Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.22586/ss.24.1.11
Purposeful Settlers: Kosovo Croats in Western Slavonia 1992-2000
Ivica Miškulin
Nikolina Mokricki
Sažetak
In this paper the authors analyse the settlement of Kosovo Croats in some parts of western Slavonia in the early 1990s. It has been ascertained that the settlement was prompted by the St. Isidore Foundation, an organization under the patronage of Bishop Đuro Kokša, which even prior to 1992 strove to bring a certain number of Kosovo Croats to western Slavonia. However, after the democratic changes, it also enjoyed the support of certain segments of the new state and local government. The Kosovo Croats from Letnica Parish eventually settled the territory of the municipalities of Đulovac and Voćin in the midst of the ongoing clashes of the war, which to a great degree complicated their naturalisation.
One document of the St. Isidore Foundation from February 1993 contains the plan for the unification of the Đulovac and the Voćin municipalities (with “special status” attached to this projected administrative unit), a request for the reconstruction of Španovica near Pakrac (which would presumably have also been used for settlement), a proposition for “assembling” Croatian refugees from Bosnia and Hercegovina in Germany, who would also settle somewhere in western Slavonia, as well as the idea of “setting up” special farms “for immigrants from Međimurje as well as Hungarian Croats” (again, presumably somewhere in western Slavonia). Very little of this came into being (in 1992, with the support of the local government, the Foundation managed to offer settlement for around 1,500 Croats from Bosnia and Hercegovina in the territory of the Grubišno Polje Municipality); however, after the struggles of the Kosovo Croats in Đulovac became widely known, numerous local governments actually started to avoid the Foundation. The leadership of the Sisak-Moslavina County, for instance, refused in 1994 to provide Kokša with land near Kloštar-Ivanić for the settlement of 200 families from Janjevo. Instead, they settled in the Zagreb district of Granešina. At the beginning of 1995 the Foundation abandoned further plans for settlement.
The Foundation indubitably overestimated its organizational and material potentials as regards settlement; however, this was no coincidence: the above correspondence with senior officials of the regime indicates that the Foundation relied on the state government to actively participate in the process of settlement. Apparently, the Foundation did receive significant support in this matter, but certainly not to the extent it had expected. On the other hand, during the 1990s the state government had no consistent policy with respect to settlement: as Zdravko Sančević, Minister of Emigration, in the summer of 1992 was informed of the arrival of several thousand Kosovo Croats in the wider area of Voćin, he stated in wonder that Croatia had “no colonisation policy”. The Kosovo Croats were allowed to settle in Đulovac, Voćin and other places, however, more in spite of the state than directed by it.
Certainly, it must be emphasised that the settlement of Kosovo Croats in Croatia on a larger scale had started as early as the late 1980s. This is why the settlement of Kosovo Croats in western Slavonia that was affected by the war (from spring in 1992 to autumn in 1993) should be considered a continuation of this process rather than the “grotesque” outcome of the agreement between Franjo Tuđman and Dobrica Ćosić in September 1992 by which the possibility of voluntary and humane emigrations had been agreed upon. This agreement should be considered as an attempt to impose some order on the forced migrations of the population in which the Croats were the most affected victims: up until that time, Croatia had accommodated more than 20,000 Croats expelled from Serbia, hence, the agreement was a praiseworthy attempt to compensate with at least some material reimbursement (exchange of properties) for the persecution. In other words, the Kosovo Croats settled in western Slavonia from spring 1992 onwards primarily because they wanted to emigrate to Croatia, i.e. because they no longer saw themselves in Kosovo.
Ključne riječi
Kosovo Croats; western Slavonia; Letnica Parish; Voćin; Đulovac; Homeland War; migrations
Hrčak ID:
323174
URI
Datum izdavanja:
8.12.2024.
Posjeta: 0 *