The Croatian Language Question and Croatian Identity

Abstract

The last decade of the 20th century represented an extremely turbulent period for Croatia. By 1990, the old political system of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was collapsing, and tensions among Croatia and the other constituent republics were running high. After the first multi-party elections in Croatia in the spring of that year brought Franjo Tudman and his nationalist Croatian Democratic Union party to power (the Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, or HDZ), the Croatian government began to revive old Croatian national symbols, to rename streets and squares, and to create Croatian national institutions to compete with those associated with the federal Yugoslav government (Tanner 1997: 229). On 22 December 1990, the Croatian Parliament (the Sabor) ratified a new constitution which removed the word ‘socialist’ from the official name of the republic and asserted Croatia’s rights as a sovereign state (Tanner 1997: 230). Among other controversial changes, it declared the official language of the republic to be Croatian (Sabor Republike Hrvatske 1990, Article 12; see also Jaroszewicz 2004: 147). On 25 June of the following year, in tandem with Slovenia, Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia, and war broke out soon afterwards.