Introduction

This article is an extract of a larger text I am writing for my children and, ultimately, my descendants. I do not apologise for inconsistencies in the language or writing style, as this is not a technical history. It is simply a more formal version of what happened in the past where an elder orally passed on the family traditions to his offspring.

My family’s Australian heritage began with the arrival of my parents in Western Australia from Novi Vinodol, Croatia, then a part of Yugoslavia. My father arrived as a seven year old with his mother and brother in 1929. Mum, aged five, arrived with her mother in 1930.

Both my grandfathers were already in Australia at the time. Frank Piskulich emigrated here in 1926 and worked as a miner in Kalgoorlie Western Australia. Peter Dobric managed a farm in the wheat belt. Peter originally arrived in Western Australia in 1913 but spent a couple of years back in Croatia before returning to Australia in 1924. Similarly Frank Piskulich spent the years between 1910 and 1919 in New Zealand (mostly involved in digging Kauri gum, a semi fossilised product of ancient forests used to manufacture a form of varnish).

This scenario was very common in the early days. The men travelled to a new land first, found work, and when they’d saved enough, brought out their families.

With the passage of time many of our old stories, history and traditions were lost. I can’t resurrect what’s gone but I can try to record what is left and add a little background about our heritage. I am sure I have missed many interesting facts about our origins but there is certainly enough in the following stories to give you an idea of who we are and where we came from.

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge and thank the numerous authors and webmasters whose work enabled me to confirm much of the information appearing in this document. To brighten up its presentation I have included several drawings and photographs obtained from Internet and other sources and where possible these have been appropriately cited.

A brief history of Croatia

Modern Croatia is a small, boomerang shaped country facing the Adriatic Sea in central Europe. Located at the northern end of the Balkan Peninsula, it shares borders with six neighbouring countries. They are Slovenia to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the south and Italy to the west across the Adriatic Sea. The geographic shape of Croatia, along with its numerous and diverse neighbours gives an idea of the forces of history in the region.

The first Croats In pre-history, the native peoples of the region were Celts and Illyrians. Around 200 BC they were conquered and subsequently administered by Rome until the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The Albanian people are probably descendants of Romanised Illyrians driven out of the region by the Gothic and later Slavic invasions. It is highly likely that many of these people also stayed in the area and integrated into the invading Slav tribes.

The palaeontological record of the region is interesting. The high mountains of Croatia supported one of the last enclaves of Neanderthal people in Europe. It seems that the Neanderthals were driven to the less hospitable parts of the continent by the rise of modern man and died out about 35 000 years ago.

It is generally believed that the first Croats were tribal Slavs from the Carpathian Mountains in the region bordered by modern Ukraine and Poland. In successive waves, they migrated through central Europe, arriving in the Balkans around the early 7th century. This theory is supported by similarities in regional languages as well as historical references to early Croats in the Ukraine, Poland, Bohemia and Austria. There is even evidence of a tribal kingdom called ‘White Croatia’ (Bielo Chorvati) that existed in Poland near modern Krakow, until it was overwhelmed by other invading tribes in the 10th century. One source claims that the mother of our Polish born Pope, John Paul II, stated her race as ‘White Croat’.

The ‘White Croats’ established themselves in the north and the ‘Red Croats’ were their kin who carried on south to present day Croatia and Bosnia. Legend has it that this historical relationship is celebrated in the design of the red and white ‘chequerboard’ Croatian flag that dates back to mediaeval times.

There are historical references to early Slavonic tribes in Eastern Europe dating back to Roman times. The Romans referred to them as the ‘Venedi’ (Wends) and ‘Wendish’ is recognised as an ancient Slavonic language, remnants of which still appear in some parts of eastern and central Europe.

The earlier origins of the Croats are unclear. There are several theories but little hard evidence. I like the story that we are related to the ‘Sarmatians’: warlike nomads who conquered much of Eastern Europe during Roman times. The Aryan Sarmatians’ roots lie in ancient Persia. They were superb horsemen and legend has it that unmarried Sarmatian women fought alongside their men as equals, giving rise to the ancient Greek stories of Amazon women warriors. Sarmatian tribesmen probably mixed with early Slavs, adopted their language and settled the lower Danube region.

Some Croat scholars believe that the original Croatian tribes were formed from some of these Sarmatian/Slav unions and this link is supported by the existence of two Sarmatian 3rd century stone tablets held in the St Petersburg Archaeological Museum in Russia. Found in the Crimean seaport of Tanais, they refer to ‘Horovathos’, Greek for Croat.

It is also coincidental that the last remnants of the Sarmatian tribes faded away by the 6th century, at about the same time the Croats appeared and started their westward journey. Still, it is largely conjecture and the possible eastern origins of the Croats will probably never be proved. Recent DNA surveys show that they are genetically similar to most other central European peoples.

3rd century Crimean stone inscription referring to ‘Horovathos’ (Croat)
Source: http://www.hr/darko/etf/et03.html

The Sarmatians clashed violently with the Romans and there is a historical story that in the late 2nd century, a cavalry force of nearly 6000 Sarmatian prisoners of war was drafted into the Roman army. This force was posted to Roman Britain to control northern Celtic incursions and remained in place for generations. When the Romans left Britain in the early fifth century, they left behind the descendents of these soldiers who, in the administrative vacuum, formed the nucleus of a feudal warrior class.

Sarmatian imagery included dragons, stone alters and swords, and a Romanised Sarmatian battle commander carried the honorary title ‘Artorius’ so it is not too difficult to see why a theory persists that the legendary King Arthur was of Sarmatian descent. I’m sure the Brits would be pleased with the idea that their famous mythical king may have been an early Croat!

The following image of a European Sarmatian warrior certainly would not be out of place in ancient British mythology so there may be some truth in the King Arthur story.

Sarmatian warrior
Source: http://www.livius.org/sao-sd/sarmatians/sarmatians.html

The Samartians in Europe were to be overwhelmed, in turn by the Goths and the Huns and there is little doubt that today’s eastern and central Europeans, including Croats, carry traces of the genes of these early tribes.

I once read a statement from one source suggesting that only about one third of today’s Croats are true ethnic Slavs. This comment may have racist overtones but it does give an idea of the diverse genetic background of central Europeans. Croatia is at the crossroads of Europe.

This racial diversity is demonstrated by Catholic ‘Vlach’ settlers in my ancestral region of the Vinodol, first mentioned in 1405 but with a significant influx in the early 1600s escaping the protracted Turkish wars of the time. The Vlachs (Wallachians) were a non-Slavic people, possibly descended from Roman soldiers posted to what is now Bulgaria and Rumania. They were nomadic herders who tended to adopt the culture and religion of the dominant race of their area.

In the Vinodol, the Vlachs were recognised as good warriors and experts with livestock. They were welcomed by the local authorities and given some privileges, but lived separately from the local Croats. Even today, there is a small ethnic group living near Rijeka describing themselves as ‘Istro-Romanians’. These people are most likely descended from those early Vlach settlers.

The great Croatian migration
In the early 7th century, Croatian tribes invaded the former Roman provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia. According to ancient Croatian legend, the first Croats to enter the new lands were led by siblings: five brothers; Klukas, Lobel, Kosijanac, Muhlo and Hrvat and two sisters Tuga and Buga.

According to one source, the Croats and Serbs were encouraged to enter the Balkans by the Byzantine/Roman Emperor Heraclius (610 – 641) as a buffer against Avar tribes and others who were threatening the eastern empire. This story may have been a contemporary oversimplification. Although Croats would like to believe that they were welcomed into the Balkans, other sources suggest that they were brutal pagan conquerors who fought for the Avars as much as against them and there are historical stories of Croats aiding the Avars in attacking and overwhelming Byzantine outposts and towns.

The Avars were a tribe of fierce central Asian nomads who had established themselves in the Balkans after leaving their homeland some 100 years earlier. Their migration may have been a consequence of a cataclysmic event about 535 AD, possibly a huge volcanic explosion of Krakatoa (Indonesia) or the impact of a small comet. Whatever the event, researchers believe it created an enormous, worldwide, dust cloud and resulted in the equivalent of a nuclear winter that lasted several years This event coincides with the start of the period known as the dark ages, presumably dark in both history and climate. The result was major climate change and devastation around the world that disrupted many societies including the Avars. This tribe relied heavily on their horses, which could not survive in their home region through the loss of grasslands, forcing a mass migration. The consequences of this event probably also influenced the Slavic migrations into central Europe and the Balkans.

Eventually the Croatian tribes settled down under Byzantine rule, mixed with the local Romanised inhabitants and slowly adopted Christianity. This state of affairs persisted well into the 8th century when Byzantine influence over the Croat tribes waned. After The Frankish king Charlemagne the Great (742-814), crushed the Avars and drove them back in to present day Hungary he threatened the Croats with a similar fate. The Croats quickly accepted the sovereignty of the Franks and embraced the Roman Church rites. By the 9th century, most Croats were Roman Catholics. Christianity and the Catholic faith were significant influences in Croatian history. It is believed that in the late 800s, the Roman Popes, Adrian II and his successor John VIII, allowed the Slav speaking Byzantine bishops (later saints) Cyril and Methodius to say mass for Croats in Slavonic. At that time the relationship between the eastern and western branches of the church was cordial and this event is quite plausible. There is certainly evidence that many Croatian bishoprics were authorised to conduct the Catholic rites both in spoken and written (Glagolitic) Croatian by the mid 1200s. Throughout their history, Croats delivered the mass in their Slavonic language often in defiance of Papal demands to use Latin. It wasn’t until Vatican II in the 1960s that all other Catholic nations were allowed to deliver the mass in their native languages! Legends persist about a Pope John VIII who was actually an English (in some versions, German) female impersonating a man. Nicknamed Pope Joan, she is alleged to have come to a violent end after giving birth during a Papal procession in Rome around 855! The historical records of the time are so sketchy that her existence will probably never be proved, but it seemed like fun to mention her in this story.

Serbia
Serbian tribes are thought to have entered the Balkans at about the same time as the Croats, although I found one reference to a Slavic tribe in Serbia at the start of the 6th century so they may have arrived earlier. In many ways their early history complements our own and some Serbs also believe that they are descended from Sarmatian tribes that mixed with early eastern Slavs.

The Serbs were Christianised at about the same time as the Croats, although they remained under Byzantine influence for much longer and retained the Byzantine church rites, now Orthodox Christianity.

An independent Serbian kingdom had developed by the 13th century. By the reign of King Stefan Dušan (1331-55), Serbia was a powerful, independent, Balkan state with dominions stretching into modern day Greece. Defeat at the battle of ‘Kosovo Polje’ (Kosovo Field) in 1389 brought them under Turkish domination until the late 19th century. Modern Kosovo, now largely occupied by Islamic Albanians, featured in the strife and atrocities between Serbs and Albanians in the late 1990’s.

An event that had a profound effect on the Croats and their Balkan neighbours was the ‘Great Schism’ of 1054, when the eastern, Orthodox Christian Church split completely from the west. Croats remained Catholic but the Serbs followed the Orthodox faith.

Before and during the Yugoslav era there was a push, particularly by Serbian leaders, to define the Serbs and Croats as one people. They certainly share Slavic origins and in modern times they share a similar language and culture, although that is largely due to a common ‘Yugoslav’ identity imposed between 1920 and 1991. I don’t believe that Croats and Serbs are that closely related and I think we could claim equal relationship to other Slavs like the Czechs, Poles and Slovenians.

Croats and Serbs occupied distinctly separate regions in the Balkans throughout recorded history, used different written alphabets and followed different religions for more than a thousand years. Croatia historically identifies with central and western Europe where Serbia tends to follow the east. This is largely influenced by their religion, which is directly related to Russian and Greek Orthodox Christianity. Also, Serbia’s five centuries of subjugation by the Islamic Turks has developed in them a unique Serbian national psyche. They are a fiercely proud people with a tough and uncompromising spirit.

Unified Croatia
Between the 7th and 9th centuries, Croatia consisted of loosely connected but independent tribal groups operating under first Byzantine and then Frankish influence. Tomislav (910 – 928) became the first known ruler of a more or less unified Croatian kingdom in about 924. This kingdom persisted until King Zvonimir died in about 1090 without an heir. Petar Svacic claimed the crown between 1093 and 1097 but civil war erupted and his defeat by a coalition of Croatian and Hungarian nobles supporting Zvonimir’s Hungarian Brother-in-law put an end to a pure Croatian monarchy.

A Croatian soldier of the 11th Century
Source: http://pubwww.srce.hr/husar/

After much violence and intrigue, the Croatian crown was eventually amalgamated with Hungary in about 1102 and Croatia became an autonomous, feudal kingdom with its own Parliament (Sabor) and Viceroy (Ban) under the Hungarian king Coloman. Croatia, as a partly autonomous state within another state, persisted for nearly 900 years until the recent civil war with Yugoslavia when it finally gained full independence again.

Within a few years of Croatia being absorbed into the Hungarian empire, Venice tried to wrest control of coastal Croatia and Dalmatia. Occupied by Croatian people from one of the earliest migrations, Dalmatia is a strip of land along the Adriatic Sea running from near the town of Senj, south, to Dubrovnik. It was a valuable maritime resource and Hungary and Venice fought numerous wars over the region for the next 300 years. Eventually, most of Dalmatia was sold to Venice in a dubious political settlement and remained in Venetian hands from the early 1400’s until the late 1700’s when much of it was taken over again by Austria.

An insight into the politics and intrigues of those times is encapsulated in one event. The Fourth Crusade against Islam never actually got to the Holy Land, its proponents being content to wreak havoc in the Balkans instead. To repay campaign debts to Venice, the crusading Catholic knights sacked the Catholic Dalmatian city of Zadar in 1202. Two years later the same Crusaders attacked and looted Constantinople, the seat of the eastern Christian Church, another event that widened the rift between Orthodox and Catholic Christians. The Crusade established Venetian influence in the Balkans.

Strife continued in the region over the centuries. Our ancestral town, Novi Vinodol was almost destroyed by Venice in the early 17th century.

Croats have had a love-hate relationship with Italy for a millennium. There were Croatian-speaking enclaves existing in Italy from Venetian to modern times, and many Italian words appear in the dialects of Croats living along the coast. One story claims that the great Venetian explorer, Marco Polo (1254-1324), was a Croat, descended from a family that had migrated to Venice from central Dalmatia.

The Mongol hordes
Croatia, along with most of central and eastern Europe, was devastated by the Mongol hordes in 1241-42.

The Mongols (sometimes erroneously called Tartars) under Ghengis Khan began attacking Europe in the 1220s. They brutalised and conquered most of Russia and then headed west in the late 1230s. In almost every battle, the Christian armies were destroyed and much of Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Austria and the Balkans were laid waste by Batu, grandson of Ghengis Khan. It is known that the Mongols overran Zagreb and swept through Dalmatia but were unable to take the Vinodol. They were terrible times. The extent of death and destruction dealt out by the Mongols was compared to an epidemic of the black plague.

The Mongols withdrew suddenly in 1242, probably because of a power struggle within the ruling Mongol hierarchy at home. Although, in their ancient legends, the Polish people claim that their heroism in battle drove away the Mongols!

The Turkish Wars
Although the Western Roman Empire had disintegrated by the end of the 5th century, the Eastern Byzantine Empire persisted, at least in parts, until the Muslim Turks finally conquered it in the 1400’s. Turkish Istanbul was formerly Byzantine Constantinople.

The Turks (Ottomans) began attacking and occupying parts of Croatia from the 1400’s, having previously absorbed Serbia into the Turkish Empire. They brutally

sacked and annexed much of the region after destroying a Croatian-Hungarian army at the battle of Mohacs in 1526. These events led to the Habsburgs of Austria assuming control of Croatia and establishing a military frontier (Vojna Krajina) near the present day Croatian-Bosnian border. Orthodox Christian Serbs and Vlachs, fleeing the Turks, established settlements and provided troops for the border garrisons. These Serb enclaves persisted in Croatia until many of their descendents fled during the recent war of partition between Croatia and Yugoslavia (1991-1995). In 1566, Nikola Subich-Zrinski, a Croatian nobleman with family ties to the Vinodol, led a heroic, but suicidal, battle with the Turks at Szigetvar (near the present Croatian-Hungarian border). With about 2,500 Croatian and Hungarian soldiers he confronted a force of 90,000 Turks intent on attacking Vienna. He and his soldiers were wiped out but their action saved Vienna.

This story is fascinating in several ways. Legend has it that, prior to the final attack, the Croatian and Hungarian women of Szigetvar chose to be killed by their men rather than fall into the hands of the Turks who were known for their cruelty. The Croat soldiers are reputed to have removed their armour in their final charge to allow them to fight more freely (and die more quickly).

Another twist is that the Sultan is believed to have died days before the final battle and his death was concealed from his troops so that they would continue to fight. Apparently his body was sat in a chair overlooking the battlefield to give the impression he was still in charge! The Turks eventually abandoned the expedition and returned to Constantinople. This combination of events saved Vienna and is believed to have been a turning point in the centuries of conflict.

Final moments of Nikola Subich Zrinski
Source: http://homepage.hispeed.ch/silversurfer/

After more wars, punctuated by deceit and political intrigue (mostly detrimental to the Croats who were probably seen as a threat equal to the Turks by the Viennese Habsburgs), most Croatian territory was free of the Turkish threat by the end of the 17th century. Other parts of the Balkans did not escape Turkish occupation for another 200 years and military struggle between the Austrian Empire and the Turks persisted into the 19th century. Croatian soldiers were often in the forefront of these battles.

An interesting historical incident occurred in 1573 when Matija Gubec led a peasant rebellion against the Croatian noble classes as a result of their profiteering due to the strife with the Turks. The revolt was crushed and its supporters brutally executed. We may have had a completely different Balkan situation today if the uprising was successful.

Croats bore the brunt of the Turkish attempts to invade Europe for hundreds of years and ultimately prevented Islamic penetration into Western Europe. A Catholic Pope once referred to Croatia as the ‘Bulwark of Christianity’.

Although notionally autonomous for most of its history, Croatia remained uncomfortably (and sometimes brutally) under Austro-Hungarian domination until the end of the Great War of 1914 – 1918. The only exception was from about 1806 to 1813 when parts of it were ceded to France during the Napoleonic domination of Europe.

In the mid 1800s there was a movement to re-unite Dalmatia and Croatia but an agreement between the Hungarians and Austrians restructured the Austrian Empire as the dualistic state of Austria–Hungary in 1867. Dualism effectively prevented unification of Croat lands. Dalmatia and Istria belonged to the Austrian part of the Monarchy and Croatia proper to the Hungarian part. This arrangement remained in place until the disintegration of the Monarchy in 1918.

As a child, I never understood the friction that existed between some Croats and Dalmatians living in Australia. It is only since researching their history did I discover the gulf that divided them. For nearly 500 years they were ruled separated and only really came together again in my parent’s lifetime.

Islamic Slavs
During the 400 years of Turkish occupation of the southern Balkans, many Slavs and Albanians converted to Islam. Christians under Turkish administration were denied many of the privileges of Islamic subjects and the converts were probably motivated by the practicalities of life rather than religious conviction. Parts of Bosnia and Serbia are Islamic to this day, another issue contributing to the strife that plagues the Balkans.

The Turks had a curious and cruel custom. They kidnapped Slav boys from villages under their control, forcibly converted them to Islam and trained them in military and administrative skills. The most successful often became high-ranking officials, the remainder drafted into an elite infantry corps called the ‘Janissaries’. These Christian born Janissaries were often used to fight the Christian armies of the Austrians, Hungarians and Croats with deadly effect. Their influence on the Croatian consciousness must have been enormous as I remember my father repeating old stories about them, and that was 400 years afterwards! I have also heard old Dalmatian tales of parents deliberately maiming their sons so they would not be taken. Even today, calling someone a ‘Janissary’ is a particularly nasty Slav insult.

There are many Turks with European skin colouring and facial features, obviously descendents of these and other Christian captives. Only recently, a family member, Graeme Andrews, assisted some Turkish immigrants involved in a boating mishap in NSW. Graeme was impressed by the fact that the young Turkish woman was almost the spitting image of his wife Winsome (nee Dobric) as a young woman. His observations are not surprising. The Turks attacked our ancestral town, Novi Vinodol, in the 1500s and many of its inhabitants were captured and taken away into slavery. The girl may have been a relative!

It is sometimes assumed that slavery in Europe was confined to the Roman era, but in fact it was commonplace for more than a thousand years after the collapse of Rome. The Slav races were regularly targeted, first by German and later by Turkish slavers and captives exported all over Europe. The practice was so common that Slavs provided the root of the English word ‘slave’, supplanting the old English word ‘weallas’ (Welshman). Incidentally, I read recently that in 1100 AD, the largest slave market in Western Europe was in Viking ruled Dublin, an historical fact that the Irish would probably prefer to be quietly forgotten. Another little known fact is that some Croats were among the first Europeans to prohibit slavery, decreed in the Statute of Korcula in 1214 AD.

French influence in Croatia
The Napoleonic French occupation influenced political thought in Croatia and the French were probably welcomed in some quarters. They built roads and other infrastructure and introduced a French education system. Napoleon even had a personal escort of Croatian troops, many of whom died defending him in his Russian campaign. A monument in the French Military Museum in Paris even celebrated these soldiers’ heroism. Napoleon was reputed to have said ‘If I had 100 000 Croats I could rule the world’ It is interesting to note that many of the Croat soldiers who fought so bravely for Napoleon in Russia had only a few years previously fought equally bravely against him as part of the Austrian army in the Franco-Austrian wars.

It is believed that the man’s necktie originated in Croatia. Croatian soldiers served as mercenaries throughout Europe from early times. Louis VIII of France raised a Croatian cavalry regiment, the Royale-Cravate that existed from 1664 to 1789, and the neckwear worn by these Croatian troops became popular with the French and, ultimately, the rest of Europe. The word ‘cravat’ is a derivation of Hrvat (Croat).

Yugoslav Croatia
At the end of the Great War of 1914 – 1918 most of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slovenia (dominions of Austria-Hungary and thus on the losing side) were placed under Serbian control by the victorious allied forces. The exceptions were Croatian Istria and Dalmatian Zadar, which were held by Italy until its capitulation in the World War of 1939-1945.

Serbia had supported the allied side. The specific event that precipitated the Great War was the killing of the Austrian Habsburg, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, by a Montenegrin/Serb assassin in 1914, resulting in Austria declaring war on Serbia. The rest of that story is world history.

The ‘Kingdom of SHS’ (Serbia, Hrvatska [Croatia], Slovenia) was created under the Serbian King, Peter Karadjordjevic. The name “Yugoslavia” (Southern Slavs) was in common use from the start and internationally recognised in 1929. Around this time, Croatia was united with Dalmatia, and parts of Bosnia, as an autonomous region within Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia was an unhappy union of Slavs from the start. The leader of the Croat Peasant Party, Stjepan Radic, was murdered in the Parliament by a Serbian agent, after which King Alexander (son of Peter) established a dictatorship. In 1934, Alexander, himself, was assassinated by a Croat while on tour in France.

The Serb Royal Family rose from humble beginnings. The Kingdom of Serbia was only proclaimed in 1882. King Peter was the grandson of a wealthy warlord (and pig merchant), Karadjordje (Black George) who had led a heroic Serbian uprising against their Turkish masters in 1804. Karadjordje was later murdered and beheaded by a member of a rival family who had a deal with the Turkish Sultan.

The World War of 1939-1945
With the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers (Germany, Austria and Italy) in the World War, and the resulting collapse of the Royal Yugoslav government, the ‘Independent State of Croatia’ was proclaimed in Zagreb in April 1941 with support from the Axis invaders. Led by Ante Pavelic, its soldiers and agents were known as the ‘Ustaši’ (pronounced oo-sta-shi and literally translated as ‘Rebels’). A similar pro Nazi puppet administration formed in Serbia under General Nedic and other Balkan countries followed suit. All supported the Axis powers and their soldiers often fought under German command, particularly on the Eastern Front.

The Croat, Josip Broz (Tito), formed the Communist Yugoslav Partisans to fight the Germans and Italians. A large number of Croats rejected the puppet ‘Ustaši’ regime and joined Tito.

For a while, an irregular force consisting of Serb nationalists also opposed the invaders with military support from the Allies (led by Britain at the start of the war). These soldiers were known as the Cetniks (pronounced chetniks).

Wartime politics in Yugoslavia were brutal and confused. A bitter civil war erupted between the Partisans, Cetniks and Ustaši. The Allies initially ignored Tito’s Communist Partisans and supported the Cetniks in their fight against Axis forces but later dropped the Cetniks and supported Tito. The Cetniks went on to support Hitler against the Partisans and there is some evidence to suggest that some pro-Ustaši soldiers unsuccessfully attempted to change sides and join the Allies in 1943!

In my estimation, the choice of whom someone fought for was influenced more by where they lived rather than political conviction. Around Zagreb and Slavonia the Ustaši were dominant but Tito’s Partisans were active in coastal Croatia and parts of Bosnia and Serbia. The Cetniks operated within isolated Serbian enclaves.

During this conflict, all sides committed terrible atrocities. At the end of the war the Yugoslav Partisans, with tacit British support, inflicted more atrocities on the defeated Ustaši, again, more contributing factors to the later ethnic and political strife.

Members of my first wife’s family were Partisans along with many others from their village of Zaton in Dalmatia and they suffered terribly at the hands of both the occupying Italians and their Cetnik supporters. My relatives in Novi also suffered under the occupation and many of them were Partisan fighters as well.

With the aid of the Western allies, the communists took power in 1945 and formed the Socialist Federated Republic of Yugoslavia with Tito as President. Croatia became one of Yugoslavia’s six republics.

Independent Croatia
Yugoslavia was plagued by nationalist tensions even during Tito’s era and upon his death in 1980, the Federation began to crumble. Flash point was reached in 1991 when Slovenia seceded and Croatia, led by Franjo Tudjman, followed.

Croatia was plunged into yet another bitter civil war lasting several years and in which up to 15,000 Croats are thought to have died. Much of Croatia was attacked and occupied by Serbian forces until the United Nations and NATO intervened. The term ‘ethnic cleansing’, the expulsion of minority groups from a region, is a product of this conflict. Again terrible atrocities were committed (often by Serbian Cetnik irregular forces on Croat civilians) and the scars of that conflict will take a long time to fade.

I read an amusing, if not a little ironic, comment recently on a Croatian tourist website promoting the place as a safe, low crime destination. “We leave the corruption to the politicians and the homicide until wartime.”

By January 1998, Croatia regained most of its lost territory. Tudjman died in 1999 and on 18 February 2000, the newly elected President, Stjepan Mesic, was sworn in with the stated aims of democratic reform and integration of Croatia into Western Europe.

Croatia through the ages

Around 800 AD: Croat and Serb tribes were well established in the Balkans. The Croats
had fallen under the influence of the Franks but Serbia remained with the Byzantines.

Around 1000AD: Croatia was an independent kingdom

Around 1300AD: Croatia was an autonomous state under a Hungarian king.
Serbia had become a powerful kingdom controlling much of the southern Balkans

Around 1550 AD: Dalmatia was under Venice and the rest of Croatia was under Austria. The Ottoman Turks had conquered most
of the Balkans and made inroads into Croatian territory. The Turks did not completely leave the region until the early 1900s.

2000 AD: Once again, Croatia is a sovereign European state.

The Croatian language and alphabet
The Croatian language is one of a number of related Slavonic languages spoken in central, eastern and southeastern Europe. There are three major dialects in Croatian, with variations often existing between adjacent towns and villages. These dialects date back to the earliest Croatian migrations and identify three distinct waves of invading Croats.

Croatian as an independent language has been under attack from outside forces for tens of generations. Not only was the language officially suppressed by Austria and Hungary from early times but in the 19th century and again in the Yugoslav era there were concerted efforts to unify Croatian and Serbian into a common language. The first known official attempt to implement changes in 1850 was vigorously encouraged by Viennese bureaucrats because it simplified dealings with their Croatian and Serbian subjects. Incidentally, Ivan (later Ban) Mažuranic of Novi was one of the scholars that signed off on those agreed changes.

Between 1920 and 1991, Croatia was part of Serbian dominated Yugoslavia and in 1954 further attempts were made (largely by Serbian scholars) to erase Croatian language ‘peculiarities’. In this era, the regional Croatian dialects were further diminished. For example, the Novljanski (Novi) dialect spoken by my grandparents and preserved for many years by their relative isolation in Australia was quite different to that spoken by young people in Novi today.

Dialects
The three major Croatian dialects are named after the word for ‘what’ in each. The što (pronounced shto) dialect is the most common and is used over much of Croatia and Bosnia with variants appearing in Serbia as well. The kaj (kay) dialect appears in the north in Slovenia and around Zagreb and the ca (cha) dialect is used around Novi Vinodol and some Adriatic islands.

These dialects have sub-divisions, identified by the use of the vowel sound ‘i’, ‘e’ or ‘ije’ (pronounced ‘ye’). The word for ‘nice’ in Novi and parts of Dalmatia is ‘lipo’; in some regions it is ‘lijepo’ and others, with Serbian influence, ‘lepo’. The ‘ca’, or ‘Chakavian’ dialect using ‘i’, or ‘Ikavian’ vowels is one of the earliest Croatian languages and was the dialect spoken by my ancestors in Novi and surrounds.

With the passage of time, the kaj and ca dialects are expected to disappear in Croatia except as academic curiosities. The Bosnian/Herzegovian što dialect with the ije subset is the agreed national language and is officially encouraged throughout Croatia.

Historical written Croatian
The Croatian language was suppressed in official circles for centuries with the Austrians and Hungarians trying to impose German or Hungarian (Magyar) respectively from time to time as the official language of the region. To avoid being taken over by these languages, Croatian leaders retained Latin as their official administrative language up to the mid-19th century.

In earlier times, certainly until the end of the 16th century, many documents and engravings were written in Croatian using the ancient ‘Glagolitic’, a unique Slavonic script with no modern equivalent. It was apparently based on an ancient Greek script and its development is credited to Saint Cyril whose name, ironically, is given to the Cyrillic script used by the Serbs. A good example of Glagolitic appears on the 11th century Baška tablet found on the island of Krk near Novi Vinodolski.

The historic 11th century Baška Tablet
Source: http://www.hr/darko/etf/et03.html

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Catholic Church in many parts of Croatia (including Novi) kept its records in Croatian, but written in a Latin/Germanic script similar to that used in modern English. For example, my family name ‘Piškulic’ was written as ‘Piskulich’ until the mid 1800s.

In some regions of Dalmatia under Venetian control, Italian was the official church language and it appears that early Croatian churches in some border regions also used the Serbian Cyrillic script.

The Croatian alphabet
A unique Croatian alphabet, based on the Latin script, was developed in the 1830’s by French educated Croatian leaders and after many difficulties and some violent incidents, Croatian, using this script, became the language of officialdom by the late 1860’s.

The Croatian alphabet is phonetic. There is a letter to match each sound used in the language. This makes learning to read and write relatively easy. My grandparents only received three or four years of education but they could all read and write in their native language.

The alphabet consists of 30 letters, some using diacritic marks to indicate special sounds. There is no “th” or “w” sound in Croatian. Also, the letters ‘q’, ‘x’ and ‘y’ are absent. In most other cases, the sounds are similar to English.

The alphabet, and its sounds, follows. Upper and lower cases are shown. I have made notes alongside sounds that are substantially different to the English.

A-a, as in the Australian bath

B-b

C-c, a ‘ts’ sound as in rats

Ć-ć, a ‘ty’ sound as in the Australian tune. My family name ends in ć

Č-č, as in rich

D-d

Dž-dž, a softer sound than the English j in John

Ð-d, approximates the English j in John. I often received cards addressed to Ðon!

E-e, similar to the English e in bed

F-f

G-g

H-h

I-i, similar to English i in bid

J-j, a ‘y’ sound as in young

K-k

L-l

Lj-lj, an ‘ly’ sound close to the Australian brilliant

M-m

N-n

Nj-nj, an ‘ny’ sound close to onion

O-o, a sound close to the English ‘aw’ in shawl

P-p

R-r, rolled like the Scottish. Often used as a vowel, as in the family name Mrša

S-

Š- š, as in English ‘sh’

T-t

U-u, similar to the Australian ‘u’ in pull

V-v

Z-z

Ž-ž, a soft ‘z’ as in Australian treasure

Grammar and spelling
Croatian spelling is easy for a foreigner to understand, but the grammar is another story. The articles ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’ are absent in the language so ideas such as ‘the child’ and ‘a child’ etc. require some verbal gymnastics for a non-native speaker like myself.

Another grammatical characteristic is that adjectives and nouns change their form depending on their function in a sentence. That caused me a lot of discomfort when travelling in Croatia and trying to speak with the locals!

There is also a sense of formality when addressing and speaking with others that is not easily understood by Australians. ‘You’ has two forms, the formal ‘vi’ for strangers and the informal ‘ti’ for friends, relatives and children. If I asked a friend ‘how are you?’ it would be ‘kako si?’ from the informal ‘ti si’ (you are). An unfamiliar person would be asked ‘kako ste?’ from the formal ‘vi ste’, and so on.

A few useful expressions

Da;	Yes.	Zbogom;	Goodbye.
Ne;	No.	Dobro jutro;	Good morning.
Dobro;	Good.	Dobar dan;	Good day.
Slabo;	Poorly	Dobro vece;	Good evening.
Kako si/ste?;	How are you?	Laku noc;	Good (lit. easy) night
Ni je loše;	Not bad.	Sve najbolje!;	All the best!
Molim;	Please.	Dovidjenja!:	See you (later)!
Hvala;	Thankyou.	Žao mi je;	I’m sorry.
Izvinite;	Excuse me.	Boli mi …;	My … hurts

Novi Vinodol/ski;

My ancestral town, Novi Vinodolski (Novi) is located on the Adriatic coast at the southern end of the Vinodol region. Today it is a popular tourist centre with several large hotels, good beaches and facilities. The words ‘Novljanski’, ‘Novljani’, ‘Novljanac’ and ‘Novljanka’ refer to Novi, its people and its individual men and women respectively.

To give some idea of Novi’s location with respect to the rest of Europe, it is only about 90 kilometres from Trieste in northern Italy and about 130 kilometres from the Austrian border.

Novi –Stari Grad in the foreground
(John Paskulich) The Vinodol
The ‘Vinodol’ is in the region known as ‘Hrvatsko Primorje’ (Coastal Croatia). It is a narrow strip of land about 25 kilometres long and a kilometre or so wide between the coast and the nearby ‘Kapela’ mountain range extending south from the city of Rijeka. The title Vinodol is derived from the ancient Roman name of ‘Vallis Vineris’ and loosely translates as ‘Valley of Vines’ attesting to its long history as a winemaking region.

Croats began settling in the Vinodol during the 8th century, often occupying and strengthening abandoned Roman forts for protection. The ‘Lopar’ ruins at the eastern end of Novi are believed to be the site of one of these forts. By mediaeval times the Vinodol was protected by a network of castles, each with visual communications to the next. The fortified towns that developed from these castles were Trsat, Grobnik, Bakar, Hreljin, Drivenik, Grižane, Bribir, Ledenice and Novi.

Lopar ruins-Novi
(John Paskulich)

The Vinodol region suffered many times in its history. Few records are available from the times of the attacks of the Mongol hordes but it is known that in 1242 Croatian soldiers at ‘Grobnicko Polje’ (Grobnik Field) at the northern entrance to the Vinodol successfully defeated a Mongol army attempting to invade the valley.

Due to its strategic location, Grobnik appears several times in the history of the Vinodol. The traditional ‘Morcici’ (Moors head) earrings and brooches popular among women of the region until the early 20th century are reputed to celebrate a victory over the Turks who attacked at Grobnik in the 16th century. On a family note, my mother was given a pair of those earrings as a small child. When she realised that they depicted black heads with turbans she refused to wear them! Obviously no one took the time to acquaint her with the tradition and glorious history they represented!

Typical Morcici design
Source: http://croatiagifts.safeshopper.com/

Counts of Krk and the Frankopans
Only a few kilometres offshore, in the Adriatic Sea, lies the Otok (Island) Krk. At about 40 kilometres long, it is one of the Adriatic’s largest islands. The island’s impregnable nature and its links to the ancient Roman Empire allowed the early development of a feudal aristocratic family group commonly known as the ‘Counts of Krk’.

History suggests that, in 1225 the Hungarian King, Andrij (Andrew) II, officially gave the rights to rule the Vinodol to the Counts of Krk, but in practical terms this family would have controlled the region much earlier. These noblemen later adopted the family name Frankopan.

Baška is a settlement in the south of Krk where the historic Baška Tablet was discovered. This stone inscription, in the Glagolitic script, is one of the earliest known Croatian documents written during the reign of King Zvonimir (about 1090).

According to family legend, a family ancestor on the Dobric side, Katarina Umiljenovic (1823-1887), was nicknamed ‘Baba Baška’ (Baba means grandmother). It is difficult to say what connection Katarina had with Baška. Her family may have originated from there, but given the Novljanski custom of nicknaming people; the contact may be more tenuous. My father spoke of ‘Marija Merikanka’ so named because she spent some time in the USA!

The Croatian telephone directory shows that there are families of Umiljenovic living in the town of Senj, about 20 kilometres south of Novi. Senj is the nearest mainland port to Baška, so there is at least a vague connection.

The Frankopans of Krk controlled the Vinodol until about 1450, by which time their power had weakened. Eventually, control of the Vinodol was divided between the Subich-Zrinski family (mentioned previously), who took over the major part, and the Frankopans of Tržak (relatives of the Krk noblemen) who administered Novi and its surrounds. The aristocratic Zrinski and Frankopan families were prominent in Croatian history for two centuries to follow.

The island of Krk was conquered by Venice in 1480 and remained in Venetian hands for several centuries. Novi stayed within the Hungarian, and later Austrian and Austro-Hungarian, empires.

Australians can’t imagine how close these places are to each other. Krk is so close at one point, that it is now connected to the mainland by a bridge. Yet it was occupied by a hostile power for centuries.

The Zrinski-Frankopan rule ended violently in 1671. Ban (Governor) Petar Zrinski and soldier-statesman Fran Krsto Frankopan attempted to lead a rebellion against the Habsburg rule but were arrested and cruelly executed in Vienna on 30th April 1671. The Habsburgs persecuted the Zrinski family and destroyed its influence forever. The Frankopans suffered a similar fate and their estates, including the castle in Novi, were confiscated by Vienna.

Uskok Pirates of Senj

Although not strictly part of the Vinodol, the town of Senj, located about 20 km south of Novi, is an integral part of our history. In the early 16th century, Senj became the haven of Slavs fleeing from the Turks who, unlike their kin in surrounding towns, chose piracy over farming. The Croatian word ‘uskok’ can be loosely translated as refugee. The difficult terrain made Senj an ideal pirates haven and the Uskoks’ small, fast and manoeuverable vessels were ideally suited to the narrow island passages of the region.

For eighty years the Uskoks preyed on Turkish shipping in the Adriatic, with the justification that they only attacked the enemies of Christianity. For this reason they were tolerated (and sometime employed) by both the Venetians and Austrians in the region. Over generations, the pirates developed both outposts and relationships with townspeople along the coast and I have found a couple of references that suggest that the Vinodol towns including Novi supported and even provided recruits for the pirates.

Unfortunately, Venice entered into various political arrangements with the Turks in the mid-16th century and they also became enemies in the eyes of the Uskoks. To end the pirate ‘menace’, Venice attacked the region (including Novi) on several occasions, finally concluding a political settlement with Austria in 1617. Under this agreement, the Uskoks were deported to other regions of Croatia, their ships destroyed and Senj repopulated with more compliant subjects, thus ending Croatia’s pirate history. The Venetian Admiral (later Doge) Giovanni Bembo especially targeted Novi in 1598 and 1601 and his successor Marcanton Venier devastated the town in 1615.

One fanciful local story is that the Caribbean pirate Captain Henry Morgan sought refuge with the Uskoks and lent his name to the village of Mrgani in Istria. The only problem with this yarn is that Morgan was born some 20 years after the Uskoks were disbanded and exiled!

Uskok of the early 17th Century
Source: http://pubwww.srce.hr/husar/

History of Novi Vinodol
Accurate dating of the founding of Novi is impossible. The site has been occupied since pre-Roman times, but in a European map of 1154 drawn by the Arabic geographer Al – Edrisi, it apparently wasn’t important enough to be included. Al – Edrisi worked in the court of the Norman King Roger II, of Palermo.

The first official reference to Novi is in 1163 as a parish under the Split diocese. In 1185 it reappears in the Senj diocese.

Mediaeval Novi
Source: http://www.novi-vinodolski.com/

An event in Croatian history that did put the town on the map was the passing of the ‘Vinodol Zakonit’ (Vinodol Law Code), in Novi, on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th 1288. The laws, passed in the presence of Prince Leonid of Krk and Vinodol leaders, codified the relations between the new Counts of Krk and the Vinodol towns.

Artist’s impression of signing of the Vinodol Code 6th January 1288
Novi Museum (John Paskulich)

The code dealt with criminal and property law and restricted the powers of the Counts over their feudal subjects. It also made provisions for the protection of women. This mediaeval legal document showed a high level of social and political sophistication in its authors. The code did not recognise divine judgement or torture but relied on witness testimony, oath taking and juries, things not seen in Western Europe until many centuries later.

Vinodol Law Code 1288 AD
Source: http://www.croatianhistory.net/

The original name of Novi at the time of the Vinodol Law Code was ‘Novi Grad’ (New Town) possibly describing the settlement that grew after the old Roman ‘Lopar’ fort was abandoned. It was known as ‘Novi Vinodol’ for centuries but, in 1962, the variation ‘Novi Vinodolski’ was proclaimed.

The original fortified town of Novi, now the suburb of ‘Stari Grad’ (Old Town), is located at the western end. It is now Novi’s cultural centre, containing the main church, part of the original Frankopan castle and remnants of the town’s fortifications.

In 1480 King Mathias Corvinus granted Novi’s people free status and, in 1493, after the Turks devastated Hungarian and Croatian forces at the Battle of Krbava, the bishopric of Lika was transferred to Novi and the town church of Saints Philip and Jacob was proclaimed its cathedral.

Novi suffered many times in its history. In 1496, the plague struck with such severity that the townspeople abandoned the town until it subsided. Legend has it that the votive church of Saints Fabian and Sebastian was built in 24 hours in 1511 as a vow to God to protect them from the disease again. The church (demolished in the early 1900’s) was built on the site of the present day bell tower located alongside the church of Saints Philip and Jacob in Stari Grad. The bell tower is a prominent landmark in the district.

Turkish raiders attacked and burnt Novi in 1527 and took away many of its people as slaves. The Turks attacked the area several times and 50 years later they devastated the nearby stronghold of Ledenice, the fortress that protected the southern entrance to the Vinodol.

Artist’s impression of Turkish enslavement on Novi citizens 1527
Novi Museum (John Paskulich)

In addition to the Turkish menace, Novi was attacked by Venice in 1598, 1601 and 1615. In the 1615 attack they breached the town walls, pillaged and almost destroyed the town. The severity of this attack on Novi supports my belief that the Venetians considered Novi to be a significant threat and associated with the Uskok pirates of Senj. The ‘modern’ church records begin in 1650 with only a few dozen entries indicating the extent of the devastation and the time taken to rebuild the community.

Artist’s impression of Venetian attack on Novi citizens 1615
Novi Museum (John Paskulich)

An earthquake struck Novi in 1750 and the town was hit by a hurricane in 1757. I have no information on how the townspeople fared but they must have suffered considerably. The earthquake damaged the mediaeval Frankopan castle (the centrepiece of Novi) and the authorities demolished a major part of it a few years later. Today, the remaining part of the castle is still used as a museum and administrative offices. Similarly, the hurricane of 1757 was so intense that the waterfront Pauline monastery was