Republic of Serbian Krajina - Etymology

Etymology

The name Krajina was adopted from the Military Frontier that was carved out of parts of the crown lands of Croatia and Slavonia by Austria between 1553–1578 as a means of defending against the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. Many Croats, Serbs and Vlachs immigrated from nearby parts of Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Bosnia and Serbia) into the region and helped bolster and replenish the numbers of Croats as well as the garrisoned German troops in the fight against the Ottomans. The Austrians controlled the Frontier from military headquarters in Vienna and did not make it a crown land, though it had some special rights in order to encourage settlement in an otherwise deserted, war-ravaged territory. The abolition of the military rule took place between 1869 and 1871. In order to attract Serbs to be part of Croatia, on 11 May 1867, the Sabor solemnly declared that "the Triune Kingdom recognizes the Serbian/Vlach people living in it as a nation identical and equal with the Croatian nation." After that, the Military Frontier was reincorporated in Croatia in 1881.

Following World War I, the regions formerly part of the Military Frontier became part of Kingdom of Yugoslavia where it was in the Sava Banovina with most of old Croatia-Slavonia. Between the two world wars the Serbs of the Croatian and Slavonian Krajinas, as well as the Bosnian Krajina and other regions west of Serbia, organized a notable political party, the Independent Democratic Party under Svetozar Pribićević. In the new state there existed much tension between the Croats and Serbs over differing political visions, with the campaign for Croatian autonomy culminating in the assassination of their leader Stjepan Radić in the parliament and repression by the Serb dominated security structures.

Between 1939–1941, in an attempt to resolve the Croat-Serb political and social antagonism in the first Yugoslavia, an autonomous Banovina of Croatia was created incorporating (amongst other territories) much of the former Military Frontier as well as parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1941, the axis powers invaded Yugoslavia and in the aftermath the Independent State of Croatia (which included whole of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of Serbia (Eastern Syrmia) as well) was declared. The Ustaše (who were allegedly behind the assassination of the Serbian king of Yugoslavia) were installed by the Germans as rulers of the new country and promptly pursued a genocidal policy of persecution of Serbs, Jews and Croats (from opposition groups) leading to hundreds of thousands being killed. During this period, Croats coalesced around the ruling authorities or the communist anti-fascist Partisans. Serbs from around the Knin area tended to join the chetniks, whilst Serbs from the Banovina and Slavonia regions tended to join the Partisans.

At the end of the war, the communist dominated Partisans prevailed and the region was part of the People's Republic of Croatia until 7 April 1963, when the federal republic changed its name to the Socialist Republic of Croatia. The autonomous political organisations of the region were also suppressed by Tito (along with others such as the Croatian Spring); however, the Yugoslav constitutions of 1965 and 1974 did give substantial rights to national minorities including the Serbs in SR Croatia.

The Serbian "Krajina" entity to emerge upon Croatia's declaration of independence in 1991 would include three kinds of territories:

• a large section of the historical Military Frontier, in areas with a majority of Serbian population;
• areas such as parts of northern Dalmatia, that were never part of the Frontier but had a majority or a plurality of Serbian population, including the self-proclaimed entity's capital, Knin;
• areas that bordered with Serbia and where Serbs are significant minority (Baranja, Vukovar).

Large sections of the historical Military Frontier were outside of the Republic of Serb Krajina and contained a largely Croat population including much of Lika, the area centred around the city of Bjelovar, central and south-eastern Slavonia.