Anti-Croatian sentiment
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Anti-Croatian sentiment refers to hostility, hatred, aversion or irrational fear towards Croats, Croatia or Croatian culture.
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[edit] History
Sentiments of hostility between Croats and Serbs have been more or less prominent since the national revivals in the 19th century: many Serbian ideologists refused to recognize the Croats as a nation distinct from the Serbs. In the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918-1945), there were significant ethnic tensions, as many Croats strived for independence. During World War II, when Yugoslavia was occupied by Axis forces, members of the Serbian nationalist Chetnik resistance movement committed atrocities against Croat civilians. At the same time, a Croatian Nazi satellite state NDH, was established, and the Croatian Ustaše government in the organized atrocities against Serbs on a mass scale, imitating German Nazi practices in the Jasenovac concentration camp. This lead to an escalation of anti-Croatian sentiment in Serbia (as well as, arguably, negative attitudes towards Croats in the Allied countries). At the end of the war, as Josip Broz Tito's Communist partisan resistance movement was victorious, bloody retaliations such as the Bleiburg massacre of both military and civilian Croats occurred and many Croats that were more or less legitimately associated with the Ustaše were persecuted. However, it must be noted that Croats were also heavily represented in the partisan movement and in the subsequent state formation (Tito himself being a half-Croat), as well as that the Serbian Chetniks suffered a fate similar to that of the Croatian Ustaše at the hands of the new government.
In some other allied countries, notably Great Britain, anti-Croatian sentiment was also widespread[citation needed] during the second world war, and British involvement in the Bleiburg massacre is documented[citation needed].
A new culmination of ethnic hatred on all sides was reached immediately before, during and after the Yugoslav wars. In Serbia, the Ustaše atrocities were envoked and general anti-Croatian sentiments gained momentum in Serbian nationalist political circles and media in order to gains support in the conflict. Anti-Croatian sentiment was further inflamed by reports (accurate or not) of renewed persecution of ethnic Serbs in Croatia and in Croatian controlled parts of Bosnia. Many Croats have felt that their nation has also been demonized by foreign media, and that notable anti-Croatian sentiment still exists, even outside of Serbia.
[edit] Common forms of anti-Croatian sentiment
According to many[citation needed], the following opinions are common manifestations of anti-Croatian sentiment:
- the current Croatian state is closely similar to the WWII Nazi Croatian puppet state of NDH;[citation needed]
- all Croats are right-wing ultranationalists; (Ernst Bloch, Der Spiegel, 6,29. Jahrgang, 03.02.1975., page 80)
- all Croats are Ustasha (in the same way that all Germans would be labelled Nazis);[citation needed]
- Croatians maintain a strong aggression/genocidal instinct (again, compare to Germans-Nazis);[citation needed]
- that Croats are an untrustworthy and subversive element in society.[citation needed]
[edit] "Croatophobia"
A Croatian term that would correspond to a hypothetical English word "Croatophobia" (kroatofobija, hrvatofobija, or croatofobija) has been coined recently to express various forms of anti-Croatian sentiment. It already exists in Croatian dictionaries, but is still rarely used. The term appeared first in the Croatian daily newspaper Vjesnik [1] first in an article in 1999, but also in a later article published on June 18, 2005, which was translated by and commented on by the BBC Media monitor on June 21, 2005. The original Croatian article was critical of the British resistance of accepting Croatia into the EU and described this as an expression of Croatophobia.
Furthermore, the term "Croatophobes" has been used to describe Croatian politicians that are "leftists, internationalists, critical of the Croatian War of Independence and the Catholic Church", and "proponents of unconditional cooperation with Serbia and the neighbouring countries" ([2]).
Some assert[citation needed] that "Croatophobia" does not exist, and that the term is used as a political tool by Croatian nationalists to deflect criticism of Croatia or Croats. The negation of the existence of the phenomenon is seen, by many Croats, as a typical example of "Croatophobia".
[edit] Concrete examples
- Among others, Serbian nationalist historian Vasilije Krestić, the foremost Serbian authority on Croatian-Serbian relations in the 19th and 20th centuries, has expressed negative views of the Croat nation. In his book "Genocidom do velike Hrvatske" (Greater Croatia through genocide) he paints a picture of Croatians as pathological haters of Serbs, always jealous of their achievements, ready to wipe out the Serbian population out of existence at every opportune moment. This, as well as his other, more academically respected works have been criticized.
- German philosopher Ernst Bloch described Croatians as: "Kroaten als Faschisten, oder zumindest als Halbfaschisten“ (Croatians are all fascists, or at least half-fascists) in an interview in 1975. for the political magazine Der Spiegel (Der Spiegel, 6,29. Jahrgang, 03.02.1975., page 80). Ernst Bloch also had reservations and doubts about Croatians on the political left of the spectrum, which he explaned on pages 92-124. of his book Sozialismus in Osteuropa, Jugoslawien, Herazsgeber Kurt Heuer und Martin Mombaur, B.2. Göttingen, 1973.
[edit] References
- Commentary faults UK policy of discouraging rapid Croatian accession to EU
- An article that defines and explains croatophobia, mostly in order to describe certain Croatian left-wing politicians (in Croatian)
[edit] External links (alleged manifestations of anti-Croatian sentiment)
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