Croats of Serbia (Serbian: Хрвати у Србији, romanized: Hrvati u Srbiji) are a recognized national minority in Serbia. According to the 2022 census, the population of ethnic Croats in Serbia is 39,107, constituting 0.6% of the total population. The vast majority of them live in the northern autonomous province of Vojvodina, where they number 32,684 and make up 1.9% of the province's population. An additional 11,104 people declared themselves as Bunjevci in the 2022 census; there are differing views whether Bunjevci should be regarded as Croats or as members of a distinct ethnic group. The majority of the Sokac community consider themself as Croats. Not all Croats have Bunjevac or Sokac ancestors.
History
During the 15th century, Croats mostly lived in the Syrmia region. It is estimated that they were a majority in 76 out of 801 villages that existed in the present-day territory of Vojvodina.[3]
According to 1851 data, it is estimated that the population of the Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar, the historical province that was predecessor of present-day Vojvodina, included, among other ethnic groups, 62,936 Bunjevci and Šokci and 2,860 Croats.[4][page needed] Subsequent statistical estimations from the second half of the 19th century (conducted during Austro-Hungarian period) counted Bunjevci and Šokci as "others" and presented them separately from Croats (in 1910 Austro-Hungarian census, 70,000 Bunjevci were categorized as "others").[5]
The 1910 Austro-Hungarian census also showed large differences in the numbers of those who considered themselves Bunjevci and Šokci, and those who considered themselves Croats. According to the census, in the city of Subotica there were only 39 citizens who declared Croatian as their native language, while 33,390 citizens were listed as speakers of "other languages" (most of them declared Bunjevac as their native language).[6] In the city of Sombor, 83 citizens declared Croatian language, while 6,289 citizens were listed as speakers of "other languages" (mostly Bunjevac).[6] In the municipality of Apatin, 44 citizens declared Croatian and 7,191 declared "other languages" (mostly Bunjevac, Šokac and Gypsy).[6][dead link]
In 1925, Bunjevac-Šokac Party and Pučka kasina organized in Subotica the 1000th-anniversary celebration of the establishment of Kingdom of Croatia, when in 925 Tomislav of Croatia became first king of the Croatian Kingdom. On the King Tomislav Square in Subotica a memorial plaque was unveiled with the inscription "The memorial plaque of millennium of Croatian Kingdom 925-1925. Set by Bunjevci Croats".[8] Besides Subotica, memorial plaques of King Tomislav were also revealed in Sremski Karlovci and Petrovaradin.
In 2020 the birth home of ban Josip Jelačić built in the 18th century and located in Petrovaradin, was bought by the Republic of Serbia from private owners. It was later reconstructed and given as a gift to the Croatian community.[9]
Coat of arms of Croats of Serbia, in official use since 2005
Coat of arms
Flag and coat of arms of Croats of Serbia were adopted on 11 June 2005 in a session of the Croat National Council, in Subotica.
Politics
The Croat National Council is a body of self-government of the Croatian minority in Serbia.[10] On 11 June 2005 the Council adopted the historical coat of arms of Croatia, a checkerboard consisting of 13 red and 12 white fields (the difference with the Croatian coat of arms being the crown on top).
In the results of census taking is a disagreement between real ethnicity and declared ethnicity.[11] Most citizens who declare that they belong to a specific ethnic/minority group, already come from families with mixed family backgrounds (e.g. mixed marriages between different nationalities/ethnicities, interreligious marriages). The Republic of Serbia is using a "segregated model of multiculturalism".[12] The national councils receive funds from the state and province to finance their own governing body, cultural, and educational organisations.[13] The amount of money for the national councils, depends on the results of a census in which the Serbian population can register and self-declare as a member of a state-recognized minority of their choice.[14][15]
Today, most members of the Šokci community consider themselves Croats. The Bunjevci in the Hungarian and Serbian Bačka area, are split between those who declare themselves as a distinct ethnic group with their own language and those who identify themselves as a Croatian sub-ethnic group.[16] The latter are represented in Serbia by the Croat National Council,[17][18] and the former by the Bunjevac National Council.[19][20] Not all Croats in Serbia have Bunjevac or Sokac origins.
The number of Croats in Serbia was somewhat larger in previous censuses that were conducted between 1948 and 1991. Proponents of a separate Bunjevac nation argue that the number of Croats may have been smaller at that time, as the communist authorities counted in the people to as Croats, who self-declared as Bunjevac or Sokac. Robert Skenderović emphasizes that already before 1918 and the Communist rule, Bunjevci have made strong efforts to be recognized as part of the Croatian people.[21]
The largest recorded number of Croats in a census was in 1961 when there were 196,409 Croats (including Bunjevci and Šokci) in the Socialist Republic of Serbia (around 2.57% of the total population of Serbia at the time). Since 1961 census, the Croat population in Serbia is in a constant decrease.
Saint Lawrence the Martyr Catholic Church in Sonta
Linguistic map of Vojvodina according to the 1910 census. Territories with Croatian-speaking inhabitants are colored in orange.Croats in Vojvodina according to the 2002 census - based on settlement dataMain Croatian settlements in Vojvodina (2002 census)
In the 2022 census of the Republic of Serbia: 39,107 Croats and 11,104 Bunjevci are registered, of which the census methodology has not made a subdivision of percentage respondents identifying themselves as ethnic Bunjevac Croats or as a separate Bunjevac ethnicity, in conjunction with their belief of being a distinct Bunjevac people.[26] According to the 2011 census, there were 57,900 Croats in Serbia or 0.8% of the country's population.[27] Of these, 47,033 lived in Vojvodina,[28] where they formed the fourth largest ethnic group, representing 2.8% of the population. A further 7,752 lived in the national capital Belgrade, with the remaining 3,115 in the rest of the country.
source:[30] note1: The numbers were adjusted for the present borders of Vojvodina. note2: Croats are counted together with Bunjevci and Šokci for data before 1991.
Some members of the Bunjevac community, preserved a Neo-Shtokavian–Younger Ikavian dialect of the Serbo-Croatianpluricentric language, also known as Bunjevac dialect (bunjevački dijalekt) or Bunjevac speech (bunjevački govor).[32] Their accent is purely Ikavian, with /i/ for the Common Slavic vowels yat.[33] Since 2021, Croatia has categorized the Neo-Stokavian Younger Ikavian dialect to be the Bunjevac dialect with three sub-branches: Danubian (also known as Bunjevac), Littoral-Lika, and Dalmatian (also known as Bosnian–Dalmatian).[34] Its speakers largely use the Latin alphabet and are living in parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, parts of Croatia, southern parts (inc. Budapest) of Hungary as well in parts of the autonomous province Vojvodina of Serbia.
There have been three meritorious people who preserved the Bunjevac dialect in two separate dictionaries: Grgo Bačlija[35] and Marko Peić[36] with "Ričnik bački Bunjevaca"[37] (editions 1990, 2018), and Ante Sekulić[38] with "Rječnik govora bačkih Hrvata" (2005).
For decades, there has been an unresolved language battle within the Bunjevac community and between Serbia and Croatia over the status of the Bunjevac speech.[39][40][41]
The dialect, of the in Serbia residating Danubian Bunjevci, was standardised in the Republic of Serbia in 2018 and officially approved as a standard dialect by the Ministry of Education for teaching in schools.[42][43][44][45] With the standardisation of the Bunjevac dialect, activists and members of the Bunjevac National Council are striving for language secession, with the political aim that the Bunjevac dialect will gain in Serbia the political-linguistic status of independent language. Theodora Vuković has provided, in 2009, the scientific methodology for the finalization of the standardisation process of the Bunjevac dialect corpus in Serbia,[46][47] classified as the Serbian Bunjevac dialect variety of the Danubian branch of the Neo-Shtokavian Younger Ikavian dialect. Speakers use in general the standardised dialect variety for writing and conversation in formal situations.[48]
^Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia (2015). "SELF-EVALUATION SERBIAN OSCE CHAIRMANSHIP"(PDF). p. 78. ... there are problems with "faking" a particular national minority background in order to benefit from affirmative action measures. In this context, the question can be raised whether there are limits to self-identification, i.e. whether belonging to a particular ethnic group can be based solely on one's sentiments or is self-identification limited by objective criteria.
^Mina Djurić Nikolić and Laura Trimajova (2015). "A Tale of Two Serbias? Census-taking in 2002 and 2011"(PDF). Census-taking in Serbia is particularly important as the results dictate budgetary fund allocations for each respective ministry; as such, the need for accuracy cannot be overstated
^"Hrvatska manjina u Republici Srbiji". hrvatiizvanrh.gov.hr. Središnji državni ured za Hrvate izvan Republike Hrvatske (Central State Office for Croats Outside the Republic of Croatia).
^"Statement by the Presidency of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts regarding the Bunjevci Croats"(PDF). www.info.hazu.hr. Glasnik HAZU. 2014. p. 53. The Presidency of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, in a session held on 12 September 2014, made the following statement explaining that the Bunjevci Croats form an integral part of the Croatian national corpus. The Presidency of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, one of the fundamental institutions of the Croatian nation and of all the citizens of the Republic of Croatia, among the roles of which belongs the preservation of national identity, made the following statement in a session held on 12 September 2014: The Bunjevci, a Croatian ethnic group, are made up of three branches: the Dalmatian-Herzegovinian branch; the Primorje-Lika branch; and the Danube Region branch. Not encroaching on the right of any individual to express their national affiliation based on their origin, history, traditional culture, customs and language – the western new-Štokavian and Ikavian – the Bunjevci Croats form an integral part of the Croatian national corpus.
^"O Bunjevcima (About the Bunjevci)". bunjevci.net. Bunjevačkog informativnog centra (Bunjevac Information Center of the Bunjevac National Council).
^Robert, Skenderović (29 Januar 2020). "Bunjevačke Hrvate nisu stvorili komunisti". www.subotica.info. Bunjevačke Hrvate nisu stvorili komunisti. Nisu ih stvorili jer ih nisu ni mogli stvoriti. Bunjevci su se izjašnjavali Hrvatima i prije 1945. godine. Zapravo, izjašnjavali su se već i prije 1918. godine, ali je poznato da je hrvatstvo Bunjevaca bilo proganjano i prije i poslije Prvoga svjetskog rata. Ipak, nakon dugotrajne borbe bački su Bunjevci konačno uoči Drugoga svjetskog rata uspjeli biti prihvaćeni kao Hrvati. Uspjeli su to u monarhističkoj Jugoslaviji i to zato jer su srpski političari tada odlučili prekinuti neprijateljstvo prema Hrvatima.((cite web)): CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^Popis stanovništva, domaćinstva i stanova u 2002, Stanovništvo - nacionalna ili etnička pripadnost, podaci po naseljima, knjiga 1, Republički zavod za statistiku, Beograd, Februar 2003.
^Tóth Antal: Magyarország és a Kárpát-medence regionális társadalomföldrajza, 2011, p. 67-68
^The Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (17 March 2023). "Fifth evaluation report on Serbia". p. 17; 32-37.
^"Bunjevački govori". Razlikuju se tri ogranka Bunjevačkih govora – podunavski, primorsko-lički i dalmatinski, a svi su kulturno bliski prema povijesnim, etnološkim i lingvističkim istraživanjima.
^Monique Kostadinović Randwijk. Bunjevac European Center. "EDUCATION. Bunjevac Cultural Heritage - Speech & Tradition". www.bunjevac.org. Archived from the original on 2022-01-15. Retrieved 2022-01-15. A few Bunjevac leaders and political activists, who are influential in the Bunjevac National Council, are strongly involved in developing a "national" identity of Bunjevci: stimulating folklore activities, and searching for political and linguistic support to transform Bunjevac dialect in to a distinct language.
^Bojan Belić (2014). "Bunyev(s): linguistic frontier to be?". изворни научни чланак УДК 81'27(497.113). 12 (2): 613. It appears that the concept of standardization, whatever it may mean to the various parties involved, occupies a central position, or – actually – the central position in the Bunyev language debate, for it looks as though it is only thanks to standardization that a speech variety may gain the label of language.
^Hrvatska katolička mreža (20 March 2021). "Ne postoji bunjevački jezik, nego bunjevački govor". From the scientific and linguistic point of view, we can say that it is a traditional Croatian language. Numerous records speak of this, all Croatian linguists, all world Slavic linguists, and even leading Serbian linguists have never questioned the Croatian origin of the Bunjevac dialect. Željko Jozić
^"PDF.js viewer" (in Serbian). Archived from the original on 2020-06-09. Retrieved 2020-07-30 – via Pravno-informacioni sistem RS.
^"Одлука о утврђивању стандарда буњевачког језика: 18/2018-192". 2018. DECISION."Official Gazette of RS", No. 18 of March 9, 2018. The standard of the Bunjevac language is determined:- the established standard must be applied in textbooks and teaching of the Bunjevac language / speech;- the established standard must be applied in the media registered in order to achieve the public interest of information in the Bunjevac language;- The National Council of the Bunjevac National Minority may support in co-financing only those publications in the Bunjevac language that are in accordance with the established standard of the Bunjevac language;
^"ONLINE REČNIK BUNJEVAČKOG GOVORA". Archived from the original on 2022-03-05. Retrieved 2022-07-30. Bunjevački rečnik je audio-rečnik koji za cilj ima da predstavi realnu, svakodnevnu i spontanu upotrebu bunjevačkog govora. Zamišljen je kao baza koja će moći da se dopunjuje i proširuje. Kao osnova rečnika korišćeni su audio snimci prikupljani tokom istraživanja bunjevačkih običaja i govora od strane Balkanoločkog instituta Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti tokom 2009. godine. Rezultati tog istraživanja objavljeni su monografiji ,,Bunjevci - Etnodijalektološka istraživanja 2009"1. Iz tog korpusa uzete su reči i primeri njihove upotrebe, a značenja reči su preuzete iz ,,Rečnika bačkih Bunjevaca"2. Za svaku reč, kao i za primere postoji zvučni zapis, kako bi bilo moguće čuti njihov autentičan izgovor. Bunjevački govor pripada mlađim štokavskim dijalektima ikavskog narečja. Bunjevci naseljavaju oblast Bačke, i to pretežno mesta u okolini Subotice i Sombora. Pomenuta istraživanja Balkanološkog instituta, obuhvataju govore iz okoline Subotice, tačnije ruralne zajednice Bikovo, Klisa, Đurđin, Mala Bosna, Stari Žednik i Tavankut. Izostavljene su zajednice iz Sombora i Bunjevci iz Mađarske. Bunjevački rečnik je 2013. godine započela Teodora Vuković, studentkinja master studija na Filološkom fakultetu u Beogradu, uz podršku prof. dr Biljane Sikimić sa Balkanološkog instituta Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti. Projekat podržavaju Balkanološki institut i Nacionalni savet bunjevačke nacionalne manjine. SANU, 2012
^Mark E. Karan and Kerry M. Corbett (2014). Dialogue on Dialect Standardization. Dialogue on Dialect Standardization(PDF). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 55–61. ISBN978-1-4438-6661-3. Retrieved 2022-01-16. In every region there is a linguistic variation. This linguistic variation has to be respected, because it is the identity of people. That is where differentiation between the culture is. Dialect standardization only happens when the people involved have enough or modify their identity to that or affiliation associated with a larger group, standardization is possible and often occurs. Before a standardization process, speaker use their dialects for all of their speech functions. After a standardization process, speaker use the standardized variety for at least some of their speech functions. For example, reading and writing and conversation in formality situations often call for use of standardized dialect variety. Thus, the standardization process is fundamentally a shift in language use patterns.
^Vanja, koji je rođeni Beograđanin, dijete iz mješovitoga braka, od majke Srpkinje i oca Hrvata iz Istre. Krsno ime mu je Franjo, a kršten je u katoličkoj crkvi u Beogradu. Vanja, who is born in Belgrade, a child of mixed marriage, from a Serb mother and a Croat father from Istria. His baptismal name is Franjo, and he was baptized in the Catholic Church in Belgrade. 2010, https://www.jutarnji.hr/sport/vanja-udovicic-ima-tri-drzavljanstva-a-krsno-ime-mu-je-franjo/2129490/
Vojvodina
Belgrade
.png)
