmanović