Croatian National Identity: Emergance and Disputes

Until the end of the Middle Ages, in the territory of present-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, there were several independent state formations, i.e. Croatia and Dalmatia, Slavonia, which was closely related to it at the time, then Bosnia and the Republic of Dubrovnik. Today’s Slavonia and Istria were under foreign centers. Despite this, almost the entire population of the given framework was, with part of the population of eastern Srijem and the present-day Montenegrin coast, monolingual and Catholic and imbued with numerous cultural links. Far-reaching ethnic changes will follow the Ottoman devastation, conquests, and colonization. Approximately a quarter of Croatia and half of BiH will become permeated with a majority Orthodox/Serb population, while a Muslim/Bosniak community will be formed through Islamization. The Ottoman conquests will also affect the constitution of the Croatian nation, and all local Catholics who speak the same language will become part of it. However, the ethnic changes made it largely impossible to establish an appropriate state framework on that constitution, while the Croatian nation will face the negation of its historical and linguistic identity and the destruction of the achievements won despite unfavorable historical circumstances. The aim of the attached project would be to investigate and describe to the greatest extent possible the circumstances that led to the change in the ethnic image shown and in the deconstruction of capital ideologues who are trying to degrade the Croatian identity and acquired constitutional rights in the historical, linguistic, cultural, political and legal fields. positions specifically on the soil of BiH. The following scientists would participate in the implementation of the project within the working and research frameworks listed below: 1. Saša Mrduljaš (leader, scientific advisor of the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar – Center Split, https://wwwcroris.hr/osobe/profil/2054); organization of project implementation; state-territorial, ethnic, religious relations; migrations for the Ottoman dominions; analysis of ideologues and their political significance; cartographic representations and calculations, demographic calculations; 2. Miljenko Brekalo (scientific advisor in the permanent capacity of the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar – Center Osijek, https://wwwcroris.hr/osobe/profil/2507); analysis of the constitutional positions of Serbs in Croatia before and after the democratic changes (constituency issue); constitutional positions of Croats in BiH (Constitution from 1974, original and amended Constitutions of the Federation of BiH and “Dayton” BiH); 3. Domagoj Vidović (senior research associate of the Institute for Croatian Language and Linguistics, https://wwwcroris.hr/osobe/profil/1276); the expansion of the Croatian name in the pre-national period; dialects as indicators of migration and origin; prevalence of the Novoštokavian-Ijekavian dialect in general and among some Croats; historical dialectological determinants of the local languages of the Croats of eastern Herzegovina, Boka Kotor and Bar; ideologues about the Croatian language; 4. Goran Mijočević (docent at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Mostar – Study of History; https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=hr&user =qoaACAIAAAAJ); religious relations on the soil of today’s Croatia and BiH in the Middle Ages; the organization of the Catholic Church in medieval Bosnia and Hum; The Bosnian Church and the re-Catholicization process of its believers; the presence of Orthodoxy in Hum; the importance of stećak for Croatian identity; 5. Dijana Pinjuh (associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Mostar – Study of History, https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=hr&user=ur2b51gAAAAJ); religious relations on the soil of today’s Croatia and BiH during the Ottoman domination and the position of the Catholic Church; Islamization process; the significance of dovish (Muslim prayer places in nature) for understanding the process of Islamization.​Members of the project team: Saša Mrduljaš, Miljenko Brekalo and Antun Kovčalija.