Banovina of Croatia: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Autonomous province (banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1939 and 1941}}

{{Infobox former subdivision

| native_name = Banovina Hrvatska<br>Бановина Хрватска

| subdivision = [[Subdivisions of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia|Banovina]]

| nation = the [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia]]

| s2 = Fascist Italy (1922–1943)

| flag_s2 = Flag of Italy (1861-1946) crowned.svg

| flag_type = [[Flag of Croatia|Flag]]

| image_coat = Greater coatofarms of the Banate of Croatia.svg

| symbol_type = [[Coat of arms of Croatia|Coat of arms]]

| image_map_caption = Banovina of Croatia (red) within [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia]]<br />(light yellow)

| coordinates = {{coord|45|49|N|15|59|E|region:HR|display=it}}

| leader1 = [[Ivan Šubašić]]

| today = [[Croatia]]<br>[[Bosnia and Herzegovina]]<br>[[Serbia]]<br>[[Slovenia]]

The '''Banovina of Croatia''' or '''Banate of Croatia''' ({{lang-sh-Latn-Cyrl|separator=|Banovina Hrvatska|Бановина Хрватска}}) was an [[Administrative divisions of Yugoslavia|administrative subdivision]] ([[Subdivisions of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia|banovina]]) of the [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia]] between 1939 and 1941. It was formed by a merger of [[Sava Banovina|Sava]] and [[Littoral Banovina|Littoral]] [[Banovinas of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia|banovina]]s into a single autonomous entity, with small parts of the [[Drina Banovina|Drina]], [[Zeta Banovina|Zeta]], [[Vrbas Banovina|Vrbas]] and [[Danube Banovina|Danube]] banovinas also included. Its capital was [[Zagreb]] and it included most of present-day [[Croatia]] along with portions of [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]] and [[Serbia]]. Its sole [[Ban of Croatia|Ban]] during this period was [[Ivan Šubašić]].

In the [[Vidovdan Constitution]] of 1921, the [[Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes]] had established 33 administrative districts, each headed by a government-appointed prefect. Both the Vidovdan Constitution in general and the administrative districts in particular were part of the design of [[Nikola Pašić]] and [[Svetozar Pribićević]] to maximize the power of the ethnic Serb population within the new state.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Yugoslavia: A Concise History|last=Benson|first=Leslie|publisher=palgrave macmillan|year=2001|isbn=0333792416|location=Hampshire|pages=[https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/34 34-35]|quote=The government produced a draft constitution, following intensive consultations between Pasiç and Pribiceviç, which opted for a centralized state with a strong monarchy and a single-chamber parliament, modelled on the Serbian constitution of 1903. Their draft proposed the creation of [33] administrative districts, a balkanizing tactic intended to maximize the electoral power of the Serb vote.|url=https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/34}}</ref> The new constitution was passed in a political climate favorable to the Serbian centralists, as the Croatian regionalists chose to abstain from parliamentary duty, whereas the deputies of the [[Communist Party of Yugoslavia]] were excluded by a parliamentary vote.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Twentieth Century|last=Jelavich|first=Barbara|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1983|isbn=9780521274593|series=History of the Balkans|volume=2|location=Cambridge|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofbalkans0000jela/page/150 150]|quote=After the elections the delegates of the Croatian Peasant Party met in Zagreb and decided not to participate in the assembly. As we have seen, the Communist Party was excluded by a vote of the assembly itself. A quarter of the elected representatives thus did not attend. Under these circumstances the Serbian centralists had a clear field, and the constitution, which was completed in June 1921, expressed their interests.|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofbalkans0000jela/page/150}}</ref> An amendment to the electoral law in June of 1922 further stacked the deck in favor of the Serbian population, when electoral constituencies were created based on pre-war census figures, allowing Serbia to ignore its massive military casualties sustained in the [[First World War]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Yugoslavia: A Concise History|last=Benson|first=Leslie|publisher=palgrave macmillan|year=2001|isbn=0333792416|location=Hampshire|pages=[https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/39 39]|quote=Disaffection among the non-Serb nationalities was aggravated by the amended Electoral Law of June 1922, which created electoral constituencies on the basis of pre-war census figures, so that Serbia’s huge population losses during the Great War were ignored.|url=https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/39}}</ref> This only furthered the resentment felt by the proponents of a federate or confederate state towards the government, particularly the Croatian regionalists of the [[Croatian Republican Peasant Party]] (HRSS) around [[Stjepan Radić]]. Radić was shot in parliament by a Serbian delegate in 1928 and died two months later. This provoked the withdrawal of the HRSS from the assembly, forged an anti-Belgrade mindset in Croatia and ultimately led to the collapse of the constitutional system of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Yugoslavia: A Concise History|last=Benson|first=Leslie|publisher=palgrave macmillan|year=2001|isbn=0333792416|location=Hampshire|pages=[https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/45 45]|quote=The next day, 20 June 1928, amid familiar scenes of disorder, Raciç opened fire in the debating chamber, killing two deputies and wounding three others, among them Radiç, who died two months later, although initially he seemed to make a good recovery; sufficiently so to maintain his hostility to cooperation with the Serbs.|url=https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/45}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=A History of Yugoslavia|last=Calic|first=Marie-Janine|publisher=Purdue University Press|year=2014|isbn=9781557538383|location=West Lafayette|pages=104|quote=On the morning of 20 June 1928, Stjepan Radić appeared at the opening session of parliament. Although public confrontations in the preceding days had escalated to the point of murder threats, this consummate politician threw caution to the wind. One of the first people to speak that morning was Puniša Račić, a member of parliament for the Radical Party from Montenegro. Quite unexpectedly he found himself in a heated debate with the colleagues from the opposition. The president of the parliament was trying valiantly but unsuccessfully to restore order when Račić suddenly pulled out his pistol and shot in the direction of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) faction. Two members of parliament died immediately; two others were wounded. Radić, who had been shot in the stomach, died in August of complications. The assassination marked the tragic culmination of the domestic crisis that had been fatefully escalating since 1927. It turned Radić into a martyr, welded together Croat national politics, and provided the Peasant Party with enormous political capital. However, Yugoslav democracy had shattered, and the king declared a state of emergency.}}</ref>

After fruitless efforts to fix the Serb-Croat divide and Croat abstention from government, including a cabinet headed by the nominally neutral Slovene [[Anton Korošec]], [[Alexander I of Yugoslavia|King Alexander I of Yugoslavia]] intervened and, on 6 January 1929, established the [[6 January Dictatorship]]. On 3 October 1929, the country was officially renamed ''Kingdom of Yugoslavia'' in an effort to unite the various ethnicities into a greater national identity. The new state had a new constitution, and in place of the 33 administrative districts of the Vidovdan Constitution, it instead established the banovinas. The banovinas were drawn in a way to avoid the old historical, regionalist or ethnic affiliations, but because the King still had a vested interest in maintaining the Serb dominance from which he drew most of his legitimacy as King, six of the nine Banovinas ended up with Serb majorities.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Yugoslavia: A Concise History|last=Benson|first=Leslie|publisher=palgrave macmillan|year=2001|isbn=0333792416|location=Hampshire|pages=[https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/53 53]|url=https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/53}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=A History of Yugoslavia|last=Calic|first=Marie-Janine|publisher=Purdue University Press|year=2014|isbn=9781557538383|location=West Lafayette|pages=104}}</ref> Instead of uniting Serbs and Croats into a joint Yugoslav identity, there was widespread Croatian resentment against a perceived Serbian hegemony instead.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1919-1953|last=Djilas|first=Alexis|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1991|isbn=0674166981|location=London|pages=[https://archive.org/details/contestedcountry00djil_0/page/81 81]|quote=Although some supporters of the dictatorship were genuine Yugoslavists, including, as some evidence suggests, the king himself, Croats inevitably considered the dictatorship as thinly disguised "Serbian hegemony." Indeed, the dictatorship was bitterly resented in Croatia. Instead of dissolving traditional Croatian nationalism, the dictatorship strengthened the extremists.|url=https://archive.org/details/contestedcountry00djil_0/page/81}}</ref>

Over the course of the next ten years, the royal dictatorship grew in strength and ruled with authoritarian decrees,<ref>{{Cite book|title=A History of Yugoslavia|last=Calic|first=Marie-Janine|publisher=Purdue University Press|year=2014|isbn=9781557538383|location=West Lafayette|pages=105|quote=During the royal dictatorship, the country’s unity became its chief priority. King Alexander juxtaposed “tribalism” with Yugoslav “nationalism” in order to overcome internal divisions of different kinds. The regime used draconian royal decrees and the state’s security apparatus to implement national and state unity by dictatorial means. Basic civil rights such as freedom of expression and freedom of association were suspended.}}</ref> climaxing in the tenure of [[Milan Stojadinović]] as Prime Minister between 1936 and 1939. Stojadinović, who had adopted fascist symbolism, gestures and titles from [[Benito Mussolini]] in his aspirations to be Yugoslavia's strongman,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Yugoslavia: A Concise History|last=Benson|first=Leslie|publisher=palgrave macmillan|year=2001|isbn=0333792416|location=Hampshire|pages=[https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/65 65]|quote=Stojadinoviç developed a marked taste for the fascist trappings of power. After meeting with Mussolini, in December 1937, he adopted a version of the Roman salute and took to styling himself ‘Leader’ of his followers, though not, he said with characteristic equivocation when confronted by Prince Pavle about it, with any wish to emulate the Duce, to whom he had said exactly the opposite. Stojadinoviç aspired to be Yugoslavia’s strong man, and because of it he ended up an Axis stooge.|url=https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/65}}</ref> ultimately fell from grace because he lost the faith of minority representatives in February of 1939.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Yugoslavia: A Concise History|last=Benson|first=Leslie|publisher=palgrave macmillan|year=2001|isbn=0333792416|location=Hampshire|pages=[https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/66 66]|quote=Stojadinoviç formed a second administration, but at the beginning of February 1939 his Slovene and Muslim ministerial colleagues, together with Dragisa Cvetkoviç, a Serb, resigned, stating as their reason the government’s intransigence over the Croat problem. Stojadinoviç’s position was now untenable[.]|url=https://archive.org/details/yugoslaviaconcis0000bens_i0i2/page/66}}</ref> He was replaced by [[Dragiša Cvetković]], who, in an effort to win Croat support for his government, opened talks with Radić's successor as leader of the Croatian regionalists, [[Vladko Maček]]. In a compromise named after the two, the [[Cvetković-Maček Agreement]] (also known as the ''Sporazum''),<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=A History of Yugoslavia|last=Calic|first=Marie-Janine|publisher=Purdue University Press|year=2014|isbn=9781557538383|location=West Lafayette|pages=120}}</ref> the central government made the concession of merging two of the nine banovinas, Sava and Littoral, into one, the Banovina of Croatia.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book|title=The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1919-1953|last=Djilas|first=Alexis|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1991|isbn=0674166981|location=London|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/contestedcountry00djil_0}}</ref>

On the basis of the Cvetković–Maček Agreement, and the Decree on the Banate of Croatia (''Uredba o Banovini Hrvatskoj'') dated 24 August 1939, the Banate of Croatia was created.<ref name="Croatian History Museum">[http://www.sssbjt.hr/hpm/p0260003.htm Croatian History Museum]{{dead link|date=October 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The entire area of the [[Sava Banovina|Sava]] and [[Littoral Banovina]]s was combined and parts of the [[Vrbas Banovina|Vrbas]], [[Zeta Banovina|Zeta]], [[Drina Banovina|Drina]] and [[Danube Banovina|Danube]] banovinas (districts [[Brčko District|Brčko]], [[Derventa]], [[Dubrovnik]], [[Fojnica]], [[Gradačac]], [[Ilok]], [[Šid]] and [[Travnik]]) were added to form the Banate of Croatia.<ref>[[:hr:s:Uredba o banovini Hrvatskoj|Uredba o banovini Hrvatskoj]] {{in lang|hr}}</ref> The borders of the Banate of Croatia are partly the historical borders of [[Croatia]], and partly based on the application of the principle of ethnicity according to which Bosnian and Herzegovinian territory with a majority [[Croat]] population was annexed to the Banate.<ref name="Croatian History Museum" />

In 1939, the banovina of Croatia had a population of 4,299,430 of which three quarters was Roman Catholic, one-fifth was Orthodox, and 4 percent was Muslim.<ref name="Velikonja 146">[[#Velikonja_2003|Velikonja (2003)]], p. 146</ref> The banovina was divided into 116 districts (''kotari'') of which 95 had an absolute and 5 had a relative Catholic majority.<ref name="Velikonja 146"/> Although religious in nature as per Yugoslav homogeneity policy, the census also provided insight into ethnic make-up of the banovina as ethnic Croats and Slovenes were predominantly Catholic whereas other ethnicities were not.

The [[Croatian Football Federation]] was the governing body of football within the Banovina. It organized [[Croatian First League 1940-41|a domestic league]] and a [[Croatia national football team|national team]]. The [[Jozo Jakopić]]-led Banovina of Croatia had four international matches: two pairs of home-and-away matches against [[Switzerland national football team|Switzerland]] and [[Hungary national football team|Hungary]]. The Croatian Rowing Championships were held on 29 June 1940.<ref>[http://www.vk-jadran.hr/Povijest/Kronologija%20hrvatskog%20veslanja.html Kronologija hrvatskog veslanja] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090813094638/http://www.vk-jadran.hr/Povijest/Kronologija%20hrvatskog%20veslanja.html |date=August 13, 2009 }}</ref>

The [[Croatian Boxing Federation]] was reconstituted on 5 October 1939 as the governing body of boxing within the entire Banovina of Croatia.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20030521115607/http://www.vjesnik.hr/pdf/2000%5c12%5c05%5c18A18.PDF Povijest hrvatskog sporta: Boks]</ref>

<gallery class="center">

File:Civil Flag of Banovina of Croatia.svg|[[Civil flag]] and [[Ensign (flag)|ensign]] {{FIAV|010010}} {{FIAV|historical}}

File:CoatofArms of the Banate of Croatia.svg|Lesser coat of arms of the Banovina of Croatia

*[http://terkepek.adatbank.transindex.ro/kepek/netre/178.gif Map of Yugoslav banovinas with the Banovina of Croatia] {{in lang|hu}}