Croatian Origins: The documented history of Croatia begins with Greek colonies established along the Dalmatian coast after 600 B.C. Migration of the Croats (Chrobati, Hrvati) is said to have occurred during the early the 6th century A.D. from white Croatia, a region which is now Ukraine between the Southern Bug and Dnieper rivers, to the lower Danube valley. They continued toward the Adriatic, where they conquered the Roman stronghold Salona in 614. After settling in the former Roman provinces of Pannonia and Dalmatia where they spent approximately 10 years, between 626 and 635, to completely defeat the Avars, pushing them to the north of the river Danube. After the defeat of the Avars, Emperor Heraclius enacted a law (Keleusis, iussio), giving the conquered lands to the Croats and under the sovereignty of the Byzantine Empire. The Croats then began to develop independently. The farming Croats continued their former way of life under their zupani or tribal chiefs, who performed administrative, judicial and military functions.

In the 7th century, when they were converted to Christianity. Shortly afterwards they received the privilege of using their national language in church services. Under pressure from the neighbouring Frankish and Byzantine empires, the tribal organization of the Croats gradually gave way to larger units, and there existed two Croatian duchies, one in Dalmatia along the Adriatic coast, the other in Pannonia. After the Frankish-Byzantine peace of 812, Pannonian Croatia became a part of the Frankish empire and the Dalmatian duchy recognized nominal Byzantine supremacy. In the middle of the 9th century the Pannonian Croats liberated themselves and joined the Dalmatian duchy, which also shook off foreign domination. By 880 Branislav (879-892) became the first independent dux Croatorum.

The Croatian Kingdom: Tomislav (910 - 928) was the first ruler of a unified Croatia. During the next 180 years, Croatia enjoyed strength and prosperity under its own kings. Tomislav, one of Branislav's successors, annexed the Dalmatian cities and in 925 received the royal crown from Pope John X. Tomislav and his heirs made strenuous efforts to defend their kingdom both from the Bulgarian empire in Pannonia and from Venice, which was spreading its power along the Dalmatian coast. After Tomislav's death, a series of civil wars weakened central authority and lost peripheral territories including Bosnia. The Byzantines helped Stjepan Drzislav (969-997) to liberate the coastal towns from Venice but succeeded in re-establishing their own influence on the Adriatic. Peter Kresimir changed this situation, by breaking off relations with Byzantium, strengthening Croatia's ties with the papacy and enlarged the state boundaries. Croatia then reached the peak of its power. It spread southwards along the Adriatic coast from the river Rasa in Istria to the rivers Tara and Piva in Montenegro, eastward to the Drina and northward to the Drava and to the Danube. Kresimir's policy divided the nation into a Latin group which upheld the king and a national group which enjoyed popular support in opposing the king's policy. This division became fatal during the reign of Dimitrije Zvonimir, who was crowned in Split by the legate of Pope Gregory VII. Zvonimir was invited by the pope to participate in a war against the Seljuk Turks, and convened a great assembly to win his subjects over the campaign. The people accused him of being a papal vassal and killed him. Anarchy and civil war followed, and with it the decline of the Croatian Kingdom. The death of King Zvonimir in 1089 or 1090 without heirs evidently led a group of Croatian nobles in 1091 to conclude the Pacta Conventa with Hungarian King Ladislaus, conceding him the Croatian crown in exchange for Croatian autonomy. Another group of Croatians opposed the Hungarian king, but were defeated by Ladislaus successor Kalman.

Ladislaus' deputy Almos founded a bishopric at Zagreb in 1094, and this soon became the centre of ecclesiastical power. Petar Svacic was proclaimed king by the Dalmatian Croats in 1093, but the pope considered him a rebel and invited King Kalman of Hungary to unseat him. King Kalman invaded Croatia, and Svacic fell in 1097 in the defense of his country. He was the last king of Croatian blood.

The Pacta Conventa became the basis for a Croatian struggle of centuries, with varying success, to maintain its autonomy first under the Hungarian crown, and later under the Habsburg emperors.

The people elected Kalman and he pledged himself to respect Croatian state rights. In 1102 Kalman swore that Croatia and Hungary would remain two independent kingdoms under St. Stephen's crown and that the king would personify this union. Only Bosnia, a part of the Croatian kingdom, refused to submit to a foreign monarch.

 Union with Hungary: For eight centuries Croatia was connected with Hungary. Their relationship often changed. The reign of the Hungarian national dynasty, the Arpads, was instrumental in introducing feudalism on a western pattern in Croatia. In 1301, on the extinction of the Arpads, the Croats crowned Charles Robert of Anjou-Naples as their king at Zagreb. This broke the relationship with Hungary until the Hungarians also accepted him in 1310 (as Charles I of Hungary). After the death of Louis I of Hungary and Croatia and several years of dynastic conflicts, the Croats in 1403 crowned the Neapolitan prince Ladislas at Zadar. The appearance of the Turks in the Balkans in the 15th century imposed a period of hard struggles on the Croats.

By 1420 Venice controlled virtually all of Dalmatia except Dubrovnik. Venice restricted education, so that Zadar, the administrative centre of Dalmatia, lacked even a printing press until 1796. Despite centuries of struggle for dominance of the region and exploitation by Venice, Dalmatia produced several first-rate artists and intellectuals, including the sculptor Radovan, Juraj Dalmatinac, an architect and sculptor, writer Ivan Gundulic, and scientist Rudjer Boskovic.

The Habsburg Period: Turkish invasion instigated a partial change in the ethnic aspect of Croatian lands. Large numbers of Croats abandoned their homes and moved northward seeking safety, some even going out of Croatia altogether into Austria. As the Turks were driven back in the 17th century the Habsburgs revealed absolutist tendencies. They attempted to curtail the state rights and autonomy of Croatia and Hungary and to reduce them to mere provinces under centralized royal power.

The Rise of Croatian Nationalism: After the fall of Napoleon relations between Croats and Hungarians soon became critical. To strengthen their opposition to the Germanizing policy of the Habsburgs, the Hungarian revolutionaries strove to consolidate the lands of St. Stephen's crown and to establish a Magyar national state from the Carpathians to the Adriatic. The Croats refused to renounce their nationality or to accept any violation of their autonomy in the national interest of the Hungarians. In open defiance of Hungarian claims, Count Juraj Draskovic proposed in 1832 to the Hungarian parliament a national and cultural program for Croatia. It expressed the ideas of the "Illyrian movement," organized by Ljudevit Gaj, which aimed at he union of all South Slavs (Yugoslavs) within the Habsburg federation. After 13 years of imperial absolutism and political lethargy a reorganization of the Habsburg empire was planned by the centralist patent of Feb. 26, 1861. In 1868, the Croats and the Hungarians concluded a compromise of their own, the nagodba, whereby the triune kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia was recognized as a distinct political nation with its own territory, though still part of the Hungarian as opposed to the Austrian unit. Dalmatia was not united with Croatia-Slavonia and remained an Austrian province. The local government was headed by a ban proposed to the emperor by Budapest but responsible to the Croatian diet. The Croatian language was given official status throughout the land. The year 1903 was a turning point in Croatian politics. The political leaders in all Croatian provinces became intensively active, seeking to concentrate their forces and to organize them into new parties and initiating co-operation with the Serbs in Croatia. In 1906 the Croatian-Serbian coalition won a sweeping electoral victory and henceforth became an important political factor.

Political movements in Serbia, notably the Radical Party of Nikola Pasic, tended to be influenced by goals of uniting all the lands where Serbs were a majority or to which they had an historical claim. But pressured by the Allies during World War I, Pasic, as Serbian Prime Minister, consented to work for a union with the Croats and Slovenes.

 The Yugoslav Union: Serbian and Montenegrin victories over the Turks in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 encouraged the Croats to envisage freedom in an independent Yugoslav union that would include Serbia and Montenegro, but in 1914, when the arch-duke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo, relations between the Croats and the Hungarians appeared to be calm, thanks to the policy of compromise pursued by the Croatian-Serbian coalition, which in 1913 became the government party in Croatia. With the outbreak of World War I the Austro-Hungarian authorities introduced measures of extreme severity throughout their South Slav provinces. The emperor Charles made clear in his coronation speech in 1916 that he recognized Croatian integrity in relation to Hungary, thereby establishing the equality of both countries under St. Stephen's crown. On Oct. 29, 1918, the Croatian diet broke off all ties with Hungary and Austria and proclaimed an independent Croatia which entered into a state union with other South Slav provinces of the empire, to be governed by a national council. On the request of council's emissaries, on Dec. 1, 1918, the Serbian prince regent Alexander proclaimed the union of this state with Serbia and Montenegro. Yugoslavia came into being. After the election of 1920 the Peasant party (HSS) under Stjepan Radic led Croatian opposition.

The assassination of Radic and some of his political collaborators in the Belgrade parliament on June 20, 1928, produced serious crisis, but the HSS continued its activism under Vlatko Macek. Finally, as conflict between Serbs and Croats was preventing the consolidation of Yugoslavia, the Belgrade government had to give in.

The Independent State of Croatia: Croatian nationalists who aimed at complete independence remained dissatisfied with the sporazum. In World War II, after Yugoslavia had been occupied and dismembered by the Axis powers, and Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed in Zagreb on April 10, 1941, and recognized four days later by Hitler and Mussolini. Since Vladimir (Vladko) Macek, the leader of the Peasant party, refused the German offer to head the new state, it was entrusted to Ante Pavelic (1889-1959), head of the Fascist terrorist organization Ustaša. A nationalist fanatic, Pavelic re-entered Croatia from Italy, where he had spent 12 years of exile plotting revolution. He introduced a dictatorial regime characterized by methods of extreme brutality and violence. An attempt was made in 1944 to bring Croatia over to the side of the Allies, but it was mismanaged; its leaders, Ante Vokic and Mladen Lorkovic, were arrested and shot by Pavelic's henchmen. The Independent State of Croatia survived the capitulation of Germany for a few days only. Pavelic fled to Austria in May 1945 and later to Argentina. The puppet state gave place to the people's republic of Croatia within Communist Yugoslavia. 

With the collapse of Nazi Germany, and the approach of communist forces toward Zagreb in 1945, most Ustaša leaders, as well as Macek and many other Croatians, fled toward areas occupied by American and British units. A contingent of the Ustaša military and home defense also fled into Austria, but were captured by the Allies at Bleiburg, then returned to Yugoslavia where most evidently were executed by Tito’s forces. 

At the end of the war, Tito (A Croatian Communist who fought against the Italian-back Ustaša regime) reconciled all the various parts of Yugoslavia and created a Yugoslav federation with Croatia as one of the constituent republics. By the terms of the peace treaty with Italy in 1947, most of Istria, formerly part of Italy, was included in Croatia. 

Tito's new authoritarian government ruthlessly suppressed any sign of ethnic nationalism, with all power given to the multi-ethnic (in theory, non-ethnic) communist party. 

During the 1960s and 1970s Croatia's beautiful Adriatic coastline attracted tourism, which contributed to Yugoslavia's economy. Croatians began to agitate for greater autonomy as they saw their tourist revenues being used to stamp out Croatian nationalism. 

Constant attention was required to maintain the suppression of nationalist expression. Croatia was an area of special concern, as the center of the strongest nationalist movement in pre-war Yugoslavia. The most serious challenge to the system during Tito's lifetime was probably the Croatian Spring or Mass Movement of the late 1960s, which was ended by the removal by Tito of most of the Croatian leadership in late 1971, and a parallel removal of accused nationalists in Serbia, Slovenia and Macedonia. (One of those jailed in Croatia during this period was the former partisan General Franjo Tudjman.) However, the system of control began to break down after Tito's death. 

Following Tito's death in 1980, tensions between Croatia and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav government worsened. 

When nationalist Croat politicians, notably Franjo Tudjman, advocated a reduction in ethnic Serb representation in the Croatian police, or argued that the number of victims at Jasenovac had been inflated, the Serbian press repeated and embellished such positions to prove to Serbs that Croatia was returning to the days of the Ustaše, and that Serbs had to take up arms to defend themselves. The fact that some of the new political figures did, in fact, advocate a positive view of the Ustaša movement made still easier the job of the Serb nationalists. By the time of Franjo Tudjman's 1990 election victory, most Serbs in rural areas appear to have been convinced that their lives were in danger. 

With continuing stalemate, word spread that Serbia's government was printing a massive amount of Yugoslav banknotes, without central government authorization. In this manner, Serbia was moving to undermine the economic program of the Federal Premier. There were other factors as well, but this may have been critical in Slovenia's decision unilaterally to declare independence on 25 June 1991. Once Slovenia left, the other opponents of Serbia would find themselves in a minority on the collective Presidency. If Tudjman had not in any case preferred independence, this incentive well might have moved him. In May, Croats voted by referendum in favour of independence and on 25 June 1991 Croatia declared its independence (as did Slovenia). 

On April 13, 1997, elections were held in east Slavonia (Vukovar area); these elections should conclude the reintegration of this part of Croatia (but still occupied by Serbian militias) into the republic. 

Eastern Slavonia back to Croatia's control - January 15, 1998.  For the first time in more than six years, Croatia has control over all of its territory, after Eastern Slavonia was formally returned Thursday (15 Jan 1998) by the United Nations. The Croatian government estimates that it will cost $2.5 billion to reconstruct Eastern Slavonia. It is seeking much of that money from international sources, including the European Union.

Tito, Josip Broz (1892-1980), president of Yugoslavia, who established a Communist state independent of the USSR after World War II, and later became a leader of the nonaligned nations.

Originally named Josip Broz, he was born on May 7, 1892, in Kumrovec, Croatia (then part of Austria-Hungary), of a Slovene mother and a Croatian peasant father.

Rise to Power: Tito served as a noncommissioned officer in the Austrian army during World War I. Wounded and taken prisoner by the Russians, he became a Bolshevik at the time of the Russian Revolution (1917), and after the war he returned to Croatia (which had become part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia) to work as an illegal Communist party organizer. After serving a prison term (1928-1934) and taking the name Tito as an alias, he went to Moscow to work for the Communist International (Comintern, later the Cominform).

In 1937 the Comintern sent Tito back to Yugoslavia to purge the Communist party there. During this period he faithfully followed Comintern policy, criticizing Serbian domination of other Yugoslav nationalities and agitating for the breakup of the Yugoslav state.

After Nazi Germany attacked both Yugoslavia and the USSR in 1941, Tito formed an all-Yugoslav Partisan force to resist the Germans and their Croatian Fascist allies. Tito primarily fought defensive battles when the Germans attacked him. In 1942 he formed a Communist-dominated provisional government, which brought him into conflict with the Chetniks, a Serbian resistance movement that favored the restoration of the prewar monarchy. After unsuccessful attempts to reconcile the rival groups, the Allies gave their support to Tito in 1944. By the end of 1945 the Germans were defeated, and the war-torn country was united, leaving Tito's government in full control. Without holding a referendum on whether to restore the monarchy or make Yugoslavia a republic, Tito set up a one-party dictatorship.

Leadership of Yugoslavia: At first Tito was a loyal follower of Joseph Stalin, but when the Soviet leader criticized some of his actions he rejected Stalin's criticism. Consequently, the Yugoslav party was expelled from the Cominform in 1948. This extreme action left Tito with two options: surrender or fight. He fought back. His aides, Edvard Kardelj and Milovan Djilas, revived Marxist humanism (the concept of workers' self-management) and recommended liberal economic reforms and decentralization of party and governmental power (the first step toward emergence of hidden nationalist tendencies within republics). In the 1960s Tito joined with leaders of African and Asian countries to promote the concept of nonalignment (independence from both the USSR and the U.S.).

In 1953 the Croatian Tito married his fourth wife, Jovanka Budisavljevic, a young Serbian Partisan aide, in 1953, thus symbolically uniting two of the largest and most antagonistic nationalities of Yugoslavia. A partial reconciliation with the Soviet Union (1955) further enhanced Tito's prestige at home and abroad. Nevertheless, Yugoslavia's independence remained an irritant to the Soviet leaders and a challenge to their domination over Eastern Europe. Tito supported the Soviet policy of détente with the West, but protested against the USSR's invasions of Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Afghanistan (1979). His independent stance preceded and influenced the Chinese, Albanian, and Euro communist challenges to Soviet supremacy in the Communist world. Tito died on May 4, 1980, in Ljubljana after a prolonged illness and was buried on the grounds of Tito's Museum in Belgrade.

One of the last influential manipulators of postwar global power politics, Tito controlled Yugoslavia for 35 years. In foreign affairs he was a persistent promoter of détente, global nonalignment for the Third World, and pluralism within the international Communist movement. At home, he permitted some liberal reforms, but maintained the Communist party's monopoly of power. Tito's policies, however, encouraged separatist and nationalist tendencies among rival republics, which helped to sow the seeds for bloody civil war in the 1990s, some ten years after his death.

Chronology

1882 Josip Broz (later known as Tito) born at Kumrovec, 7 May
1907 Goes to work in industry
1913 Joins Austro-Hungarian army
1915 Captured in Russia
1918 Unified Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes proclaimed, 1 December
1920 Tito returns home from Russia
1927 Becomes secretary to Zagreb KPJ (Communist Party of Yugoslavia) Committee
1929 Begins to serve prison sentence; King Alexander abolishes parliamentary government; name of country officially changed to Yugoslavia
1934 Tito released from prison; King Alexander assassinated
1935 Tito sent to work for Comintern in Moscow
1937 Called to Paris to head caretaker KPJ leadership
1940 Confirmed as secretary Central Committee KPJ
1941 Axis powers invade Yugoslavia, April; collapse, occupation, partition and civil war follow; Tito calls population to aid Soviet Union, July; leaves Belgrade to join partisans, September
1943 Negotiates with German command, March; holds Jajce congress to lay foundations of future Communist régime, November
1944 Returns to liberated Belgrade, October
1945 President of Provisional Government, March
1948 KPJ expelled from Cominform
1953 Tito formally head of state
1955 Bulganin and Khrushchev visit Belgrade, reconciliation with Soviet Union formalized
1956 Relations strained again after Hungarian revolution crushed
1961 Belgrade Conference of Non-Aligned States
1963 No limitation of mandate for Tito under new Constitution
1968 Tito condemns Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, and faces students' revolts and other mass demonstrations
1971 Initiates 'Counter-reform', purges and 'feudalizes' Party apparatus
1974 Another Constitution fixes new concept of eight-unit quasi-confederation under Tito's life presidency
1978 Tito implements collective leadership
1979 Last pilgrimage to Moscow
1980 Dies in Ljubljana, 4 May