Review article
VIROVITICA IN THE PLANS OF GREATER-SERBIAN POLITICS IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES: FROM AN IDEA TO ATTEMPTED IMPLEMENTATION
Zdravko Dizdar
Abstract
Even though this region has continuously been a part of the Croatian national territory ever since the Middle Ages and even though Croats have always constituted the majority of its population, the town of Virovitica and its surroundings were designated as the so-called “western boundary of the Serbian lands” in the plans of Greater-Serbian politics in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Some Serbian political circles often presented such plans in form of cartography. The cause of this lies in specific historical circumstances. Namely, Serbs were settled in this territory on several separate occasions in the period from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, while Orthodox Vlachs (who later also maintained to be of Serbian nationality) had been settled in this region at earlier times. In addition, Serbian Orthodox Church was established on this territory and was granted religious and other privileges by the King. In peace, but even more during the aggression against Croatia (1991-1995), which included the region of Virovitica as well, this politics was aimed at “cleansing” this territory from Croats and other non-Serbs, converting it into an ethnically and politically “Serbian” territory, and thereby including it into the planned “Greater Serbia” as a part of the so-called “Serbian lands”.
Keywords
Virovitica; Croatia; Slavonia; “Greater Serbia”; political expansionism; 19th-20th century
Hrčak ID:
27075
URI
Publication date:
20.9.2007.
Visits: 1.782 *