Croats living abroad
Árpád Hornyák*
Croatia (Slovenia,2 Austria, Macedonia, etc.) who are regarded by theses states as such.
Th e Serbian Croats, especially those living in the Autonomous Province of Voj vodina, are regarded as autochtonous. Th eir number has diminished signifi -cantly in the past two decades (due to the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the prolonged Civil War). According to the 2011 census, 57,900 people declared them-selves as ethnic Croats in Serbia, and 16,706 as Bunjevci, with 47,033 and 16,469 of them living in Vojvodina, respectively.3
Th e number of Croats living in Hungary is estimated by offi cial Croatian data to be about as high as the population living in Serbia.4 Th e ancestors of the Croats living in Hungary today had come from various parts of ethnic Slavonian and Croatian territories at diff erent times to the regions north of the Drava River, of-ten fl eeing from the Turks during the Turkish occupation (or thereafter) between the 15th and the 18th centuries.5
b) Th e Croats living in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who account for a signifi cant number of ethnic Croats living abroad, represent a separate category. Accord-ing to the 1991 census, their number was over 760,000. Today, it must be about 500,000. Th ere is no precise data available because the fi gures of the latest census (2013) concerning the nationalities have not been published yet. What is unique about this Croatian community, in particular, is that it is one of the three constit-uent nations of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian), which de-rived its legal ground primarily from the historical development of these regions, in addition to numerical ratio and geographical vicinity. In the Middle Ages and later in the modern age, these regions used to be part of political structures that included the majority of Croats as well: Th e Kingdom of Croatia, then the King-dom of Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and fi nally Yugoslavia. Th us, it is
2 Th e approximately 50,000 Croatians living in Slovenia are not recognized as a national minor-ity, under the premise that they are not native as they settled down there only under the second Yugoslavia.
3 http://pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/Popis2011/Nacionalna%20pripadnost-Ethnicity.
pdf (01-03-2016) It should certainly be noted that there are signifi cant deviations in numbers even in the data published by particular Croatian central public organizations. For example, accord-ing to the Offi ce of Ethnic Croatians Living Abroad, there are 47,033 Croatians living in Vojvo-dina (http://www.hrvatiizvanrh.hr/hr/hmiu/hrvatska-manjina-u-srbiji/14). On the other hand, the number published by the Culture Institute of Croatians in Vojvodina is 56,546 (http://www.
zkvh.org.rs/index.php/bastina/hrvati-danas/6-hrvati-u-vojvodini-danas?showall=&start=1) (01-03-2016)
4 http://www.hrvatiizvanrh.hr/hr/hmiu/hrvatska-manjina-u-republici-madjarskoj/9 (2016-03-01) Th e number of Croatians living in Hungary is estimated at 50,000, while the website also shows the offi cial Hungarian data over the 2011 census which shows that 26,740 people declared themselves as Croatian.
5 Sokcsevits, Dénes, “A magyarországi horvátok rövid története”. http://docplayer.hu/7592607-A-magyarorszagi-horvatok-rovid-tortenete-sokcsevits-denes.html (01-03-2016)
a native population tied to modern-day Croatia by myriad threads, including eco-nomic, emotional, cultural, and, most importantly, through political connections.
Th is latter political attachment underpins their key role in the Croatian commu-nities living outside the Republic of Croatia.
c) Th e third large group is represented by the Croats living in a diaspora. Th ese people account for most of the Croats living outside the borders of the home coun-try. Th e largest Croatian communities in the world live in Argentina, Australia, Germany, Canada and the United States. 1 million of them live in Europe, about 2 million in the United States and Canada, 500,000 in South America, and close to 300,000 in Australia.6 Th ese communities had been created as a result of the migration waves and processes taking place in the past 150 years.
Th e large-scale migration of Croats to regions outside the borders of the Habsburg (Austro-Hungarian) Monarchy started in the second half of the 19th century. Th e emigration of Croats to overseas countries, especially the United States, began to take large dimensions in the 1890s, when about half a million Croats relocated to the land of great opportunities from Croatian territories up to the outbreak of World War I. Th is number increased by 150,000 between the two world wars. In both cases, emigration was mostly motivated by economic reasons, which was also true for immigration to the other overseas countries and West-ern Europe.7 Th e only diff erence was immigration during the period following World War II, when thousands of Croats decided to leave the country for political reasons. In this case, the main destinations were South America and Australia.8 Nonetheless, it is important to note that emigration targeting South America in-volved well over 100,000 people by the end of the 19th century.
In addition to the aforementioned politically motivated emigration from Tito’s Yugoslavia, a new huge wave of immigration began to emerge in the 1960s targeting Western European states, especially Western Germany. Th e motivation for this was clearly economic. Originally, these people began with temporary resi-dence, which is why they are called “guest workers”, but in many cases the migra-tion proved to be permanent. Th e aforementioned Croatian community in Eu-rope, which now amounts to about 1 million people, is larger due to the outcome of this emigration process.
6 Australia is a good example for how diffi cult it is to determine the number of a particular com-munity accurately, where 118,051 people declare themselves as of Croatian origin in the last (2006) census. On the other hand, the Australian Ministry of Foreign Aff airs believes that there are 150,000 Croatians living in the country, while according to the Australian Croatians them-selves their number is as high as 250,000. Top 5 zemalja u kojima živi najviše hrvatatskih iseljeni-ka. http://croexpress.eu/vijest.php?vijest=2768 (01-03-2016)
7 Lončar, Jelena, “Iseljavanje hrvata u Amerike te Južnu Afriku”. http://www.geografi ja.hr/svijet/
iseljavanje-hrvata-u-amerike-te-juznu-afriku/ (01-03-2016)
8 Th e Argentinean president, Peron, gave permission for 35,000 Croatians to settle there. http://
croexpress.eu/vijest.php?vijest=2768 (01-03-2016)
Th e independent democratic Croatia established in 1991 saw it as a key objec-tive to maintain the union of several million Croats living outside the national borders, to nurture and preserve their cultural identity and strengthen their sense of belonging together. In order to ensure that, several governmental organiza-tions have been set up and joined by other organizaorganiza-tions created through civil initiatives.