Filip Tomić, PhD
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Trg Nikole Šubića Zrinskog 11
10000 Zagreb
E-mail: filip.tomic108@gmail.com
Vlatka Tomić, Phd candidate
University of Zadar
Mihovila Pavlinovića 1
23000 Zadar
E-mail: vlatka.tomic@skole.hr
After the defeat in war against Prussia in 1866 Habsburg Monarchy reorganized itself into peculiar state structure of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Until the demise of the Monarchy at the end of the First World War, variety of ways was used in both parts of the realm to provide for a cultural and/or political autonomy of ethno-nationally defined populations. The Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia was an entity defined as a “political nation” endowed with ethnocultural and politico-territorial self-governing rights within the Kingdom of Hungary. It provided political and institutional basis for competing and fluid conceptions of Croatian nation, i.e., who belongs to it, which territory it encompasses, as well as for various political claims about the level and the scope of autonomy it should have within the Monarchy as a whole. In this presentation, however, we would like to devote our attention to an interesting case at the turn of the 20th century. Following the emergence and salience of national questions throughout the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the long-term discontent among most of the Croatian political elite and national activists with the supposed suppression of the political autonomy of Croatia-Slavonia by the Hungarian authorities, arguments about rights of Croatian nation to a self-governing political and cultural life began to change their emphasis. While earlier they had been focused primarily on legal aspects and so-called historic state rights - as a modern modification of estate rights - now emphasis shifted to a cultural, spiritual, and social traits of Croatian people. In a desire to nationalize broader strata of population, to associate their everyday difficulties and social problems with national question, beside arguing about immediate political and social problems in the Monarchy, national activists considered instrumental to link their own claims to what they believed were analogous cases in the world. In that respect, from 1899 to 1902, the Boer war, a faraway arm conflict on Africa’s south, received an unusual large echo in Croatian public. Vigorously and passionately accomplishments and faiths of “small”, “brave”, and “heroic” Boer people against British imperial oppressor were followed on day-to-day basis. As a conflict between the great colonial power and independent republics of white settlers of European origin, this war seemed to European observers imbued with contemporary racial discourse, not as a usual colonial conquest, but as a war of liberation and independence. With such a characterization, it could serve as a projection screen, among others, for various nationally termed grievances and claims. In Croatian case, political discontent and national frustration with the level of autonomy of Croatia-Slavonia, and with the disunity of “Croatian lands”, inscribed in the Boer war not just the possibility of a far reaching change in the international politics, but also the chance to “globalize” Croatian national claims in the eyes of domestic public, to arouse its interests and affections for domestic causes, and to utilize them in the context of an ongoing internal political crises in the Habsburg Monarchy. In our presentation we want to examine on the mentioned case the reflexive nature of nationalism, its need to compartmentalize the world into discrete national entities and to compare its own claims with similar cases. In our case study we will argue, the war, however distant it was, provided boiling point which clearly demarcated oppressors from victims, imperial from oppressed nations. The war and its actors, termed as national entities, were translated, more or less openly, on domestic situation and supposed to serve as an edification and lesson for the Croatian people in their own self-understanding and their own political claims.
Filip Tomić graduated History and Sociology at the University of Zagreb. At the same University he also obtained his PhD. He currently works in the Archives of Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. His research interests are focused on various aspects of ethnic and national categorizations and identifications in Croatia, particularly during the period of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
Vlatka Tomić graduated History and Sociology at the University of Zagreb. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Zadar. She currently works as a teacher of Sociology in the Third Gymnasium in Zagreb. Her research interests are focused on the history of the first half of the 19th century in Croatia and Slavonia.
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Trg Nikole Šubića Zrinskog 11
10000 Zagreb
E-mail: filip.tomic108@gmail.com
Vlatka Tomić, Phd candidate
University of Zadar
Mihovila Pavlinovića 1
23000 Zadar
E-mail: vlatka.tomic@skole.hr
THE BOER WAR AND CROATIAN PUBLIC: TRANSLATION AND USAGE OF A DISTANT WAR FOR CROATIAN NATIONALISM AT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY
After the defeat in war against Prussia in 1866 Habsburg Monarchy reorganized itself into peculiar state structure of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Until the demise of the Monarchy at the end of the First World War, variety of ways was used in both parts of the realm to provide for a cultural and/or political autonomy of ethno-nationally defined populations. The Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia was an entity defined as a “political nation” endowed with ethnocultural and politico-territorial self-governing rights within the Kingdom of Hungary. It provided political and institutional basis for competing and fluid conceptions of Croatian nation, i.e., who belongs to it, which territory it encompasses, as well as for various political claims about the level and the scope of autonomy it should have within the Monarchy as a whole. In this presentation, however, we would like to devote our attention to an interesting case at the turn of the 20th century. Following the emergence and salience of national questions throughout the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the long-term discontent among most of the Croatian political elite and national activists with the supposed suppression of the political autonomy of Croatia-Slavonia by the Hungarian authorities, arguments about rights of Croatian nation to a self-governing political and cultural life began to change their emphasis. While earlier they had been focused primarily on legal aspects and so-called historic state rights - as a modern modification of estate rights - now emphasis shifted to a cultural, spiritual, and social traits of Croatian people. In a desire to nationalize broader strata of population, to associate their everyday difficulties and social problems with national question, beside arguing about immediate political and social problems in the Monarchy, national activists considered instrumental to link their own claims to what they believed were analogous cases in the world. In that respect, from 1899 to 1902, the Boer war, a faraway arm conflict on Africa’s south, received an unusual large echo in Croatian public. Vigorously and passionately accomplishments and faiths of “small”, “brave”, and “heroic” Boer people against British imperial oppressor were followed on day-to-day basis. As a conflict between the great colonial power and independent republics of white settlers of European origin, this war seemed to European observers imbued with contemporary racial discourse, not as a usual colonial conquest, but as a war of liberation and independence. With such a characterization, it could serve as a projection screen, among others, for various nationally termed grievances and claims. In Croatian case, political discontent and national frustration with the level of autonomy of Croatia-Slavonia, and with the disunity of “Croatian lands”, inscribed in the Boer war not just the possibility of a far reaching change in the international politics, but also the chance to “globalize” Croatian national claims in the eyes of domestic public, to arouse its interests and affections for domestic causes, and to utilize them in the context of an ongoing internal political crises in the Habsburg Monarchy. In our presentation we want to examine on the mentioned case the reflexive nature of nationalism, its need to compartmentalize the world into discrete national entities and to compare its own claims with similar cases. In our case study we will argue, the war, however distant it was, provided boiling point which clearly demarcated oppressors from victims, imperial from oppressed nations. The war and its actors, termed as national entities, were translated, more or less openly, on domestic situation and supposed to serve as an edification and lesson for the Croatian people in their own self-understanding and their own political claims.
Filip Tomić graduated History and Sociology at the University of Zagreb. At the same University he also obtained his PhD. He currently works in the Archives of Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. His research interests are focused on various aspects of ethnic and national categorizations and identifications in Croatia, particularly during the period of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
Vlatka Tomić graduated History and Sociology at the University of Zagreb. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Zadar. She currently works as a teacher of Sociology in the Third Gymnasium in Zagreb. Her research interests are focused on the history of the first half of the 19th century in Croatia and Slavonia.