Balkan, famous for its "chaos"
In the history of the world, the Balkan region, known as the "European Gunpowder Keg", can be said to be famous. It is not only the most sensitive area in Europe, but also ignited. World war. Located at the transportation hub of the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, why does this peninsula with an area of only 550,000 square kilometers have the energy to affect the whole body? It has to start with its unique geographical advantage.
As the intersection of eastern and western cultures and religions, deep historical grievances are the main source of chaos in the Balkans. For hundreds of years, many ethnic groups living in the Balkans have different historical origins, different geographical environments, and religious and cultural backgrounds. These differences are intertwined with ethnic, religious and other contradictions. In addition, European powers are coveting the Balkans and constantly use internal disputes to provoke conflicts. Balkan has become a battlefield for the interests of great powers .
Since the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire has invaded the Balkans, which has become an arena for internal Christian struggles. The Catholic West and the Eastern Orthodox are hostile to each other. When the forces of the Ottoman Empire were immersed in the 15th century, conflicts between Christian culture and Islamic culture continued to erupt. Since then, various conflicts in the Balkans are directly or indirectly related to ethnic and religious issues .
Originally, various ethnic and religious conflicts were intertwined, and the conflicts that broke out from time to time have led to frequent internal turmoil in the Balkans. Under such circumstances, European powers have intervened in regional affairs in order to capture their own interests. In the "game", big powers repeatedly fought and exercised power in the Balkans, leaving many roots of ethnic discord and religious conflicts in the region. Especially in the nearly one hundred years of the last century, the people of the Balkans paid a heavy price for this.
Croatia, which inherits a rich "legacy"
Since the 90s of the last century, the Balkans, full of small countries, are still not peaceful, especially among the six small countries that were born after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. tension. From the map, the small independent country Croatia has almost "inherited" most of the coastline of the former Yugoslavia. only leaves a small section for Slovenia in the northernmost part and Montenegro in the southernmost part.
Compared with Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the two former Yugoslav members, Croatia’s popularity is lower. However, this unremarkable franchise republic finally got the richest legacy. The once-only "Greater Serbia" was squeezed into a landlocked country, and Bosnia and Herzegovina next to it was not much better. If it weren't for the strong Croatian "send kindness" Give it a short stretch of coastline, and the "gunpowder center" also has no view of the sea.
Such "heritage distribution", of course, is the main historical factor, but there are also factors that Western powers take advantage of the chaos to pull sideways. In any case, Croatia almost dominates the east coast of the Adriatic Sea. So the question is, why does Croatia give up to Bosnia and Herzegovina a pair of neighbors who are different in ethnicity, religion, culture, etc.? Coastline? This has to be a brief history of the two countries.
Croatia, whose birthplace is not clear
The area where Croatia is located was first conquered by the Roman Empire, and the empire was divided into two and belonged to Western Roman rule. After the destruction of the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Goths conquered here, and then it was conquered by the Byzantine Empire. Around the 7th century, Slavs entered the area and became the predecessor of modern Croats, .
In the 9th century, Croatia had basically converted to Christianity. In the early decades of the 10th century, under the leadership of the first king Tomislav, Croatia completed its unification and the Croatian state reached its heyday. For the next few hundred years, the history of Croatia is a history of constant struggle. In order to compete for the coastal zone, Croatia first fought hard with Hungary and Bulgaria, and later formed the Kingdom of Croatia with Hungary to fight Venice together.
In the 16th century, Hungary was defeated by the rising Ottoman Empire, and most of its territoryWas annexed. The rest, including most of Croatia, was taken over by the Habsburgs of Austria and became part of the Holy Roman Empire. At the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon ordered the abolition of the title of Shenluo. Since then, the Habsburgs have successively recovered large areas of the former Kingdom of Hungary. By 1867, Croatia belonged to the newly formed Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Judging from Croatia’s history, most of the time it “belongs” to the West. This is also why Croatians never consider themselves the same as the Slavs in the east, but try to enter The ranks of Aryans often call themselves "Germanized Croats".
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was defeated in World War I. Croatia and Slovenia could not escape punishment. They had to obey the organization arrangement and the victorious Serbia to form the Serbia-Croatia-Slovenia Kingdom. As the predecessor of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, this country formed by the Allied Powers is indeed nondescript.
The Croatian held his nose like this for twenty years, and finally waited for the opportunity. After the outbreak of World War II, the “independence movement” that was already ready in Croatia became more active. In April 1941, when Germany invaded Yugoslavia, the independent organization "Ustasha" took the opportunity to declare independence and establish the independent state of Croatia, including a large territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then joined the Axis camp.
The notorious "Ustasha"
contributed to the independence of Croatia. In just four years from 1941 to 1945, Ustasha, a fascist puppet regime, committed crimes against other races. Heinous crime. Ustasha’s goal is to build a "pure-bred" Croatia, seeing Serbs living in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina as their main obstacle.
In response, the minister of the Ustasha government at the time described their goal vividly: in the independent country of Croatia, one third of the aliens must convert to Catholicism; one third of the aliens Must be deported; a third of the aliens must be completely wiped out.
In the "Independent State of Croatia", incidents of killing Serbs and Jews and forcing Orthodox Christians to convert to Catholicism continue to occur. Serbians, like Jews and Gypsies, are not protected by law. Especially against the Serbs who belonged to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Croats resorted to retaliatory measures that were heinous.
According to statistics, nearly 400,000 Serbs were brutally killed, of which 350,000 died in the Jasenovac concentration camp known as "Auschwitz in the Balkans". When the Yugoslav Motherland Army, a resistance organization dominated by Serbs, came in, the retaliation suffered by the Croats can be imagined. Such grievances are also the historical reason for the deteriorating ethnic problems in Yugoslavia.
"covering up" contradictions is not a long-term strategy
After World War II, Tito, a Croatian, also pursued Stalin’s policy of containing the chauvinism of the great power. Yugoslavia’s domestic national contradictions were once caught Cover it up. But as mentioned earlier, the history is full of grievances and will explode sooner or later. After Tito's death, the situation in Yugoslavia became increasingly tense, and the contradictions between Croatia and Serbia, which took the lead in independence, escalated.
In May 1991, Croatia held a referendum on independence despite the resolute resistance of the Serbs. The party supporting Croatia's independence finally won by absolute advantage. The following month, the Croatian Parliament passed a resolution declaring independence from Yugoslavia. Soon, bloody conflict broke out between the two ethnic groups, and the Croatian war broke out.
At the end of the war broke out, the Serbian Krajina Republic was established in the Serb region of Croatia. The armed conflict lasted until 1995, when the Croatian government forces occupied parts of the Republic of Republika Srpska. At the end of that year, the parties signed the Dayton Agreement and the conflict ended. In 1998, all Serb regions returned to Croatia.
The "simple" history of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Compared to Croatia, the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina is much more "simple", except for the establishment of an independent kingdom of Bosnia in the 14th century. Most of the time, PersiaNigeria and Herzegovina are just two geographical names. Since being conquered by the Ottoman Empire, Bosnia and Herzegovina has successively been reduced to the possession of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Serbia and even the puppet state "Independent Croatia".
Bosnia and Herzegovina is located in the center of the European gunpowder depot. History shows that whoever annexes it will inevitably end in a tragic end. From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, in the process of the European powers fighting for the "Ottoman heritage", the uncomfortable Austro-Hungarian Empire announced that Bosnia and Herzegovina had been included in its territory and took the initiative to carry the powder keg. World war.
During the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks used the "premium policy" to gradually Islamize the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Under Tito’s leadership, Yugoslavia officially recognized “Slavic Muslims who speak Serbo-Croatian” as a Muslim ethnic group. To this day, the Mu is still the largest ethnic group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its representative is the Bosniaks after the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
After the Second World War, Bosnia and Herzegovina became a federal republic of Yugoslavia, but it still adopted the borders of the Ottoman Empire, which differed greatly from the actual distribution of local ethnic groups. . After the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided into two political entities, the Muk Federation and the Serbian Republic.
In order to reflect ethnic equality, Bosnia and Herzegovina implements a unique political system. The "political leaders" are composed of a three-person presidium, and each of the three main ethnic groups serves as one person. The term of office is four years. Month chairman of the bureau. The chairman of the presidium is equivalent to the head of state. As a result, there may be three different heads of state in Bosnia and Herzegovina within a year. He may be a Bosniak, a Serb, or a Croatian.
Conclusion
After reviewing the history of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is not difficult to find that the relationship between the neighbors has been good. On the one hand, it may be that the two belonged to the "Independent State of Croatia" and had a relatively close relationship and "cooperation"; on the other hand, the Muslim-dominant Bosnia and Herzegovina was sandwiched between Croatia and Serbia. Play a shield role.
Historically, the equally ambitious Croatia and Serbia have been in constant conflict. They looked at each other uncomfortably, but they did not eat away the strength of their opponents. In this case, wooing Bosnia and Herzegovina in the middle has become a strategy for both parties. After all, as the most typical region of the Balkans "I am in you and you are in me", the Croats and Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina are all ethnic minorities.
Perhaps therefore, although Croatia "occupies" a long coastline in the Balkans and has thousands of islands, it has generously "ceded" to a section of the coastline of Bosnia and Herzegovina. For the relatively poor Bosnia and Herzegovina, although there are still many problems and inconveniences in this section of only more than 20 kilometers of coastline, it can be regarded as a coastal country.
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