1992
167-536: 1993 1994 1995 Operation Flash ( Serbo-Croatian : Operacija Bljesak / Операција Бљесак ) was a brief Croatian Army (HV) offensive conducted against the forces of the self-declared proto-state Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) from 1–3 May 1995. The offensive occurred in the later stages of the Croatian War of Independence and was the first major confrontation after ceasefire and economic cooperation agreements were signed between Croatia and
334-597: A commemorative medal to be issued to the HV troops who took part in the operation, and commemorates Operation Flash by annual official celebrations in Okučani, while Serbs mark the anniversary of the battle by church services for their dead. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia , set up in 1993 based on the UN Security Council Resolution 827 , tried Martić and Momčilo Perišić ,
501-623: A second language . Bosnian is spoken by 2.7 million people worldwide, chiefly Bosniaks , including 2.0 million in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 200,000 in Serbia and 40,000 in Montenegro. Montenegrin is spoken by 300,000 people globally. The notion of Montenegrin as a separate standard from Serbian is relatively recent. In the 2011 census, around 229,251 Montenegrins, of the country's 620,000, declared Montenegrin as their native language. That figure
668-705: A World War II Chetnik leader. Years later, Croatian Serb leader Milan Babić testified that Momčilo Đujić had financially supported the Serbs in Croatia in the 1990s. Conversely, Franjo Tuđman made international visits during the late 1980s to garner support from the Croatian diaspora for the Croatian national cause. In mid-1989, political parties other than the Communist Party were first allowed, starting
835-494: A Yugoslav state was established. From the very beginning, there were slightly different literary Serbian and Croatian standards, although both were based on the same dialect of Shtokavian, Eastern Herzegovinian . In the 20th century, Serbo-Croatian served as the lingua franca of the country of Yugoslavia , being the sole official language in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (when it was called "Serbo-Croato-Slovenian"), and afterwards
1002-612: A dictionary, and a committee of Serbian and Croatian linguists was asked to prepare a pravopis . During the sixties both books were published simultaneously in Ijekavian Latin in Zagreb and Ekavian Cyrillic in Novi Sad. Yet Croatian linguists claim that it was an act of unitarianism. The evidence supporting this claim is patchy: Croatian linguist Stjepan Babić complained that the television transmission from Belgrade always used
1169-416: A distinction between the two, and again in independent Bosnia and Herzegovina , "Bosnian", "Croatian", and "Serbian" were considered to be three names of a single official language. Croatian linguist Dalibor Brozović advocated the term Serbo-Croatian as late as 1988, claiming that in an analogy with Indo-European, Serbo-Croatian does not only name the two components of the same language, but simply charts
1336-579: A fear of a civil war in Yugoslavia. By mid-1991, the Croatian War of Independence had already started. Serb-controlled areas of Croatia were part of the three "Serb Autonomous Oblasts" later known as the Republic of Serbian Krajina , bulk of which would not be under Croatian control until 1995, and the remaining parts in 1998. Croatia was first recognized as an independent state on 26 June 1991 by Slovenia , which declared its own independence on
1503-503: A group of Serbs, including a brother of the killed man, fired on vehicles on the motorway which remained open despite a UNCRO request to Croatia to close the route. Three civilians were killed in the shooting and RSK soldiers arrested five. The shooting stopped by 1 am, and the five were released in the morning and the UNCRO demanded that the motorway be reopened. The RSK 18th Corps and the chief of police in Okučani declined on instructions from
1670-590: A half hours. In response, the HV redirected the 4th Battalion of the 5th Guards Brigade, the 265th Reconnaissance Sabotage Company and the armoured company of the 123rd Brigade to dislodge the RSK troops. The RSK 54th Infantry Brigade put up strong resistance until 9 am, when its commander ordered a retreat. Still, the HV force captured the village of Bijela Stijena on the Okučani–Pakrac road and encircled Okučani by 11 pm on 1 May, before suspending its advance for
1837-560: A language law that promulgated Croatian linguistic purism as a policy that tried to implement a complete elimination of Serbisms and internationalisms. On January 15, 1944, the Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia ( AVNOJ ) declared Croatian, Serbian, Slovene, and Macedonian to be equal in the entire territory of Yugoslavia. In 1945 the decision to recognize Croatian and Serbian as separate languages
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#17327809278632004-505: A large part of the nations have lived side by side under foreign overlords. During that period, the language was referred to under a variety of names, such as "Slavic" in general or "Serbian", "Croatian" or "Bosnian" in particular. In a classicizing manner, it was also referred to as " Illyrian ". The process of linguistic standardization of Serbo-Croatian was originally initiated in the mid-19th-century Vienna Literary Agreement by Croatian and Serbian writers and philologists, decades before
2171-594: A military capture of the motorway area, but he also denied that one was needed as incidents were known to occur on a regular basis. The HV General Staff developed a plan to capture the RSK-held area of western Slavonia in December 1994. The forces were set to converge on Okučani, advancing east from Novska and west from Nova Gradiška, isolating RSK forces remaining north of the line while they are pinned down by reserve infantry brigades and Home Guard regiments. A part of
2338-435: A month of Operation Flash. It was estimated that no more than 1,500 Serbs remained living in the area by the end of June. Serbian sources claim that 283 Serbs were killed and that between 15,000 and 30,000 were made refugees, while asserting that the population of the region was 15,000 prior to the offensive. Other Serbian and Russian sources claim the population size as high as 29,000. The Croatian Helsinki Committee reported
2505-419: A new conflict was anticipated, but Serbia continued to support the RSK. HV advances restored small areas to Croatian control—through Operation Maslenica . and as the siege of Dubrovnik was lifted. Croatian towns and villages were intermittently attacked by artillery, or missiles. Cities in the RSK were also fired on by Croatian forces. The Republika Srpska , Serb-held territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
2672-523: A number of writing systems: The oldest texts since the 11th century are in Glagolitic , and the oldest preserved text written completely in the Latin alphabet is Red i zakon sestara reda Svetog Dominika , from 1345. The Arabic alphabet had been used by Bosniaks ; Greek writing is out of use there, and Arabic and Glagolitic persisted so far partly in religious liturgies. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
2839-618: A part of the Glagolitic service as late as the middle of the 19th century. The earliest known Croatian Church Slavonic Glagolitic manuscripts are the Glagolita Clozianus and the Vienna Folia from the 11th century. The beginning of written Serbo-Croatian can be traced from the tenth century and on when Serbo-Croatian medieval texts were written in four scripts: Latin , Glagolitic , Early Cyrillic , and Bosnian Cyrillic ( bosančica/bosanica ). Serbo-Croatian competed with
3006-505: A precedent for a political settlement in Kosovo —allowing Croatia to accept the plan with little possibility for it to be implemented. The RSK refused to receive, let alone accept the plan. In December 1994, Croatia and the RSK made an economic agreement to restore road and rail links, water and gas supplies and use of a part of the Adria oil pipeline . Even though a part of the agreement
3173-566: A purge of Serbs employed in public administration, especially the police. The Serbs of Croatia held a disproportionate number of official posts: in 1984, 22.6% of the members of the League of Communists of Croatia and 17.7% of appointed officials in Croatia were Serbs, including 28-31% in the Ministry of the Interior (the police). Whereas, in 1981, they represented 11.5% and in 1991, 12.2% of
3340-500: A result of interaction between words: Also, there are some exceptions, mostly applied to foreign words and compounds, that favor morphological/etymological over phonetic spelling: One systemic exception is that the consonant clusters ds and dš are not respelled as ts and tš (although d tends to be unvoiced in normal speech in such clusters): Only a few words are intentionally "misspelled", mostly in order to resolve ambiguity: Through history, this language has been written in
3507-424: A separate Montenegrin standard. Like other South Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian has a simple phonology , with the common five-vowel system and twenty-five consonants. Its grammar evolved from Common Slavic , with complex inflection , preserving seven grammatical cases in nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. Verbs exhibit imperfective or perfective aspect , with a moderately complex tense system. Serbo-Croatian
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#17327809278633674-474: A short tonic e, or leave vs. leaving? for a long tonic i, due to the prosody of final stressed syllables in English. General accent rules in the standard language: There are no other rules for accent placement, thus the accent of every word must be learned individually; furthermore, in inflection, accent shifts are common, both in type and position (the so-called " mobile paradigms "). The second rule
3841-518: A single country. Prominent members of the SDS were Milan Babić and Milan Martić , both of whom later became high-ranking RSK officials. During his later trial, Babić would testify that there was a media campaign directed from Belgrade that portrayed the Serbs in Croatia as being threatened with genocide by the Croat majority and that he fell prey to this propaganda. On 4 March 1990, a meeting of 50,000 Serbs
4008-475: A single language with two equal variants that have developed around Zagreb (western) and Belgrade (eastern)". The agreement insisted on the equal status of Cyrillic and Latin scripts, and of Ekavian and Ijekavian pronunciations. It also specified that Serbo-Croatian should be the name of the language in official contexts, while in unofficial use the traditional Serbian and Croatian were to be retained. Matica hrvatska and Matica srpska were to work together on
4175-738: A smaller state, which could include the territory captured from Croatia during the war. This plan was rejected by the UN General Assembly . Three more countries decided to recognize Croatia before the EEC-scheduled date of January 15: Estonia , the Holy See , and San Marino . The European Economic Community finally granted Croatia diplomatic recognition on 15 January 1992, and the United Nations did so in May 1992. In
4342-405: A stem change. The imperfective aspect typically indicates that the action is unfinished, in progress, or repetitive; while the perfective aspect typically denotes that the action was completed, instantaneous, or of limited duration. Some Štokavian tenses (namely, aorist and imperfect) favor a particular aspect (but they are rarer or absent in Čakavian and Kajkavian). Actually, aspects "compensate" for
4509-571: A total of 83 civilians killed, including 30 who were killed near Novi Varoš where Serb civilians and the RSK military were intermingled as they fled south towards the Republika Srpska. A portion of the 30 killed in the retreating column were casualties of HV attacks, while others were killed by RSK troops to speed up the retreat. Akashi was criticised by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) for alleging "massive" human rights abuses by
4676-835: A trans-shipment fee. The US involvement reflected a new military strategy endorsed by Bill Clinton since February 1993. In 1994, the United States, Russia , the European Union (EU) and the UN sought to replace the 1992 peace plan drafted by Cyrus Vance , Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General , which brought in the UNPROFOR. They formulated the Z-4 plan giving Serb-majority areas in Croatia substantial autonomy. After numerous and often uncoordinated development of
4843-639: A transition from the one-party system . A number of new parties were founded in Croatia, including the Croatian Democratic Union ( Croatian : Hrvatska demokratska zajednica ) (HDZ), led by Franjo Tuđman. In January 1990, the Communist Party fragmented along national lines, with the Croatian faction demanding a looser federation. At the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia , on 20 January 1990,
5010-546: A unified Yugoslav state—one in which all power would be centralized in Belgrade . In March 1989, the crisis in Yugoslavia deepened after the adoption of amendments to the Serbian constitution that allowed the Serbian republic's government to re-assert effective power over the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Up until that time, a number of political decisions were legislated from within these provinces, and they had
5177-537: A vote of the members of the parliament; "Yugoslavian" was opted for by the majority and legislated as the official language of the Triune Kingdom . The Austrian Empire , suppressing Pan-Slavism at the time, did not confirm this decision and legally rejected the legislation, but in 1867 finally settled on "Croatian or Serbian" instead. During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina ,
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5344-585: A vote on the Yugoslav federal presidency level (six members from the republics and two members from the autonomous provinces). In the Gazimestan speech , delivered on June 28, 1989, Milošević remarked on the current "battles and quarrels", saying that even though there were currently no armed battles, the possibility could not be excluded yet. The general political situation grew more tense when in 1989 Vojislav Šešelj publicly consorted with Momčilo Đujić ,
5511-413: Is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , and Montenegro . It is a pluricentric language with four mutually intelligible standard varieties , namely Serbian , Croatian , Bosnian , and Montenegrin . South Slavic languages historically formed a dialect continuum . The turbulent history of the area, particularly due to the expansion of
5678-560: Is a pro-drop language with flexible word order, subject–verb–object being the default. It can be written in either localized variants of Latin ( Gaj's Latin alphabet , Montenegrin Latin ) or Cyrillic ( Serbian Cyrillic , Montenegrin Cyrillic ), and the orthography is highly phonemic in all standards. Despite many linguistical similarities, the traits that separate all standardized varieties are clearly identifiable, although these differences are considered minimal. Serbo-Croatian
5845-521: Is likely to increase, due to the country's independence and strong institutional backing of the Montenegrin language. Serbo-Croatian is also a second language of many Slovenians and Macedonians , especially those born during the time of Yugoslavia. According to the 2002 census, Serbo-Croatian and its variants have the largest number of speakers of the minority languages in Slovenia. Outside
6012-406: Is normally voiced or voiceless if the last consonant is normally voiceless. This rule does not apply to approximants – a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants; as well as to foreign words ( Washington would be transcribed as VašinGton ), personal names and when consonants are not inside of one syllable. /r/ can be syllabic, playing the role of
6179-483: Is not different from other armies of multilingual states, or in other specific institutions, such as international air traffic control where English is used worldwide. All variants of Serbo-Croatian were used in state administration and republican and federal institutions. Both Serbian and Croatian variants were represented in respectively different grammar books, dictionaries, school textbooks and in books known as pravopis (which detail spelling rules). Serbo-Croatian
6346-525: Is not strictly obeyed, especially in borrowed words. Comparative and historical linguistics offers some clues for memorising the accent position: If one compares many standard Serbo-Croatian words to e.g. cognate Russian words, the accent in the Serbo-Croatian word will be one syllable before the one in the Russian word, with the rising tone. Historically, the rising tone appeared when the place of
6513-402: Is outdated" and that it "does not correspond with the interest of Serb people". The party program endorsed redrawing regional and municipal lines to reflect the ethnic composition of the areas, and asserted the right of territories with a "special ethnic composition" to become autonomous. This echoed Milošević position that internal Yugoslav borders should be redrawn to permit all Serbs to live in
6680-510: Is spoken by 10 million people around the world, mostly in Serbia (7.8 million), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1.2 million), and Montenegro (300,000). Besides these, Serbian minorities are found in Kosovo , North Macedonia and in Romania . In Serbia, there are about 760,000 second-language speakers of Serbian, including Hungarians in Vojvodina and the 400,000 estimated Roma. In Kosovo , Serbian
6847-643: Is spoken by the members of the Serbian minority which approximates between 70,000 and 100,000. Familiarity of Kosovar Albanians with Serbian varies depending on age and education, and exact numbers are not available. Croatian is spoken by 6.8 million people in the world, including 4.1 million in Croatia and 600,000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A small Croatian minority that lives in Italy, known as Molise Croats , have somewhat preserved traces of Croatian. In Croatia, 170,000, mostly Italians and Hungarians , use it as
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7014-455: Is still present even in the plural (unlike Russian and, in part, the Čakavian dialect ). They also have two numbers : singular and plural. However, some consider there to be three numbers ( paucal or dual, too), since (still preserved in closely related Slovene ) after two ( dva , dvije / dve ), three ( tri ) and four ( četiri ), and all numbers ending in them (e.g. twenty-two, ninety-three, one hundred four, but not twelve through fourteen)
7181-547: Is the only Slavic language with a pitch accent (simple tone ) system. This feature is present in some other Indo-European languages , such as Norwegian , Ancient Greek , and Punjabi . Neo-Shtokavian Serbo-Croatian, which is used as the basis for standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian, has four "accents", which involve either a rising or falling tone on either long or short vowels, with optional post-tonic lengths: The tone stressed vowels can be approximated in English with set vs. setting? said in isolation for
7348-401: Is typically referred to by names of its standardized varieties: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin; it is rarely referred to by names of its sub-dialects, such as Bunjevac . In the language itself, it is typically known as srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски "Serbo-Croatian", hrvatskosrpski / хрватскoсрпски "Croato-Serbian", or informally naški / нашки "ours". Throughout
7515-540: The Amnesty International expressed concern about persisting obstacles for Serbs to regain their property. They reported that Croatian Serbs continued to face discrimination in public sector employment and the restitution of tenancy rights to social housing vacated during the war. They also pointed to hate speech, " evoking fascist ideology " and the right to use minority languages and script continued to be politicized and unimplemented in some towns. However
7682-627: The Battle of Vukovar . The western Slavonia area became the scene of a JNA offensive in September and October aimed at severing all transport links between the Croatian capital, Zagreb , and Slavonia. Even though the HV managed to reclaim much territory gained by the JNA advance in operations Otkos 10 and Orkan 91 , it failed to secure the Zagreb–;Belgrade motorway and railroad significant for
7849-484: The Croatian special police , arrayed against approximately 3,500 RSK soldiers. In response to the operation, the RSK military bombarded Zagreb and other civilian centres, causing seven fatalities and injuries to 205. Forty-two HV soldiers and Croatian policemen were killed in the attack and 162 wounded. RSK casualties are disputed—Croatian authorities cited the deaths of 188 Serb soldiers and civilians with an estimated 1,000–1,200 wounded. Serbian sources, on
8016-527: The Erdut Agreement of November 1995, with the process concluded in January 1998. Since 2002, 8 October is celebrated as Croatia's Independence Day , while 25 June is recognized as Statehood Day . Previously, May 30, marking the day when the first democratic parliament was constituted in 1990, had been commemorated as Statehood Day. Although it is not a public holiday, 15 January is marked as
8183-489: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia . In the 9th century , Old Church Slavonic was adopted as the language of the liturgy in churches serving various Slavic nations. This language was gradually adapted to non-liturgical purposes and became known as the Croatian version of Old Slavonic. The two variants of the language, liturgical and non-liturgical, continued to be
8350-583: The Lika , Kordun , Banovina regions and in eastern Croatian settlements with significant Serb populations, as well as parts of western Slavonia centred on Pakrac and Okučani . In the early stages of the Log Revolution , tens of thousands of Serbs fled from Croatian controlled cities, leading to the formation of a single political entity known as the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK). The RSK's proclaimed intention to integrate politically with Serbia
8517-790: The Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) to provide training of civil-military relations, programme and budget services of the HV the same month, and the MPRI training was licensed by the US Department of State upon endorsement from Richard Holbrooke in August. The MPRI was hired because the UN arms embargo was still in place, ostensibly to prepare the HV for NATO Partnership for Peace programme participation. They trained HV officers and personnel for 14 weeks from January to April 1995. It
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#17327809278638684-469: The Ottoman Empire , resulted in a patchwork of dialectal and religious differences. Due to population migrations, Shtokavian became the most widespread supradialect in the western Balkans, intruding westwards into the area previously occupied by Chakavian and Kajkavian . Bosniaks , Croats , and Serbs differ in religion and were historically often part of different cultural circles, although
8851-926: The President of Croatia replaced the President of the Presidency, in addition to other changes. The changes in the July 1990 Croatian Constitution did not relate to the status of the Serbs, which remained identical to the one granted by the 1974 Croatian Constitution (based on the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution ). Nationalist Serbs in Croatia boycotted the Sabor and seized control of Serb-inhabited territory, setting up road blocks and voting for those areas to become autonomous . The Serb "autonomous oblasts" would soon become increasingly intent on achieving independence from Croatia. After HDZ came to power, they conducted
9018-663: The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet , and Gaj and Daničić standardized the Croatian Latin alphabet , on the basis of vernacular speech phonemes and the principle of phonological spelling. In 1850 Serbian and Croatian writers and linguists signed the Vienna Literary Agreement , declaring their intention to create a unified standard. Thus a complex bi-variant language appeared, which the Serbs officially called "Serbo-Croatian" or "Serbian or Croatian" and
9185-630: The Valun tablet , dated to the 11th century, written in Glagolitic and Latin; and the Inscription of Župa Dubrovačka , a Glagolitic tablet dated to the 11th century. The Baška tablet from the late 11th century was written in Glagolitic. It is a large stone tablet found in the small Church of St. Lucy, Jurandvor on the Croatian island of Krk that contains text written mostly in Chakavian in
9352-569: The Zagreb–Belgrade motorway and railroad, had presented Croatia with significant transport problems between the nation's capital Zagreb and the eastern region of Slavonia as well as between non-contiguous territories held by the RSK. The area was a part of United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation (UNCRO) Sector West under the United Nations Security Council peacekeeping mandate in Croatia. The attacking force consisted of 7,200 HV troops, supported by
9519-479: The ultranationalist , fascist Ustaše , backed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy within the territory of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . From 1945 it became a Socialist federal unit of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , a one-party state run by the League of Communists of Croatia created at the end of World War II in Yugoslavia . Croatia enjoyed a degree of autonomy within
9686-613: The " Vinodol Codex " of 1288, both written in the Chakavian dialect. The Shtokavian dialect literature, based almost exclusively on Chakavian original texts of religious provenance ( missals , breviaries , prayer books ) appeared almost a century later. The most important purely Shtokavian vernacular text is the Vatican Croatian Prayer Book ( c. 1400 ). Both the language used in legal texts and that used in Glagolitic literature gradually came under
9853-459: The 1921 constitution. In 1929, the constitution was suspended, and the country was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , while the official language of Serbo-Croato-Slovene was reinstated in the 1931 constitution. In June 1941, the Nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia began to rid the language of "Eastern" (Serbian) words, and shut down Serbian schools. The totalitarian dictatorship introduced
10020-414: The 1986 Serbian SANU Memorandum and the 1989 coups in Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro . As Slovenia and Croatia began to seek greater autonomy within the federation, including confederate status and even full independence, the nationalist ideas started to grow within the ranks of the still-ruling League of Communists. As Slobodan Milošević rose to power in Serbia, his speeches favored continuation of
10187-403: The 4th Battalion of the 5th Guards Brigade , the 81st Guards Battalion, an armoured company of the 123rd Brigade and the 121st Home Guard Regiment of the HV. Due to a breakdown in the chain of command , the HV attack was delayed, forcing the 81st Guards Battalion to face well prepared defenders in Dragalić . Stipetić, who toured the front line personally, reported that the delay was up to two and
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#173278092786310354-449: The 98th Infantry Brigade swam across the Sava River into the Republika Srpska on 7 May. The mop-up operations were completed by 20 May, when the last remaining RSK troops surrendered to the Croatian police on Psunj. Operation Flash was a strategic victory for Croatia. It captured 558-square-kilometre (215 sq mi) area formerly held by the RSK, and placed the entire western Slavonia region under Croatian government control and secured
10521-432: The Badinter Commission rendered a series of ten opinions. The Commission stated, among other things, that Yugoslavia was in the process of dissolution, and that the internal boundaries of Yugoslav republics could not be altered unless freely agreed upon. Factors in the preservation of Croatia's pre-war borders were the Yugoslav federal constitutional amendments of 1971 and 1974, granting that sovereign rights were exercised by
10688-475: The Balkans, there are over two million native speakers of the language(s), especially in countries which are frequent targets of immigration, such as Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, and the United States. Serbo-Croatian is a highly inflected language . Traditional grammars list seven cases for nouns and adjectives : nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , vocative , locative , and instrumental , reflecting
10855-432: The Bosnian president, Alija Izetbegović , signed Split Agreement on mutual defence , permitting the large-scale deployment of the HV in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that drove back Bosnian Serb forces and came within striking distance of Banja Luka. The March 1994 Washington Agreement , ended the Croat–Bosniak War and created conditions for provision of US military aid to Croatia. Croatia requested US military advisors from
11022-411: The Chief of the General Staff of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at the time of Operation Flash, for various war crimes, including the Zagreb rocket attacks. Milan Martić , RSK president at the time of the offensive, was convicted and sentenced to 35 years of imprisonment on 12 June 2007, and Perišić received a prison sentence of 27 years on 6 September 2011. Martić's sentence was confirmed by
11189-437: The Constitution and law." In 2017, the " Declaration on the Common Language " ( Deklaracija o zajedničkom jeziku ) was signed by a group of NGOs and linguists from former Yugoslavia . It states that all standardized variants belong to a common polycentric language with equal status. About 18 million people declare their native language as either 'Bosnian', 'Croatian', 'Serbian', 'Montenegrin', or 'Serbo-Croatian'. Serbian
11356-401: The Croatian angular Glagolitic script. The Charter of Ban Kulin of 1189, written by Ban Kulin of Bosnia, was an early Shtokavian text, written in Bosnian Cyrillic. The luxurious and ornate representative texts of Serbo-Croatian Church Slavonic belong to the later era, when they coexisted with the Serbo-Croatian vernacular literature. The most notable are the " Missal of Duke Novak" from
11523-673: The Croatian courts regularly prosecuted cases of defamation and insult to the honour and reputation of persons. These offences were classified as serious criminal offences under the Criminal Code. 45°16′N 17°12′E / 45.26°N 17.2°E / 45.26; 17.2 Serbo-Croatian language Serbo-Croatian ( / ˌ s ɜːr b oʊ k r oʊ ˈ eɪ ʃ ən / SUR -boh-kroh- AY -shən ) – also called Serbo-Croat ( / ˌ s ɜːr b oʊ ˈ k r oʊ æ t / SUR -boh- KROH -at ), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian ( SCB ), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian ( BCS ), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian ( BCMS ) –
11690-440: The Croatian variant because their languages are also Ekavian. This is a common situation in other pluricentric languages, e.g. the variants of German differ according to their prestige, the variants of Portuguese too. Moreover, all languages differ in terms of prestige: "the fact is that languages (in terms of prestige, learnability etc.) are not equal, and the law cannot make them equal". The 1946, 1953, and 1974 constitutions of
11857-506: The Croatian weekly journal Forum published the Declaration again in 2012, accompanied by a critical analysis. West European scientists judge the Yugoslav language policy as an exemplary one: although three-quarters of the population spoke one language, no single language was official on a federal level. Official languages were declared only at the level of constituent republics and provinces, and very generously: Vojvodina had five (among them Slovak and Romanian, spoken by 0.5 per cent of
12024-544: The Croats "Croato-Serbian", or "Croatian or Serbian". Yet, in practice, the variants of the conceived common literary language served as different literary variants, chiefly differing in lexical inventory and stylistic devices. The common phrase describing this situation was that Serbo-Croatian or "Croatian or Serbian" was a single language. In 1861, after a long debate, the Croatian Sabor put up several proposed names to
12191-808: The Dictionary for being unitaristic that were written by Croatian linguists. And finally, Croatian linguists ignored the fact that the material for the Pravopisni rječnik came from the Croatian Philological Society. Regardless of these facts, Croatian intellectuals brought the Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language in 1967. On occasion of the publication's 45th anniversary,
12358-462: The HV and the Croatian special police took approximately 2,100 prisoners of war . The prisoners of war, including arrested RSK officials, were transferred to detention facilities in Bjelovar, Požega and Varaždin for investigation of any involvement in war crimes. Some of the detainees were beaten or otherwise abused on the first evening of their detention, but treatment of the prisoners improved and
12525-538: The HV because of the communication system failure. In contrast, the CAF attacked RSK positions near Stara Gradiška, specifically the bridge spanning the Sava River there. In one such sortie, the air defence of the Republika Srpska shot down a CAF MiG-21 flown by Rudolf Perešin (who had defected to Austria in 1991) at 1 pm on 2 May, killing him. The RSK leadership decided to retaliate against Croatia by ordering
12692-567: The HV despite a lack of evidence to support such claims. The organization also criticised Akashi's statement of 6 May claiming that the UNHCR office in Banja Luka interviewed 100 of the refugees from western Slavonia and determined that the refugee column was subjected to HV artillery and sniper attacks. The HRW concluded that three non- Serbian speaking UNHCR staff were unlikely to conduct proper interview of 100 people in just four days, assessing
12859-652: The ICTY appeals chamber on 8 October 2008, while Perišić's conviction was overturned on 28 February 2013. As of April 2012, Croatian authorities are conducting an investigation into the killing of 23 individuals in Medari near Nova Gradiška, and charges were filed regarding the alleged mistreatment of prisoners of war in the detention facility in Varaždin. After the war ended, the Serb National Council ensured
13026-481: The Latin alphabet — which was true, but was not proof of unequal rights, but of frequency of use and prestige. Babić further complained that the Novi Sad Dictionary (1967) listed side by side words from both the Croatian and Serbian variants wherever they differed, which one can view as proof of careful respect for both variants, and not of unitarism. Moreover, Croatian linguists criticized those parts of
13193-636: The Lika region in northwestern Croatia (1368), "Evangel from Reims" (1395, named after the town of its final destination), Hrvoje's Missal from Bosnia and Split in Dalmatia (1404), and the first printed book in Serbo-Croatian, the Glagolitic Missale Romanum Glagolitice (1483). During the 13th century Serbo-Croatian vernacular texts began to appear, the most important among them being the "Istrian land survey" of 1275 and
13360-480: The Pakrac area, the HV deployed the 105th Infantry Brigade and the 52nd Home Guard Regiment. It was estimated that the RSK forces there were well entrenched and that the HV chose to envelop and pin them down rather than engage in any large-scale combat. The HV resumed its advance in the early morning of 2 May. The retreating elements of the RSK 98th and 54th Infantry Brigades mixed with civilians evacuating south towards
13527-757: The Parliament, and the only parliamentary deputies missing were some from the Serb parties that had been absent since early 1991. Germany advocated quick recognition of Croatia, in order to stop ongoing violence in Serb-inhabited areas, with Helmut Kohl requesting recognition in the Bundestag on 4 September. Kohl's position was opposed by France, the United Kingdom , and the Netherlands, but
13694-467: The Psunj forests, Bobetko appointed Stipetić to conduct mop-up operations against those troops. The HV used artillery attacks to flush approximately 1,500 RSK troops towards its positions and captured them by the end of the day. Nonetheless, the HV and the Croatian special police continued to sweep the area for any remaining RSK military personnel. One such group of about 50 soldiers of the RSK 2nd Battalion of
13861-512: The RSK authorities in Okučani permitted the evacuation of civilians; however, the civilians were quickly joined by retreating elements of the 98th and the 54th Brigades. The TG1 retreated south across the Sava River. After capture of Jasenovac, the HV 125th Home Guards Regiment and the special police advanced eastward along the Sava River. On the Nova Gradiška–Okučani axis, the RSK 54th Infantry Brigade held positions east of Okučani, facing
14028-641: The RSK held territory in the eastern Slavonia—likely increasing Croatian resolve to capture the area through military action. The controls were put in place by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 981 of 31 March 1995, establishing the United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation (UNCRO) peacekeeping force instead of UNPROFOR, and tasked the force with monitoring of Croatian international borders separating
14195-432: The RSK in 1994. The last organised RSK resistance formally ceased on 3 May, with the majority of troops surrendering the next day near Pakrac , although mop-up operations continued for another two weeks. Operation Flash was a strategic victory for Croatia resulting in the capture of a 558-square-kilometre (215 sq mi) salient held by RSK forces centred in and around the town of Okučani . The town, which sat astride
14362-718: The RSK leadership in Knin, but later agreed to reopen the road on 1 May at 6 am. However, the decision to reopen the motorway was cancelled on 30 April at 8 pm. The same night, three rocket-propelled grenades were fired into the Croatian-controlled part of Pakrac and a vehicle was attacked on the Pakrac–; Požega road located close to RSK positions, the latter resulting in one dead and one captured civilian. Hrvoje Šarinić , an advisor to Tuđman, confirmed that Croatia contemplated staging an incident which would provoke
14529-459: The RSK rear, but did not take out the Sava River bridge in Stara Gradiška. Bobetko was concerned about the RSK tanks located in the town as a possible counter-attack force and requested that the CAF use its Mil Mi-24s to prevent the RSK armour from intervening. At 5:30 am, Croatian special police moved through a gap in the RSK defences, between the 98th Infantry Brigade facing Novska and
14696-467: The RSK-held territory from Yugoslavia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as facilitating the latest Croatia–RSK ceasefire of 29 March 1994, and the December 1994 economic agreement. The situation worsened again on 28 April, when a Serb was stabbed by a Croat refugee—both of them living in the same village before 1991—at a filling station adjacent to the motorway, situated in Croatian controlled territory near Nova Gradiška . In response,
14863-503: The Republika Srpska clashed with the 265th Reconnaissance Sabotage Company near Novi Varoš , but managed to continue south. The RSK 18th Corps moved its headquarters from Stara Gradiška across the Sava River to Gradiška in Republika Srpska against the orders of General Milan Čeleketić, the chief of the RSK General Staff. The HV captured Okučani at 1 pm as the HV pincers advancing from Novska and Nova Gradiška met. At about
15030-710: The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia did not name specific official languages at the federal level. The 1992 constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , in 2003 renamed Serbia and Montenegro , stated in Article 15: "In the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Serbian language in its ekavian and ijekavian dialects and the Cyrillic script shall be official, while the Latin script shall be in official use as provided for by
15197-540: The Tactical Group 1 (TG1) defending Jasenovac, disrupting the integrity of RSK positions, and outflanking the 98th Brigade on the Novska–Okučani axis of the HV attack, where a battalion of the 1st Guards advanced along a secondary road parallel to the motorway, while one battalion from the 2nd Guards and the 3rd Guards Brigades each advanced east on the motorway itself, crushing the RSK defence. At 1 pm,
15364-576: The UNCRO Sector West—;the area where Operation Flash had just been fought. The statements were supported by the UNSC Resolution 994 . In August 1995, after Operation Storm , the UNCRO withdrew to the eastern Slavonia. The RSK defeat worsened political confrontation there and led politicians in Serbia and RSK to blame each other, and the HV's success brought about a great psychological boost for Croatia. Croatia established
15531-690: The United Nations Yasushi Akashi criticised Croatia for "mass violations" of human rights, but his statements were refuted by the Human Rights Watch and to some extent by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights rapporteur Tadeusz Mazowiecki . The 1990 revolt of the Croatian Serbs was centred on the predominantly Serb-populated areas of the Dalmatian hinterland around Knin , parts of
15698-654: The Yugoslav federation. At the turn of the 1970s, a Croatian national protest movement called the Croatian Spring was suppressed by Yugoslav leadership. Still, the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution gave increased autonomy to federal units, essentially fulfilling a goal of the Croatian Spring and providing a legal basis for independence of the federative constituents. In the 1980s, the political situation in Yugoslavia deteriorated, with national tension fanned by
15865-469: The accent shifted to the preceding syllable (the so-called "Neo-Shtokavian retraction"), but the quality of this new accent was different – its melody still "gravitated" towards the original syllable. Most Shtokavian (Neo-Shtokavian) dialects underwent this shift, but Chakavian, Kajkavian and the Old-Shtokavian dialects did not. Accent diacritics are not used in the ordinary orthography, but only in
16032-598: The area, while some were killed in a death camp in Pakračka Poljana. A campaign of ethnic cleansing was then initiated by the RSK against Croatian civilians and most non-Serbs were expelled by early 1993. After the end of the war, thousands of civilians murdered by the Serb troops were exhumed from mass graves. As the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) increasingly supported the RSK and the Croatian Police
16199-418: The artillery bombardment of Croatian urban centres. On 2 May, the RSK military attacked Zagreb and Zagreb Airport using eleven M-87 Orkan rockets carrying cluster munitions . The attack was repeated the next day. Six civilians were killed and 205 injured in the two attacks, while a policeman was killed defusing one of 500 unexploded bomblets . United States ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith called
16366-573: The attack a declaration of an all-out war. On 3 May, Croatia and the RSK reached an agreement, mediated by the personal representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations Yasushi Akashi , to end hostilities by 4 pm later that day. Consequently, the RSK General Staff instructed the 18th Western Slavonian Corps to cease fire at 3 pm. Babić in turn ordered Lieutenant Colonel Stevo Harambašić,
16533-685: The basis of its request and a positive opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Commission. In its Opinion No. 5 on the specific matter of Croatian independence, the Commission ruled that Croatia's independence should not yet be recognized, because the new Croatian Constitution did not incorporate protections for minorities required by European Community. In response to this decision, the President of Croatia Franjo Tuđman wrote to Robert Badinter, giving assurances that this deficit would be remedied. Ukraine and Latvia were
16700-525: The circumstances of the interviews as being highly suspect. In contrast to Akashi, the HRW deemed that the HV's conduct was professional. Afterwards, United Nations Commission on Human Rights rapporteur Tadeusz Mazowiecki visited the area and concluded that there were serious breaches of humanitarian law and human rights by both sides in the conflict, albeit not on a massive scale. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) issued two statements, one on 1 May and
16867-598: The commanding officer of the RSK 51st Infantry Division to surrender 7,000 troops and civilians encircled by the HV south of Pakrac to the Argentine UNCRO battalion—as agreed by with the Croatian authorities. Harambašić and about 600 troops surrendered on 3 May, while many more remained in the Psunj mountain east and southeast of Pakrac. The surrender was accepted by Pakrac chief of police, Nikola Ivkanec. As hundreds of RSK troops refused to surrender, remaining in
17034-494: The commanding officer of the RSK 98th Infantry Brigade left the unit and reported to the Corps commander that the brigade was in disarray, citing heavy losses. The HV attack aimed at capturing Jasenovac was a two-pronged advance of the 125th Home Guard Regiment supported by the special police south and east from Bročice and Drenov Bok. The TG1 offered no significant resistance, and the HV captured Jasenovac between noon and 1 pm.,
17201-519: The countries agreed to pursue a common approach by following Germany's unilateral action. On 10 October, two days after the Croatian Parliament confirmed the declaration of independence, the EEC decided to postpone any decision to recognize Croatia for two months. German foreign minister Hans Dietrich Genscher later wrote that the EEC decided to recognize Croatian independence in two months if
17368-782: The country formally declared independence in June 1991 and the dissolution of its association with Yugoslavia , it introduced a three-month moratorium on the decision when urged to do so by the European Community and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe . During that time the Croatian War of Independence started. On 8 October 1991, the Croatian Parliament severed all remaining ties with Yugoslavia. The Badinter Arbitration Committee had to rule on
17535-533: The defence of Slavonia. In January 1992, the Sarajevo Agreement was signed by representatives of Croatia, the JNA and the UN, and fighting between the two sides was paused. Ending the series of unsuccessful ceasefires, United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was deployed to Croatia to supervise and maintain the agreement. The conflict largely passed on to entrenched positions and the JNA soon retreated from Croatia into Bosnia and Herzegovina , where
17702-636: The delegations of the republics could not agree on the main issues in the Yugoslav federation. The Croatian and Slovenian delegations demanded a looser federation, while the Serbian delegation, headed by Milošević, opposed this. As a result, the Slovenian and Croatian delegates left the Congress. Having completed the anti-bureaucratic revolution in Vojvodina, Kosovo, and Montenegro, Serbia secured four out of eight federal presidency votes in 1991, and it
17869-573: The federal units, and that the federation had only the authority specifically transferred to it by the constitution. The borders had been defined by demarcation commissions in 1947. Ultimately, France and the UK backed down during the Security Council debate on the matter on 14 December, when Germany appeared determined to defy the UN resolution. On 17 December, the EEC formally agreed to grant Croatia diplomatic recognition on 15 January 1992, on
18036-537: The first to react by recognizing Croatian independence in the second week of December. The following week, Iceland and Germany recognized it, on 19 December 1991, as the first western European countries to do so. In response to the decisions of the Badinter Commission, the RSK formally declared its separation from Croatia on 19 December, but its statehood and independence were not recognized internationally. On 26 December, Yugoslavia announced plans for
18203-516: The following decades, and accepted by Croatian Zagreb grammarians in 1854 and 1859. At that time, Serb and Croat lands were still part of the Ottoman and Austrian Empires . Officially, the language was called variously Serbo-Croat, Croato-Serbian, Serbian and Croatian, Croatian and Serbian, Serbian or Croatian, Croatian or Serbian. Unofficially, Serbs and Croats typically called the language "Serbian" or "Croatian", respectively, without implying
18370-574: The former Constitution of SR Croatia, which had also treated solely Croats as a constitutive nation, saying Croatia was "national state" for Croats, "state" for Serbs and other minorities. On 21 February 1991, Croatia declared its Constitution and laws supreme to that of the SFRY, and the Parliament enacted a formal resolution on the process of disassociation ( Croatian : razdruženje ) from SFR Yugoslavia and possible new association with other sovereign republics. Over two hundred armed incidents involving
18537-463: The genitive singular is used, and after all other numbers five ( pet ) and up, the genitive plural is used. (The number one [ jedan ] is treated as an adjective.) Adjectives are placed in front of the noun they modify and must agree in both case and number with it. There are seven tenses for verbs: past , present , future , exact future, aorist , imperfect , and pluperfect ; and three moods : indicative , imperative , and conditional . However,
18704-459: The history of the South Slavs, the vernacular, literary, and written languages (e.g. Chakavian, Kajkavian, Shtokavian) of the various regions and ethnicities developed and diverged independently. Prior to the 19th century, they were collectively called "Illyria", "Slavic", "Slavonian", "Bosnian", "Dalmatian", "Serbian" or "Croatian". Since the nineteenth century, the term Illyrian or Illyric
18871-529: The incursions of the HV in zones of separation in Banovina , Kordun , Lika and northern Dalmatia , near Knin (UNCRO Sectors North and South), as well as incursions by both the HV and the military of the RSK in eastern Slavonia (UNCRO Sector East). The statement called for the withdrawal of forces from the zones of separation in the Sectors North, South and East, but failed to request any pullout from
19038-410: The influence of the vernacular, which considerably affected its phonological , morphological , and lexical systems. From the 14th and the 15th centuries, both secular and religious songs at church festivals were composed in the vernacular. Writers of early Serbo-Croatian religious poetry ( začinjavci ) gradually introduced the vernacular into their works. These začinjavci were the forerunners of
19205-481: The language of all three nations in this territory was declared "Bosnian" until the death of administrator von Kállay in 1907, at which point the name was changed to "Serbo-Croatian". With unification of the first the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes – the approach of Karadžić and the Illyrians became dominant. The official language was called "Serbo-Croato-Slovenian" ( srpsko-hrvatsko-slovenački ) in
19372-478: The latter three tenses are typically used only in Shtokavian writing, and the time sequence of the exact future is more commonly formed through an alternative construction. In addition, like most Slavic languages, the Shtokavian verb also has one of two aspects : perfective or imperfective . Most verbs come in pairs, with the perfective verb being created out of the imperfective by adding a prefix or making
19539-425: The limits of the region in which it is spoken and includes everything between the limits ('Bosnian' and 'Montenegrin'). Today, use of the term "Serbo-Croatian" is controversial due to the prejudice that nation and language must match. It is still used for lack of a succinct alternative, though alternative names have emerged, such as Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS), which is often seen in political contexts such as
19706-401: The linguistic or language-learning literature (e.g. dictionaries, orthography and grammar books). However, there are very few minimal pairs where an error in accent can lead to misunderstanding. Serbo-Croatian orthography is almost entirely phonetic. Thus, most words should be spelled as they are pronounced. In practice, the writing system does not take into account allophones which occur as
19873-522: The main force would secure the area south of the main axis of the attack, reaching the Sava River in order to prevent any reinforcements sent by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) from reaching the area. The plan included Croatian Air Force (CAF) air strikes on the only Sava River bridge in the area, located between Stara Gradiška and Gradiška . In the second phase of the offensive, a mop-up operation
20040-697: The matter. Finally, Croatian independence was internationally recognized in January 1992, when both the European Economic Community and the United Nations granted Croatia diplomatic recognition , and the country was accepted into the United Nations shortly thereafter. During the World War II period from 1941 to 1945, Croatia was established as a puppet state called the Independent State of Croatia , governed by
20207-522: The moratorium expired, and the Croatian Parliament severed all remaining ties with Yugoslavia. That particular session of the parliament was held in the INA building on Pavao Šubić Avenue in Zagreb due to security concerns provoked by recent Yugoslav air raid ; Specifically, it was feared that the Yugoslav Air Force might attack the parliament building. This decision was reached unanimously in
20374-582: The more established literary languages of Latin and Old Slavonic. Old Slavonic developed into the Serbo-Croatian variant of Church Slavonic between the 12th and 16th centuries. Among the earliest attestations of Serbo-Croatian are: the Humac tablet , dating from the 10th or 11th century, written in Bosnian Cyrillic and Glagolitic; the Plomin tablet , dating from the same era, written in Glagolitic;
20541-413: The new Croatian Parliament held its first session. President Tuđman announced his manifesto for a new Constitution and a multitude of political, economic, and social changes, including a plan for Yugoslavia as a confederation of sovereign states. On 25 July 1990, Croatia made constitutional amendments that asserted and effected its sovereignty – the "Socialist" prefix was dropped from the country's name,
20708-481: The night. The capture of Bijela Stijena effectively isolated the RSK 51st Infantry Brigade, the 59th and the 63rd Detachments and the RSK Special police battalion, as well as the 1st Battalion of the 54th Infantry Brigade and the 2nd Battalion of the 98th Infantry Brigade north of Okučani. Furthermore, the RSK force near Pakrac could not communicate with the Corps command because their communication system failed. In
20875-828: The offensive began. The weapons were stored there pursuant to the March 1994 ceasefire agreement. Nonetheless, the UNCRO did not resist the RSK troops removing the stored weapons. On 1 May 1995, Šarinić informed UNCRO of the imminent HV offensive in a telephone call to the Canadian general Raymond Crabbe at 4 am designed to let the UNCRO troops seek shelter in time. Operation Flash started through an artillery preparatory bombardment of RSK held positions at 4:30 am. Infantry and armour attacks converging from Novska, Nova Gradiška and Pakrac at Okučani and an attack from Novska towards Jasenovac commenced at various times between 5:30 and 7 am. The artillery and CAF strikes caused panic in
21042-413: The official language of four out of six republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . The breakup of Yugoslavia affected language attitudes, so that social conceptions of the language separated along ethnic and political lines. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnian has likewise been established as an official standard in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there is an ongoing movement to codify
21209-402: The original seven cases of Proto-Slavic , and indeed older forms of Serbo-Croatian itself. However, in modern Shtokavian the locative has almost merged into dative (the only difference is based on accent in some cases), and the other cases can be shown declining; namely: Like most Slavic languages, there are mostly three genders for nouns: masculine, feminine, and neuter, a distinction which
21376-546: The other hand, claimed that 283 Serb civilians were killed, contrary to the 83 reported by the Croatian Helsinki Committee . It is estimated that out of 14,000 Serbs living in the region, two-thirds fled immediately with more following in subsequent weeks. By the end of June, it is estimated that only 1,500 Serbs remained. Subsequently, the personal representative of the Secretary-General of
21543-470: The other on 4 May 1995, during and immediately after the operation, respectively. The first statement demanded that Croatia end its attack in the area, and that both Croatia and the RSK should abide with the economic and ceasefire agreements in place. The second statement reiterated the requests made three days earlier, adding the UNSC's condemnation of RSK attacks on Zagreb and other population centres, urged an immediate ceasefire brokered by Akashi and condemned
21710-407: The partial return of Serbs to areas exposed to Operations Flash, through the struggle for their fundamental human rights. The Human Rights Watch reported in 1999 that Serbs do not enjoy their civil rights as Croatian citizens, as a result of discriminatory laws and practices, particularly true for Serbs living in the four former United Nations Protected Areas, including Western Slavonia. In 2017 report,
21877-399: The period following the declaration of independence, the war escalated, with the sieges of Vukovar and Dubrovnik , and fighting elsewhere, until a ceasefire of 3 January 1992 led to stabilization and a significant reduction in violence. With the end of 1991, the second Yugoslavia effectively ceased to exist as a state , with the prime minister Ante Marković and the president of
22044-399: The plan, including leaking of its draft elements to the press in October, the Z-4 plan was presented on 30 January 1995. Neither Croatia nor the RSK liked the plan. Croatia was concerned that the RSK might accept it, but Croatian President Franjo Tuđman realised that Slobodan Milošević , who would ultimately make the decision for the RSK, would not accept the plan for fear that it would set
22211-410: The political leadership of the Republika Srpska as well as the RSK Main Staff . They thought that the HV might attack other RSK-held areas and because of the NATO Operation Deny Flight —enforcing a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina which would have to be overflown to assist the 18th Corps. The RSK deployed only two helicopters to support the corps, but they could not be directed against
22378-400: The population), and Kosovo four (Albanian, Turkish, Romany and Serbo-Croatian). Newspapers, radio and television studios used sixteen languages, fourteen were used as languages of tuition in schools, and nine at universities. Only the Yugoslav People's Army used Serbo-Croatian as the sole language of command, with all other languages represented in the army's other activities—however, this
22545-412: The presidency Stjepan Mesić resigning in December 1991, and a caretaker government representing it until the country's formal dissolution in April 1992. The war effectively ended in August 1995 with a decisive victory for Croatia as a result of Operation Storm . Croatia established its present-day borders when the remaining Serb-held areas of eastern Slavonia were restored to Croatia pursuant to
22712-470: The province of Dalmatia as Croatia was hosting the 1990 European Athletics Championships in Split . On 21 December 1990, a new " Christmas Constitution " was passed, that adopted a liberal democracy . The constitution defined Croatia as "the national state of the Croatian nation and a state of members of other nations and minorities who are its citizens: Serbs... who are guaranteed equality with citizens of Croatian nationality...." The status of Serbs
22879-470: The rebel Serbs and Croatian police were reported between August 1990 and April 1991. On 19 May 1991, the Croatian authorities held the Croatian referendum on independence . Serb local authorities called for a boycott of the vote, which was largely followed by Croatian Serbs. In the end, a majority of Croatians endorsed independence from Yugoslavia, with a turnout of 83.56% and the two referendum questions answered positively by 93.24% and 92.18% (resp.) of
23046-408: The relative lack of tenses, because verbal aspect determines whether the act is completed or in progress in the referred time. The Serbo-Croatian vowel system is simple, with only five vowels in Shtokavian. All vowels are monophthongs . The oral vowels are as follows: The vowels can be short or long, but the phonetic quality does not change depending on the length. In a word, vowels can be long in
23213-457: The rich literary production of the 16th-century literature, which, depending on the area, was Chakavian-, Kajkavian-, or Shtokavian-based. The language of religious poems, translations, miracle and morality plays contributed to the popular character of medieval Serbo-Croatian literature. One of the earliest dictionaries, also in the Slavic languages as a whole, was the Bosnian–Turkish Dictionary of 1631 authored by Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi and
23380-463: The same day as Croatia. But by 29 June, the Croatian and Slovenian authorities agreed to a three-month moratorium on the independence declaration, in an effort to ease tensions. The Brijuni Agreement was formally signed in a meeting of the European Community Ministerial Troika, the Yugoslav, Serbian, Slovenian and Croatian authorities on 7 July. Lithuania was the sole state that recognized Croatia on 30 July. The Badinter Arbitration Committee
23547-416: The same time, the command of the RSK 54th Infantry Brigade arrived to Stara Gradiška having evacuated from Okučani, and ordered an artillery strike on Nova Gradiška in retaliation. Even though a token support of 195 RSK troops arrived to the area from eastern Slavonia, they refused to fight upon learning of the developments on the battleground. The RSK 18th Corps requests for close air support were denied by
23714-403: The stressed syllable and the syllables following it, never in the ones preceding it. The consonant system is more complicated, and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. As in English, voice is phonemic , but aspiration is not. In consonant clusters all consonants are either voiced or voiceless. All the consonants are voiced if the last consonant
23881-447: The syllable nucleus in certain words (occasionally, it can even have a long accent). For example, the tongue-twister navrh brda vrba mrda involves four words with syllabic /r/ . A similar feature exists in Czech , Slovak , and Macedonian . Very rarely other sonorants can be syllabic, like /l/ (in bicikl ), /ʎ/ (surname Štarklj ), /n/ (unit njutn ), as well as /m/ and /ɲ/ in slang . Apart from Slovene , Serbo-Croatian
24048-403: The time, Červenko was acting chief of the General Staff as General Janko Bobetko was hospitalized in Zagreb. Croatia deployed 7,200 troops to conduct the attack, including elements of three guards brigades and an independent guards battalion supported by special forces of the Croatian Police and reserve HV and Home Guard troops. The 18th West Slavonian Corps of the RSK, defending the area,
24215-470: The total number of votes. On 25 June 1991, the country declared its independence from the SFRY, finalizing its effort to end its status as a constituent republic. That decision of the parliament decision was partially boycotted by left-wing party deputies. The European Economic Community and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe immediately urged both Croatia and Slovenia that they would not be recognized as independent states because of
24382-446: The total population of Croatia. An even greater proportion of those posts had been held by Serbs in Croatia earlier on, which created a perception that the Serbs were guardians of the communist regime. President Tuđman made several clumsy remarks — such as the one from an 16 April 1990 speech that he was 'glad that his wife is not a Serb' that the Croatian historian Ante Nazor has described as something taken out of context. All this
24549-415: The use of strategically important road and rail links between the capital and the east of the country. Croatian military losses in the offensive were 42 killed and 162 wounded. Croatia initially estimated that the RSK military sustained 350–450 killed and 1,000–1,200 wounded. The number of killed in action was later revised to 188. This figure included military and civilian deaths. On 3–4 May,
24716-449: The war had not ended by then. With the war still ongoing when the deadline expired, Germany presented its decision to recognize Croatia as its policy and duty. Germany's position was supported by Italy and Denmark. France and the UK attempted to prevent German recognition by drafting a United Nations resolution requesting that no country take unilateral actions which could worsen the situation in Yugoslavia. Starting in late November 1991,
24883-524: The war. The political crisis escalated when the Serb-populated areas attempted to form an enclave called Serbian Krajina which intended to separate from Croatia if Croatia itself attempted to separate from Yugoslavia. The Serb leadership in Krajina refused to recognize the government of the Republic of Croatia as having sovereignty over them. The crisis began in August 1990 with the Log Revolution as Croatian Serbs cut down trees and used them to block roads. This hampered Croatian tourism and caused alarm in
25050-416: Was a kind of soft standardisation. However, legal equality could not dampen the prestige Serbo-Croatian had: since it was the language of three quarters of the population, it functioned as an unofficial lingua franca. And within Serbo-Croatian, the Serbian variant, with twice as many speakers as the Croatian, enjoyed greater prestige, reinforced by the fact that Slovene and Macedonian speakers preferred it to
25217-413: Was able to heavily influence decision-making at the federal level, because unfavorable decisions could be blocked; this rendered the governing body ineffective. This situation led to objections from other republics and calls for reform of the Yugoslav Federation. In February 1990, Jovan Rašković founded the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) in Knin . Its program stated that the "regional division of Croatia
25384-404: Was also speculated that the MPRI also provided doctrinal advice, scenario planning and US government satellite information to Croatia. MPRI and Croatian officials dismissed such speculation. In November 1994, the United States unilaterally ended the arms embargo against Bosnia and Herzegovina, in effect allowing the HV to supply itself as 30% of arms and ammunition shipped through Croatia was kept as
25551-406: Was changed from an explicitly mentioned nation ( narod ) to a nation listed together with minorities ( narodi i manjine ). This constitutional change was also read by the majority of Serb politicians as taking away some of the rights that the Serbs had been granted by the previous Socialist constitution, and it fuelled extremism among the Serbs of Croatia. This was not based on the literal reading of
25718-417: Was deliberately distorted by Milošević's media in order to artificially spark fear that any form of an independent Croatia is a new " ustashe state": in one instance, TV Belgrade showed Tuđman shaking hands with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl , accusing them of plotting to impose "a Fourth Reich". The new Tuđman government was nationalistic and insensitive towards Serbs, but did not pose a threat to them before
25885-573: Was designed to eliminate any pockets of resistance left over. The HV General Staff and the HV Bjelovar Corps performed a full-scale staff and field rehearsal for Operation Flash in February. The operation was directed by the Bjelovar Corps commanded by Brigadier Luka Džanko , although the HV General Staff set up three forward command posts to allow rapid reaction by Lieutenant General Zvonimir Červenko . The primary posts were in Novska and Nova Gradiška, under control of Major General Ivan Basarac and Lieutenant General Petar Stipetić respectively. At
26052-408: Was expected to have 4,773 troops at its disposal, as it ordered mobilization of the troops on 28–29 April. The move brought the 18th Corps, commanded by Colonel Lazo Babić, to strength of about 4,500 troops. An RSK commission set up to evaluate the battle claimed that some of the RSK units were not able to retrieve antitank weapons from UNCRO depots in Stara Gradiška and near Pakrac until after
26219-568: Was held at Petrova Gora . People at the rally shouted negative remarks aimed at Tuđman, chanted "This is Serbia", and expressed support for Milošević. In late April and early May 1990, the first multi-party elections were held in Croatia, with Franjo Tuđman 's win resulting in further nationalist tensions. A tense atmosphere prevailed in 1990: on 13 May 1990, a football game was held in Zagreb between Zagreb 's Dinamo team and Belgrade's Crvena Zvezda team. The game erupted into violence between football fans and police. On 30 May 1990,
26386-401: Was involved in the war in a limited capacity, through military and other aid to the RSK, occasional air raids launched from Banja Luka , and most significantly through artillery attacks against several cities. The HV deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in a campaign against the Bosnian Serbs. The intervention was formalized on 22 July 1995, when Croatian President Franjo Tuđman and
26553-494: Was never implemented, the pipeline and a 23.2-kilometre (14.4 mi) section of the Zagreb–Belgrade motorway passing through RSK territory around Okučani were opened, shortening travel from the capital to Slavonia by several hours. Since its opening, the motorway section became of strategic importance both to Croatia and the RSK in further negotiations. The section was closed by the RSK for 24 hours on 24 April, in response to increased control of commercial traffic leaving
26720-459: Was reversed in favor of a single Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian language. In the Communist -dominated second Yugoslavia , ethnic issues eased to an extent, but the matter of language remained blurred and unresolved. In 1954, major Serbian and Croatian writers, linguists and literary critics, backed by Matica srpska and Matica hrvatska signed the Novi Sad Agreement , which in its first conclusion stated: "Serbs, Croats and Montenegrins share
26887-432: Was revised by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in the 19th century. Independence of Croatia The independence of Croatia was a process started with the changes in the political system and the constitutional changes in 1990 that transformed the Socialist Republic of Croatia into the Republic of Croatia , which in turn proclaimed the Christmas Constitution , and held the 1991 Croatian independence referendum . After
27054-446: Was set up by the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community (EEC) on 27 August 1991 to provide legal advice and criteria for recognition to former Yugoslav republics. The five-member commission consisted of presidents of constitutional courts in the EEC. On 7 October, the eve of expiration of the moratorium, the Yugoslav Air Force attacked Banski dvori , the main government building in Zagreb . On 8 October 1991,
27221-421: Was unable to cope with the situation, the Croatian National Guard (ZNG) was formed in May 1991. The ZNG was renamed the Croatian Army (HV) in November. The establishment of the military of Croatia was hampered by a United Nations (UN) arms embargo introduced in September. The final months of 1991 saw the fiercest fighting of the war, culminating in the Battle of the barracks , the Siege of Dubrovnik , and
27388-427: Was used quite often (thus creating confusion with the Illyrian language ). Although the word Illyrian was used on a few occasions before , its widespread usage began after Ljudevit Gaj and several other prominent linguists met at Ljudevit Vukotinović 's house to discuss the issue in 1832. The term Serbo-Croatian was first used by Jacob Grimm in 1824, popularized by the Viennese philologist Jernej Kopitar in
27555-465: Was viewed as generally good. Three Jordanian soldiers serving with the UNCRO were wounded by HV fire. Another consequence of Operation Flash was the displacement of the Serb population from the area—estimated at 13,000 to 14,000 prior to 1 May 1995. Two-thirds of that population fled the region during or immediately after the Croatian offensive. Furthermore, 2,000 were evacuated to Serb-held areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina on their own request within
27722-485: Was viewed by the Croatian Government as an act of rebellion. By March 1991, the conflict had escalated to war—the Croatian War of Independence . In June 1991, with the breakup of Yugoslavia , Croatia declared its independence , which came into effect on 8 October after a three-month moratorium. From late October to late December 1991, the HV conducted Operations Otkos 10 and Orkan 91 recapturing 60% of RSK-occupied western Slavonia, resulting in Serbs fleeing from
27889-402: Was written in the Arebica script. In the mid-19th century, Serbian (led by self-taught writer and folklorist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ) and most Croatian writers and linguists (represented by the Illyrian movement and led by Ljudevit Gaj and Đuro Daničić ), proposed the use of the most widespread dialect, Shtokavian , as the base for their common standard language. Karadžić standardised
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