Sula

SULA.) Mediaeval History.—What has in modern times been known as Croatia-Slavonia formed part of the Roman province of Pan nonia, the chief towns being Siscia (Sisek), Emona (Ljubljana) and Sirmium (Mitrovica in Syrmia). It was conquered by the Ostrogoths, recovered by Justinian in S35 and conquered in 568 by the Avars, who also seized most of the Dalmatian towns. The Croats (Chrobati, Hrvati), a Slav tribe closely related to the Serbs, overpowered the Avars in about 64o, and held most of the modern Croatia-Slavonia, north-west Bosnia and Dalmatia, except the coast towns, where municipal freedom survived. The Croats and Slovenes were loosely organized under 2upani or tribal chiefs, and late in the 8th century their western territory fell an easy prey to Charles the Great as he was organizing the marches of the em pire. During a century of chaos, in which the Croats stood in changing relations to the Franks, Byzantium, Venice, Moravia, the short-lived Bulgar state in Pannonia and eventually its Magyar conquerors, the Croatian duchy slowly took definite shape, till in 924 Duke Tomislav assumed the royal title (Rex Chroatorum), allied himself with Byzantium and received from it the protector ate of the Dalmatian towns of Zadar, Trogir and Split (Zara, Trau, Spalato). He was recognized by the pope, and Split became the archiepiscopal see: from this early time dates the special Glagolitic Slav rite which still survives in certain Catholic churches along the coast. His fifth successor, Drzislav received the coronation insignia from the emperor Basil II., in consideration for his help against the Bulgarians ; but Kresimir III. (c. 1000-30) had to acknowledge Byzantine suzerainty. Stephen I. married a daughter of the Venetian doge Orseolo, and their son Peter Kresimir (1058-74) further strengthened Croa tia's ties with the Roman see; and in 1076 Demetrius Zvonimir was crowned king at Split by the legate of Gregory VII., only after the episcopate in full synod and the future king had ratified the papal demands. Anarchy followed Zvonimir's death in 1089, and certain Croat nobles called in King Ladislas of Hungary, as a kinsman of the royal house. For two years his nephew Almos was king of Croatia, and in 1094 a new bishopric was founded in Za greb, to which the centre of ecclesiastical gravity soon shifted. In 1097 the last Croat national king, Petrus, fell in battle, and in 1102 King Koloman of Hungary consolidated the work of his uncle Ladislas and was crowned king of Croatia and Dalmatia at Belgrad near Zadar, asserting the triple claims of conquest, in heritance and election.

Croatia and Hungary.

Henceforth Croatia forms for eight centuries an autonomous kingdom under the Holy Crown of St. Stephen. Its bans, or viceroys, were at first chosen sometimes among princes of the house of Arpad, but more and more among great feudal families, some of whom conducted a semi-independ ent policy in Bosnia and along the coast. It was as sovereigns of Croatia that the Hungarian kings became involved in repeated wars with Venice. On the extinction of the Hungarian national dynasty in 1301, the Croatians crowned the Angevin prince Charles Robert as their king at Zagreb, while Hungary elected first a Bohemian and then a Bavarian prince, only recognizing Charles Robert and reuniting the two Crowns in 1309. On the death of Louis the Great, Croatia turned against his daughter Mary and supported the candidature of her Neapolitan cousins, Charles and Ladislas of Durazzo, the latter being crowned at Zadar in 1403. Mary's husband, Sigismund, however, finally en forced his claim to both thrones, though in 1420 he had to ratify the cession of Dalmatia to Venice, to which Ladislas had rashly consented in 5409 as a means of financing his campaigns. On the fall of Bosnia before the Turks (1463) the Croat nobles played the chief part in organizing the banat of Jajce, as a barrier against further invasion. A minor cause of the fatal defeat of Mohacs (q.v.) in 1526 was that King Louis gave battle without waiting for the Croat reinforcements under Ban Krsto Frankopan to ar rive. While Hungary was disputed between the Habsburgs and John Zapolya, the Croatian estates, sitting at Cetin on Jan. 1, 5527, unanimously elected Ferdinand of Austria as their king, and confirmed the succession to him and his heirs (a step which Hun gary only took in 1687). Most of the country between Save and Drave shared the fate of central Hungary and fell into Turkish hands. Zagreb, hitherto belonging to "Slavonia," became a border fortress and henceforth the Croatian capital and seat of the ban and the diet. But the constant danger of invasion is fatal to con stitutional development, and the estates were summoned only to vote subsidies. Necessity dictated in 1578 the formation of spe cial provinces known as the "military frontiers" (q.v.) (Vojna Krajina)—the Slavonian between Drave and Kulpa with Varai din as its centre, the Croatian between the Kulpa and the sea, with Karlovac (Karlstadt), so named after Archduke Charles of Styria, who held the supreme command. Their reincorporation was re peatedly demanded by the Croatian estates but without effect, and they retained their identity till long after the expulsion of the Turks.

During the 16th and 17th centuries the Croat nobility, alarmed at the growth of the royal power, drew steadily closer to that of Hungary, and in 1625 the ban first took his seat in the Hungarian house of magnates. Count Nicholas Zrinski won great fame by his defence of Sziget against Sultan Suleiman in 1566, immortal ized by his grandson of the same name (1620-64) in the first Hungarian epic written under Italian influence, while his brother Peter translated it into Croat. The latter, with his kinsman Krsto Frankopan and the Magyar magnates Nqdasdy and Wesselenyi, were in 1671 implicated in a plot against the Habsburgs and in defence of Hungarian and Croat local privileges, and executed at Wiener Neustadt. This event was momentous for Croatia, for the extinction of the Zrinski and Frankopan families and the con fiscation of their vast estates definitely turned the scale in favour of the Crown in Croatia and brought foreign elements into the Croat nobility.

By the Treaty of Karlovci (Karlowitz) in 1699 all Croatia Slavonia was recovered from the Turks; and henceforward Kar lovci was to be the centre of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the patriarch of Pec, with thousands of Serbian refugees from Tur key, having settled in Slavonia and south Hungary under a special charter from Leopold I. in 5690. In 1 712 the Croatian diet ac cepted the Pragmatic Sanction 12 years earlier than the Hungarian, declaring in default of male heirs for that Habsburg princess who should rule over Austria, Styria and Carniola; and their assertion that `neither force nor conquest united us to the Hungarians" was not challenged at the time. The name "Croatia" now came to be applied to the whole territory between Save and Drave. In 1767 Maria Theresa erected a special council in Zagreb, dealing direct with Vienna, but in 1779 Croatia was again subjected to the council of lieutenancy in Pest, and was regarded by the Mag yars as partes adnexae of Hungary, though the Croats claimed the status of regna socia. In 1776 Fiume (q.v.) was united with Croatia, but in 1779 was declared an integral part of Hungary. In 5769, 1774 and 1776 Serbian national congresses were allowed to meet at Karlovci, and again in 1790 at Temesvar, when Serb privi leges were confirmed by Leopold II. Croat national sentiment was stirred in the French revolutionary wars and received a strong impetus from Napoleon's creation of an "Illyrian" state. The east Adriatic territories which Austria had acquired from Venice in 1797 were ceded in 1806 to Napoleon's puppet kingdom of Italy, and after Wagram (1809) these, with Trieste, Istria, Carn iola, parts of Croatia and the defunct republic of Ragusa, were united as "the Illyrian Provinces." Their viceroy, Marmont, had his headquarters at Ljubljana (Laibach) and Dubrovnik (Ragusa). The first Croat and Slovene newspapers appeared, schools were opened, roads and public institutions built. In 1813 the Austrians drove out the French, Dalmatia and Ragusa became a single Aus trian province. In 1822 Croatia-Slavonia recovered her old boun daries and her connection with the Hungarian Crown was re affirmed.

Rise of Croat Nationality.

The rise of Magyar national feeling and the linguistic legislation passed by the Hungarian diet from 183o onwards adversely affected Magyar-Croat relations; and in the forties a strong "Illyrian" movement arose in Croatia under Ljudevit Gaj and Count Draskovis, aiming at the eventual union of all Southern Slays, preferably by Austria's help and in open defiance of Hungary's claims. The law of 1843, passed at the diet of Pressburg, making Magyar compulsory for official business and for education, had given Croatia a special respite for six years; but before the term expired there was an open breach, and in Oct. 1847 the Croatian diet introduced Croat, not Magyar, throughout its territory. The famous series of laws passed by Hungary in April 1848 rode roughshod over Croatia's special position and were firmly resisted by the Croats under Baron Joseph Jelacic, whom the Court appointed as ban in March and who, in close co-opera tion with the Serbs under Patriarch Rajacie of Karlovci, defied Hungary, pushed a series of national laws through the diet of Zagreb, and after an abortive attempt at compromise with the revolutionary Huagarian Government, led his troops across the Drave in September and marched against Budapest in the em peror's name. Owing to her racial and political differences with Hungary Croatia found herself identified with Habsburg reaction, and of ter the suppression of the Hungarian revolution in 1849 "re ceived" (in the words of Pulszky) "as reward what Hungary re ceived as punishment." When, in 1861, the Croatian diet was again allowed to meet it unanimously declined to send delegates to the new centralist Reiclisrat in Vienna, and was speedily dis solved. In 1866 the Croats followed a federalist policy and claimed that the events of 1848 had dissolved the legal bond with Hun gary. But in 1867 Hungary and the Crown concluded the Aus gleich over the heads of Austria and still more of Croatia, which was left to make what terms it could with Budapest. The nagoda (or compromise) of 1868 is in the form of a law ratified by the two parliaments of Budapest and Zagreb, though the texts differ on important points (notably Fiume, which was detached from Croatia and given an autonomous status under a governor ap pointed direct by Budapest). It was only passed at Zagreb as the result of very corrupt elec tions prepared by the ban, Baron Levin Rauch, on orders from Budapest. Under its provisions Croatia was represented by 40 delegates in the lower and three in the upper house at Budapest.

The ban, as head of the Zagreb Government, was nominated by Budapest, yet responsible to the Croatian diet, and there were three autonomous departments (home, justice and education) at Zagreb, with sectional chiefs.

Croat was the official language throughout the territory and the judicial system was entirely autonomous. The weakest spot was Croatia's financial subordination to Hungary.

The period 1868 to 1914 was for Croatia one of great political activity and of steady development in every sphere. Among the most notable Croat leaders of the period were Bishop Strossmayer of Djakovo (q.v.), to whose munificence the foundation of the Southern Slav academy (1867), Zagreb university (1874) and art gallery (1884) and other public institutions was largely due; Ivan Mazurani6, known as "the Peasant Ban" (1873-8o) and author of a famous epic ; Racki the historian, and Ante Starccvie, founder of the party of right, which followed strongly Serbophobe lines. The Eastern Crisis of evoked a lively agitation in favour of Bosnia's incorporation with Croatia, as part of a Pan-Croat pro gramme ; and Dalmatia was always regarded as belonging de lure to the "Triune Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia," though de facto held by Austria. The Bosnian problem accentuated the Magyar-Croat conflict, which broke out in 5883 in riotous pro tests against the inscriptions over Government offices in Zagreb. The Croatian constitution was temporarily suspended by Hun gary and after a general had acted as royal commissioner for some months, Count Khuen-Hedervary, a cousin of Tisza, was ap pointed ban in Dec. 1883. His rule of 20 years is regarded as the most humiliating in modern Croatian history.

The Yugoslav

1903 onwards there was a marked growth of national feeling. The disturbances of that year were suppressed, but in 5905 the Croat and Serb parties in all provinces of the Dual Monarchy adopted a joint programme in the Resolutions of Fiume and Zara, and next year the Serbo Croat coalition in Croatia came into power, as the result of a com pact with the Hungarian coalition. Its chief leaders were Supilo and Trumbic (q.v.), both Dalmatians. Already in 19o7, however, the Croats and Magyars again quarrelled; Baron Rauch became ban and on orders from Budapest "made" elections, but, having failed to secure a majority, suspended the Croatian diet and insti tuted a repressive regime. This culminated in the scandal of the Zagreb treason trial of 1909, in which J3 Serbs of Croatia-Slavonia were accused of treasonable relations with Serbia. The attempts of Rauch and his chiefs in Budapest and Vienna to implicate the leaders of the Serbo-Croat Coalition during the Bosnian annexa tion crisis gave to the trial an international importance, which was heightened by scandals in court and by Prof. Masaryk's pub lic intervention in the Austrian parliament. The sequel was a libel action brought by the coalition leaders before a Viennese court against the historian Friedjung and the editor of the Reichs post (Dec. 1909), and it was established that the charges of trea son rested upon numerous documents forged by the connivance of the Austro-Hungarian minister in Belgrade and his staff and given to Friedjung on the authority of Aehrenthal and the Ball platz. These trials and the Rauch regime welded the Serbo-Croat coalition still more closely together, and stimulated the move ment for Yugoslav unity. After a temporary truce under Rauch's successor, Tomasic, the Hungarian Government on April 3, 1912, suspended the Croatian constitution and appointed Cuvaj as dic tator with wide powers. An attempt on his life by the student Jukic on June 8 was followed by further repression and by the suspension of Serbian Church autonomy. The Cuvaj regime caused lively protests among the Yugoslays of Bosnia, Dalmatia, Istria and Carniola, with increasing support from the Slovenes. The excitement and unrest, already acute, was greatly increased by the victories of the Balkan League and especially Serbia against the Turks ; and the younger generation in particular be came infected by revolutionary ideas and hailed Serbia as the Piedmont of a future Yugoslav union. The murder of the arch duke was the sixth of a series of outrages by young Croats or Serbs, two being upon Cuvaj and two upon his successor Skerlecz.

On Dec. 27, 1912, Cuvaj was replaced by a colourless official, but it was not till Nov. 1913 that the dictatorship was abolished and Baron Skerlecz appointed ban. Elections—the fifth since gave the coalition a large majority; and there was still a truce rather than a settlement between Zagreb and Budapest when the World War broke out.

The World War and Union with Yugoslavia.—Measures of extreme severity were taken by the civil and military author ities of Austria-Hungary throughout their Yugoslav provinces. Thanks to the purely opportunist policy of the Serbo-Croat coalition, the diet of Zagreb was still allowed to meet, but while avoiding any pronouncement offensive to Budapest it also steadily refused to disavow the Yugoslav committee which was formed in London early in the war by a number of Serb and Croat exiles (Trumbic, Supilo, Hinkovic, Mestrovic, etc.) and whose programme was complete independence and union with Serbia. In Dec. 1916 the coalition even sent delegates to Charles's coronation in Budapest, and by secret arrangement left all initiative to the committee abroad, and after the resumption of parliamentary life in Austria to the unified Yugoslav Club in the Reichsrat, working in close alliance with the Czechs. The maximum Yugoslav pro gramme found expression in the Declaration of Corfu ( July 20, 1917) between Pasic and Trumbic, which the Yugoslav parties inside the Dual Monarchy naturally could not publicly endorse, but always declined to repudiate. Count Tisza's visit to Zagreb and Sarajevo in Sept. 1918, to win support for a Magyar solution of the Southern Slav question, met everywhere with a blank re fusal. On Oct. I, encouraged by Bulgaria's surrender, the Czech and Yugoslav deputies in the Reichsrat proclaimed their absolute right to decide their own future State allegiance; and on Oct. io the Yugoslav national council, which had already been consti tuted at Ljubljana, was transferred to Zagreb and fepresentatives of all parties were included. A week later the Yugoslays repu diated Emperor Charles's proposals for federalization, and local committees in Dalmatia and Bosnia, recognizing the authority of the Zagreb council, proceeded to disarm the troops pouring north ward from the broken Balkan fronts. On Oct. 23, a Croat regi ment took possession of Fiume, and on the 28th the Zagreb mili tary command handed over its authority to the council. Next day the diet declared Croatia' independence from Hungary, appealed to the Entente and urgently invited the help of the Serbian army. On Nov. 23 the union of the Yugoslav provinces of the former monarchy with Serbia and Montenegro was resolved in Zagreb, and on Dec. 1 the council's delegates visited the prince regent Alexander in Belgrade and invited him to proclaim the union. In the first Yugoslav Cabinet the Slovene Clerical leader Korosec was vice-premier and Trumbic foreign minister. The office of Croatian ban was at first retained, but abolished under the new constitution of June 28, 1921. The centralist character of this constitution was largely due to the abstention of the Croat Peasant Party under Stephen Radic. The latter's capitulation to Pasic and his acceptance of office in a Radical Cabinet in 1925 ended the most acute phase of conflict between centralist and federalist ten dencies in the new State.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The best general histories of Croatia are in Croat, Bibliography.—The best general histories of Croatia are in Croat, by T. Smiciklas, 2 vols. (Zagreb, 1882) ; V. Klaic, 5 vols. (Zagreb, 1899-1913) ; F. Sisic, 3 vols. (Zagreb, 1906-13) , who has also pub lished in German a history of the period up to 1102. In English see R. W. Seton-Watson, The Southern Slav Question (pp', and es pecially the much enlarged German edition, 1913) . The best collec tions of documents are Kukuljevie, Jura Regni Croatiae Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, 3 vols. (Zagreb, 1862) ; Theiner, Vetera Monumenta, 2 vols. (1863-75) ; Smidklas, Codex Diplomaticus (Zagreb, 1904-16) ; Sisk, Acta Comitialia, 1526-163o, 5 vols. (Zagreb, 1912-18) . On the 19th century see G. Surmin, Hrvatski Preporod (The Croat Rebirth), 2 vols. (Zagreb, '903) ; V. Zagorsky, Racki et la Renaissance scienti fique et politique de la Croatie (ico9) ; M. Marjanovic, Savremena Hrvatska (Contemporary Croatia) (Belgrade, 1913) ; Hermann Wen del, Aus dem siddslawischen Risorgimento (Gotha, 1921) , and Der Kampf der Scdslawen urn Freiheit and Einheit (Frankfurt, 1925) ; Sisic, Biskup Strossmayer i Jugoslovenska Misao (Belgrade, 1922) ; M. Prelog, Slavenska Renesansa, 1y,8o-1848 (Zagreb, 1924). For the war and revolution see especially Sisic, Abridged Political History of Rieka-Fiume (Paris, 1919), and Dokumenti (Zagreb, 1920) ; Milada Paulova, Jugoslovenski Odbor (Zagreb, 1924) . Victor Kuhne, Ceux dont on ignore le Martyre (Geneva, 1917) . For the post-war period see O. Randi, La Jugoslavia (Naples, 1922) ; Albert Mousset, Le Royaume des Serbes, Croates et Slovenes (1924) ; H. Wendel, Aus der Welt der Sudslawen (1926) . (See also YUGOSLAVIA.) (R. W. S.-W.)