Dalmatia in Croatia: The Politics of Sectional Regionalism

Stjepanović, Dejan

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-58585-1_4

Dejan Stjepanović⁵

Part of the book series: Comparative Territorial Politics ((COMPTPOL))

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Abstract

The case of Dalmatia is understudied, partly due to the fact that it is a ‘negative’ case in the sense that there is currently very little regionalist politics taking place there. This is particularly interesting because Dalmatia has a historical precedent and prominent territorial institutions in the past, just like Istria. The Dalmatian case helps us revisit arguments on the role of institutional precedents and their role in the outcomes of sub-state politics. The chapter’s analysis, focusing on the Dalmatian Action party (in the 1990s) and the Olive (in the 2000s) shows that there exists a regionalist historiography (albeit not as extensive as in Istria); intergroup relations are rather static and marked by past conflict while the economy is clearly divided between the hinterland and the coastal areas. The Dalmatian regionalist parties were unable to mobilize cross-cutting cleavages and instead focused on a relatively small section of the society, lending its weight to calling this type of regionalism—sectional. Concomitantly, the central state used oppressive measures in the 1990s and the strategy of coopting local elites since 2000, both of which worked to diffuse any potential regionalist mobilization.

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Notes

1.
See Map 4.1.
2.
Mirko Đinđić and Tihomir Cipek, “Politički identiteti dalmatinskih Talijana 1860.–1882.”, Časopis za suvremenu povijest, no.1, 2010, p. 222.
3.
Konrad Clewing, Staatlichkeit und nationale Identitätsbildung: Dalmatien in Vormärz und Revolution (München: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2001), pp. 257–337.
4.
Sometimes translated as National Party. The followers of the party are frequently referred to as annexationists.
5.
See Stevan K. Pavlowitch, Hitler’s New Disorder: the Second World War in Yugoslavia (New York: Columbia University Press).
6.
See Chapter 3, Intergroup relations.
7.
Audrey Helfant Budding, ‘Nation/People/Republic: Self-determination in Socialist Yugoslavia ’, in Lenard J. Cohen and Jasna Dragović-Soso (eds.), State Collapse in South-Eastern Europe: New Perspectives on Yugoslavia’s Disintegration (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2008), p. 98.
8.
Italian being the language of administration and social mobility, but the mother tongue only to a very small minority.
9.
Giotto Dainelli, “Quanti siano gli Italiani in Dalmazia”, Rivista geografica Italiana, 1918.
10.
Tamaro 1915. See also Attilio Tamaro, La Dalmazia e il Risorgimento Nazionale (Roma: Stabilimento Cromo-Lito-Tipografico Evaristo Armani, 1918).
11.
Giuseppe Cocchiara, “Le tradizioni della Dalmazia”, Difesa della Razza, No. 5 September 1941, pp. 6–8.
12.
Niccolò Tommaseo was a native of Dalmatia (born in Šibenik, 1802) and the first Italian minister of education. His liberal nationalist standpoints on the distinct multiethnic Dalmatian nation were published in the book Ai Dalmati.
13.
Referred to in Josip Vrandečić, Dalmatinski autonomistički pokret u XIX. stoljeću (Zagreb: Dom i svijet 2002), p. 67.
14.
Niccolò Tommaseo, Ai Dalmati (Trieste: Colombo Coen, 1861), p. 6.
15.
Šime Peričić, “O broju Talijana/Talijanaša u Dalmaciji XIX. stoljeća” (Zadar: Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU, 45/2003), pp. 327–355.
16.
In line with Croatian national historiography, Peričić (ibid.) makes a distinction between Talijani [Italians] and Talijanaši. The latter are seen as somehow less Italian than the ‘genuine’ Italians and according to that view are Italianized descendants of Dalmatian Croats and/or Serbs.
17.
Ivo Rubić, Talijani na primorju Kraljevine Jugoslavije, (Split: Jugosl. bureau, 1930).
18.
Dinko Foretić, “O etničkom sastavu stanovništva Dalmacije u IX stoljeću”. Dalmacija 1870. (Zadar: Matica Hrvatska, 1972).
19.
Peričić, p. 330.
20.
Tommaseo, p. 5.
21.
Peričić, p. 331.
22.
Branka Magaš, Croatia Through History (London: SAQI, 2007).
23.
There is a strand in Croatian historiography arguing that Serbs of today’s Croatia are direct descendants of the Romanized indigenous Balkan population—Vlachs/Aromanians.
24.
Banac (1988).
25.
Josip Vrandečić, Autonomistički pokreti na istočnojadranskoj obali u 19. stoljeću.
26.
See the map of Croatian dialects in the Appendix 1.
27.
Nikodin Milaš, Pravoslavna Dalmacija (Beograd: Sfairos, 1989).
28.
See also Srbi i pravoslavlje u Dalmaciji i Dubrovniku (Zagreb: Savez udruženja pravoslavnog sveštenstva SR Hrvatske, 1971).
29.
Drago Roksandić, Srbi u Hrvatskoj od 15. stoljeća do naših dana (Zagreb: Vjesnik, 1991), pp. 31–34.
30.
‘Let the hare free, kill the Vlach’—a popular proverb emphasizing the rivalry between the littoral population and the hinterland ‘Vlachs’. It was apparently coined by Anatolij Kudrjavcev, a Split-born academic in the mid-twentieth century and was popularized subsequently.
31.
Lands ruled by Venice before the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz.
32.
Often referred to as Zagora (hinterland) or Dalmatinska Zagora (Dalmatian hinterland), or alternatively acquisto nuovo (taken over from the Ottomans after 1699) and acquisto nuovissimo (after 1718).
33.
Roksandić (1991), pp. 15–18.
34.
See footnote 33 in Chapter 3.
35.
See Table 4.1
36.
See Grga Novak, Jadransko more u sukobima i borbama kroz stoljeća (Split, 2004).
37.
Excluding the Bay of Kotor where Serbs constituted a majority/plurality historically. The Bay of Kotor is in Monenegro since 1945 and is not a focus of this study. All the data refer to historic Dalmatia without the Bay of Kotor and the areas that are part of Montenegro.
38.
Nikša Stančić, Mihovil Pavlinović u politici i književnosti (Zagreb: Globus, 1990).
39.
There was an opposing faction within the People’s Party that while advocating union with Croatia-Slavonia, favoured the preservation of the Dalmatian parliament as one of the representative houses of the Triune Kingdom.
40.
On the causes and policies of Serbia’s expansionism, see Siniša Malešević. “The Mirage of Balkan Piedmont: State Formation and Serbian Nationalisms in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.” Nations and Nationalism 23, no. 1 (1 January 2017): 129–50.
41.
Roksandić (1991), p. 110.
42.
Dejan Jović suggests that, Croatian Serbs, although numerically significantly smaller, were made ‘constitutionally’ equal to Croats because of their suffering under the fascist Ustaša regime, as well as their overrepresentation in the partisan movement and the Communist Party ranks. See Dejan Jović, “Reassessing Socialist Yugoslavia 1945–1990: The Case of Croatia”, in Dejan Djokić and James Ker-Lindsay (eds.). New Perspectives on Yugoslavia: Key Issues and Controversies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), pp. 117–142.
43.
Case No. IT-03-72-I, The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia , The Prosecutor v. Milan Babić, (The Hague, 2004), p. 2.
44.
Odluka o proglašenju Ustavnog zakona za provođenje Amandmana LXIV. do LXXIV. na Ustav Socijalističke Republike Hrvatske (Zagreb: 25 July 1990).
45.
Ustav Socijalističke Republike Hrvatske, Article 184.
46.
ICTY (2004), p. 4.
47.
Articles 1 and 3, Statut Srpske autonomne oblasti Krajine, 21 December 1990.
48.
Ibid., Article 9.
49.
Ustav Republike Srpske Krajine [Constitution of the Republic of Serbian Krajina], defines it as a “nation-state of the Serb people and all citizens” (Article 1).
50.
Over 40% respondents in Dalmatia, refuse any relations with Serbs, over 30% with Bosniaks and Montenegrins (Malenica, 2003). This is in stark contrast to Istria where the corresponding numbers do not exceed 7%.
51.
Ivan Cifrić and Krunoslav Nikodem: “Socijalni identitet u Hrvatskoj. Koncept i dimenzije socijalnog identiteta”. Socijalna ekologija, Zagreb, Vol. 15 (2006), No. 3 (173–202).
52.
Sergij Vilfan, Towns and States at the Juncture of the Alps, the Adriatic, and Pannonia (Oxford: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 44–49.
53.
Ivo Šimunović, “Privredna usmjerenost obalnog područja Hrvatske”, Privreda Dalamcije no. 4., 1989, p. 8.
54.
Goldstein (1999), p. 97.
55.
Allcock (2000), p. 49.
56.
Ibid., p. 53.
57.
Mili Razović, “Turistički promet po općinama”, Privreda Dalmacije, no. 3, 1989, p. 53.
58.
Šimunović (1989), p. 14.
59.
Dražen Štambuk, Regionalna diferencijacija u litoralizacijskom razvitku, Privreda Dalmacije no. 4., 1989, p. 18.
60.
Frano Krišto, “Izvozni trend dalmatinske privrede”, Privreda Dalmacije, no. 2 1988, p. 22.
61.
Jadranka Polović, “‘Pretvorba Dalmacije’ Dalmacije”, Ekonomija/Economics, no. 6–7, 1995, p. 391.
62.
DZS, Bruto domaći proizvod po županijama, www.dzs.hr/Hrv_Eng/…/Bruto%20domaci%20proizvod.xls (last accessed 30 March 2017).
63.
Zakon o područjima posebne državne skrbi, Narodne novine, no. 44, (1996).
64.
See Chapter 3.
65.
Article 1, Program Dalmatinske Akcije.
66.
Article 8, Ibid.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Interview with Viktor Ivančić, 17 February 2015, Zagreb.
69.
Rezultati izbora za Zastupnički dom Sabora Republike Hrvatske 1992. godine.
70.
Interview, Emil Soldatić.
71.
Interview, former president of the DA, Mira Ljubić-Lorger, 10 July 2010, Brač/Brazza.
72.
This was confirmed by Viktor Ivančić as well. According to him, the impression DA leaders had of Krajina Serb respesentatives after these negotiations is that they reminded them of Chetniks.
73.
Glas Slavonije, 8 November 1994. ‘Zagrebački imperij’, Mira Ljubić-Lorger (interview by Stojan Obradović).
74.
Interview, president of the DA, Mira Ljubić-Lorger, 20 November 2008, Split.
75.
Ibid.
76.
Lorger (2010).
77.
“Ljudi koje je 90-ih trebalo ukloniti”, Nacional no. 741 26 January 2010.
78.
Glas Dalmacije, No. 1, 25 April 1994, p. 14.
79.
Ibid.
80.
Lorger (2008).
81.
Feral Tribune 27 February 1995.
82.
Interview, Jadranka Polović, Split 20 November 2008.
83.
Rezultati izbora za Zastupnički dom Sabora Republike Hrvatske 1995. godine.
84.
It is worth mentioning that the rather successful The Bridge of Independent Lists (Most nezavisnih lista, Most) was formed in 2012. It draws significant support from Metković, a town in south Dalmatia. It is not a regionalist party per se neither in its goals nor ideology.
85.
Program, http://www.hidra.hr/ (last accessed 14 December 2010).
86.
Interview with Nikola Zokić, former president of the Olive, Kaštel Novi/Castelnuovo, 14 July 2010. Includes references to a speech given in a typed form.
87.
In 2015, Kalmeta was indicted for embezzlement of state funds related to road construction in Dalmatia. See http://www.jutarnji.hr/vijesti/hrvatska/podignuta-optuznica-protiv-bozidara-kalmete-u-slucaju-remorker-ja-sam-duboko-vjerovao-da-se-to-nece-dogoditi…/392665/ (last accessed 21 January 2017).
88.
See “Diletantski teritorijalni ustroj”, http://m.057info.hr/vijest/sveucilisni-profesori-faricic-i-magas-reagiraju-na-pretvaranje-zadra-u-poreznu-ispostavu/80687.html (last accessed 12 December 2016) where Zadar University professors Faričić and Magaš express strong resentment of the fact that tax authorities’ headquarters for the whole of Dalmatia might be located in Split.
89.
Localisms are traditionally strong in Dalmatian coastal cities. Dubrovnik might be the most dominant. On discussion on contemporary campanilismo in Dubrovnik, see Neven Šantić, Ljepotica i zvijer: mali kompendij hrvatskog regionalizma, Zagreb: Jesenski i Turk, 2013, pp. 83–84.

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Politics & IR, School of Social Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
Dejan Stjepanović

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Stjepanović, D. (2018). Dalmatia in Croatia: The Politics of Sectional Regionalism. In: Multiethnic Regionalisms in Southeastern Europe. Comparative Territorial Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58585-1_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58585-1_4
Published: 20 September 2017
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-58584-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-58585-1
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