Nacionalna identifikacija u hrvatskoj
National Identification in Croatia

Summary/Abstract: Croatians established their state a long time ago and managed to retain elements of their sovereignty within the countries they joined of their own free will throughout history. However, Croatian identity was suppressed in them. National revival defined the difference among Croats, Austrians and Hungarians, but not among the Croats and other South Slavs. As a result, Croats joined the unitarian South-Slavic state without their identity and lost all the elements of sovereignty for the first time in history. This led to the conflict between the Croats and Serbs and Croats amongst themselves. The greatest conflicts occurred in the Second World War. After this war Yugoslavia was reconstructed, but the national conflicts continued. Although the Croatian contribution to the victory of antifascism was the greatest, a complex of guilt arose due to the former existence of the NDH (Independent State of Croatia) and patriotism came to be regarded as something negative, while nationalism was equated to chauvinism. The establishment of the independent Croatian state, which was supposed to protect its national and cultural values, began to pose a threat to them again. Unity yielded, giving way once more to conflicts, criminal activities within the process of transition, a decrease in birth rate, growth of debt, banks and successful companies being sold for nothing, the Liberation War and its soldiers becoming criminalised and the latter committing suicides… National values cannot be protected solely with the establishment of an independent state unless necessary changes occur in the political culture as well. Among other things, the concept of patriotism should be distinguished from chauvinism, while the terms patriotism and national pride should be freed from the negative connotation they were given in a society which prohibited them.

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