Croatian Democratization
A history of Croatian democratization.
Contents
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
During the World War 1 peace negotiations, nationalists declared a State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. The Treaty of Trianon wrapped them into the Kingdom of Serbia to form a new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The official name became Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929.
The territory was divided into two separate provinces (pokrajine): Croatia and Slavonia; and Dalmatia.
A centralized government was established in 1921 and the kingdom was re-divided into oblasts. To promote Yugoslav identities, these oblasts purposefully had no parallel to older, ethnic divisions.
The kingdom was again reorganized in 1929 into banates (banovina). Again, older, ethnic divisions were avoided. The two that most resembled Croatian territory were the Littoral (Primorska) and Sava (Savska) banates. In 1939, they were merged into a banate of Croatia (Бановина Хрватска or Banovina Hrvatska). This reflected the stubborn persistance of an independent Croatian identity.
On March 27th, 1941, King Peter II overthrew the Axis-aligned regency of Paul. Germany invaded in retaliation.
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a German client state. A fascist government was formed under Pavelić and the Ustaše.
Yugoslavia
Tito led the Yugoslav Partisans to liberate the former kingdom, and following World War 2 established the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. Croatia was administered as a federal republic within Yugoslavia.
After Tito died, the chair of the presidency council began to rotate among members.
Republic of Croatia
When Mesić became chair of the presidency council, he ceased to attend meetings. The members from Slovenia and Macedonia similarly abandoned government, leaving just Milošević and his supporters. This effectively ended the executive power of Yugoslavia.
Through a period of violence known as thge Yugoslav Wars, Croatia gained recognition of its independence. Croatia was admitted to the UN and a Yugoslav state was never re-established over Croatia.
Croatia proceeded to join the EU in 2003; NATO in 2009; and the Eurozone in 2023.