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Croats (Croatian: Hrvati) are a South Slavic people mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There is a notable Croat diaspora in western Europe, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The Croats are predominantly Catholic and their language is Croatian.

Locations

Croatia is the nation state of the Croats, while in the adjacent Bosnia and Herzegovina they are one of the three constitutive nations.

Autochthonous Croat minorities exist in:

• Vojvodina, the northern autonomous province of Serbia; the Croatian Šokci (the easternmost edge of NE Croat subgroup, the older community) and Bunjevci (they've settled the vast and abandoned area after the Ottoman retreat, as well as other nationalities there; the origins of this Croat subgroup are from the south)(mostly in the region of Bačka)
• The Šokci and Bunjevci communities in Bács-Kiskun county in Hungary
• Boka Kotorska on the western coast of Montenegro (the Croatian Bokelji), as well as very small communities from the coastal area near Boka to the city of Bar
• a very small community in Carso and Trieste area, in Italy. This is the northernmost area populated by of Croats-- they are mostly assimilated, but there traces in surnames and some placenames
• Primorska, Prekmurje and in the Metlika area in Dolenjska regions in Slovenia
• Zala, Baranya and Somogy counties in Hungary, which are border areas with Croatia)

Old Croatian minorities, that have existed for a longer period of time, as a result of migrations, in

• Burgenland in the eastern part of Austria, and the bordering areas of western Hungary (counties Vas and Győr-Moson-Sopron) and Slovakia - the Croats of Gradišće - Burgenland Croats.
• Romanian Banat, those Krashovani who identify as Croats
• Kosovo - Janjevci and Letničani
• Molise area in Italy
• Szentendre town in Hungary, magyarized, but with a memory of their Croat origins (from Dalmatia)

The population estimates are reasonably accurate domestically: around four million in Croatia and around 600,000 (roughly 17%) in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Abroad, the count is only approximate because of incomplete statistical records and naturalization, but estimates suggest that there are at least as much Croats abroad as in Croatia. The largest emigrant groups are in Western Europe, mainly in Germany, where it is estimated that there are around 450,000 people with direct Croatian ancestry.

Overseas, the United States contains the largest Croatian emigrant group (409,458 in the 1990 census, mostly in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and California), followed by Australia (105,747 according to 2001 census, with concentrations in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth) and Canada (Southern Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta), as well as smaller groups in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Brazil, New Zealand and South Africa. Though estimates suggest that at least 1.5 million people in Northern America trace their origin back to Croatia.

The most important organization of the Croatian diaspora is the Croatian Fraternal Union.

History

The origin of the Croatian tribe before the great migration of the Slavs is uncertain. One theory suggests that the Croats are descendants of ancient Persia (cf. Alans). The earliest mention of the Croatian name, Horouathos, can be traced on two stone inscriptions in the Greek language and script, dating from around the year 200 AD, found in the seaport Tanais on the Azov sea, Crimea peninsula (near the Black Sea). Both tablets are kept in the Archaeological museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. However, whether the term Hourathos is related to the Croat ethnonym is open to conjecture, as the two words may have separate origins.

In the 7th century, the Croatian tribe is thought to have moved from the area north of the Carpathians and east of the river Vistula (referred to as White Croatia) and migrated into the western Dinaric Alps. White Croats had formed the Principality of Dalmatia in the upper Adriatic, while their subgroup - Red Croats - created the Principalities of Red Croatia: Zahumlje, Travunia with Konavle and Duklja. Another wave of Slavic migrants from White Croatia subsequently founded the Principality of Pannonia.

The Principality of Dalmatia became the Croats' nation-state. Prince Trpimir of Dalmatia was called Duke of Croats in 856. The nationality of the Red Croats was vague at times with the Neretvians accepting Croatian identity, while the Zachlumians maintained a Croatian identiy for some time.

In 925, Croatian Duke of Dalmatia Tomislav of Trpimir united all Croats. He organized a state by annexing the Principality of Pannonia as well as maintaining close ties with Pagania and Zahumlje.

Since the creation of the personal union with Hungary in 1102, the Croats were at times subjected to forceful Hungariazation as well as - since 1527 - Germanization. The ensuing Ottoman conquests and Habsburg domination broke the Croatian lands into disunity again - with the majority of Croats living in Croatia proper and Dalmatia. Large numbers of Croats also lived in Slavonia, Istria, Rijeka, Herzegovina and Bosnia. Over the centuries ensued a wave of Croatian emmigrants, notably to Molise in Italy, Burgenland in Austria and eventully the United States of America.

After the First World War, most Croats were united into the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. Prior to the state's joining with the Kingdom of Serbia, Croats became one of the constituent nations of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The state was transformed into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929 and the Croats were melted into the new nation with their neighbour fellow-South Slavs - Yugoslavs. In 1939, the Croatian nation received a high degree of autonomy -- BANOVINA HRVATSKA -- within the Kingdom when the Croatian Banate was created - which united almost all ethnic Croatian territories within the Kingdom. In the Second World War, the Axis forces created a puppet state - the Independent State of Croatia which inluded a lot of territories where Croats lived in the former Yugoslav Kingdom; but many littoral Croats remained outside that country. During and after the war, between 40,000 and 200,000 Croats lost their lives in genocides such as the Bleiburg massacre committed by the Yugoslav Partisans, as well as in many actions committed by chetniks. Many ended their lives in concentration camps such as Jasenovac.

Croats became one of two constituent peoples of two of the SFRJ Peoples'/Socialist republics - Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (in the latter one of the three since 1968). Croats in Serbia, in autonomic province of Vojvodina never reached that status. Still, only the Croats in Croatia reached the right to use some "light" version of Croatian language. The Croats in other former Yugoslav republics never reached that status. After 1974, the Socialist Republic of Croatia became the nation-state of the Croats. Since 1990 the Republic of Croatia is the sole nation-state of the Croatian people. In the first years of the Croatian War of Independence, over 200,000 Croats were displaced from their homes by the military actions of the Serb Nationalist forces.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Croats attempted their own independent state inside Bosnia and Herzegovina - the Croatian Community/Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, but subsequently joined into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The government's policy of easing the immigration of ethnic Croats from abroad encouraged a number of Croatian descendants to return to Croatia. The influx was increased by the arrival of Croatian refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina due to the Bosnian War and from Vojvodina (Bačka and especially Srijem)due to the actions of Serbian chauvinist forces. After the war's end in 1995, most Croatian refugees returned to their previous homes, while some - particularly Croats from Bosnia-Herzegovina who were expelled by the Serbs - moved into the former Serb homes in the border areas of Croatia, many of them were exchanged the ownership.

Genetic origins

Genetically, on the Y chromosome line, a majority (>87%) of Croats belong to one of the three major European Y-DNA haplogroups -- Haplogroup I (38%), Haplogroup R1a 35% and Haplogroup R1b 16%

All three groups migrated to Europe during the upper paleolithic around 30,000-20,000 BC. Later, neolithic lineages, originating in the Middle East and that brought agriculture to Europe, are present in surprisingly low numbers.

The haplogroups J, E and G constitute together less than 10% - significantly lower than other populations in the region.

Furthermore the dominant presence of haplogroup I is rather interesting. This group exists in Europe only and is fairly wide-spread, but in relatively small percentages. Its frequency in the Balkans is high, but the only populations that have similar levels of the I group are the Scandinavians.

There are a number of relevant conclusions that can be drawn from the genetic data.

First of all it gives strong support to the theory that the region of modern day Croatia served as a refuge for northern populations during the last glacial maximum (LGM). After the LGM there was a migration to the north of the people whose offspring today form a significant portion of the three aforementioned Scandinavian populations. Those who decided to stay are the ancestors of about 38 per cent of modern day Croats.

The second conclusion that can be drawn is that the theory of a Iranian origin has little genetic support. Modern-day Iranians have a significantly different haplogroup distribution, although millennia ago Persia may have been home to altogether different peoples. Only a relatively small percentage of the Croats belong to one of the haplogroups that is common in the Middle East. The low frequency of these groups is consistent with the minor migration of neolithic farmers from the Middle East that occurred around 10,000 years ago.

And the third conclusion is that modern-day Croats may not have that much genetically in common with the Croats of the proto-Slavic origin. The R1a haplogroup that is usually at 40-60% levels in most Eastern European countries is at 35% within the Croat population. Genetic evidence points to the fact that there was a high degree of mixing of the newly arrived Croat tribes with the indigenous populations that were already present in the region of the modern day Croatia. Hence, most modern day Croats are descended from the original European population of the region and have lived in the territory by other names, such as Illyrians and their forebears. These original inhabitants also served an important role in re-populating Europe after the last ice age.

Croatian cuisine

Croatian cuisine is heterogeneous, and is therefore known as "the cuisine of regions". Its modern roots date back to proto-Slavic and ancient periods and the differences in the selection of foodstuffs and forms of cooking are most notable between those on the mainland and those in coastal regions. Mainland cuisine is more characterized by the earlier proto-Slavic and the more recent contacts with the more famous gastronomic orders of today - Hungarian, Viennese and Turkish - while the coastal region bears the influences of the Greek, Roman and Illyrian, as well as of the later Mediterranean cuisine - Italian and French.

A large body of books bears witness to the high level of gastronomic culture in Croatia, which in European terms dealt with food in the distant past, such as the Gazophylacium by Belostenec, a Latin-Kajkavian dictionary dating from 1740 that preceded a similar French dictionary. There is also Beletristic literature by Marulić, Hektorović, Držić and other writers, down to the work written by Ivan Bierling in 1813 containing recipes for the preparation of 554 various dishes (translated from the German original), and which is considered to be the first Croatian cookbook.

Notes

1. Hrvatski Svjetski Kongres (Croatian World Congress)
2. ^ Barac et al, "Y chromosomal heritage of Croatian population and its island isolates", European Journal of Human Genetics (2003) 11, 535-542
3. ^ Pericic et al, "High-Resolution Phylogenic Analysis of Southeastern Europe Traces Major Episodes of Paternal Gene Flow Among Slavic Populations", Journal of Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (2005)
4. ^ Semino et al, The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans, Science Vol290, 2000
5. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Genes, Peoples and Languages (2001)
6. Steve Olson, Mapping Human History (2003)

See also

• List of Croats
• List of Croatians
• Croatian literature

External links

• The Croatian nation at the beginning of the 20th century
• Vivâna - The Ancient Croatian King from the 5th BC
• ARACHOSIA and the Origin of the name HRVAT - Dispeling the Myth

• Croatian people
• Croatian society
• Ethnic groups in Europe
• Ethnic groups in Hungary
• Ethnic groups in Serbia
• Ethnic groups in Vojvodina
• Ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Ethnic groups in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Ethnic groups in Republika Srpska
• Slavic nations
• Ethnic groups in Croatia