Posted by Tomislav on October 3, 2003, 7:15 pm, in reply to "Re: We're on the same page" It is true that the Serbs forced us to shape our idea of nationhood but its not like we didn't know what we wanted to do we just had to be pushed in a certain direction. but its sad to think we needed the Serbs and even now Milosevic to keep pushing us farther and farther before we finally thought that we could govern ourselves! we were whipped for a long time. Dobri borci, losi politicari. What defines and unites as Croats? BIG QUESTION. Most people would say religion but I wouldn't neccesarily. Sure we should be proud of our 1000+ years of continued belief in the Catholic faith(which i am proudly part of myself) but there are also Croatians of the Muslim faith who are actually blood Croatians and even now a days there are Croatians of the Orthodox faith and of the Jewish faith. True Sabor is a good one. I would say the GRB!(Cultural) even though only a symbol no other country or people in the world have something of that nature represent them and we have been using it since the 15 cent. on legal documents. Another one would be !Tolerance! thats a part of psychological make-up we have always tolerated others that respected us. We have never attacked another nation in our history or another people without being attacked first and we have never fought any battles against others to farther our advances be they geographically or monitary.(this being another good point in my opinion as to why Bosna was always Croatian otherwise we would never have been fighting on it because we didn't fight on land that wasn't Croatian.) present day would be Sports actually. Thats our best ambassador to the outside world that world cup 98 3rd place did wonders for us more than any politican could ever do. From Soccer to Basketball, Tennis etc... we seem to do well in most sports team and individual for such a small country thats a pretty good thing. Maybe Temper too haha we all well most of us have one. Also (maybe) well documented history proving we are one of the oldest people(countries) in Europe, as a united country we are actually older than England that should count for something.(Since 925) unlike some other present day countries(peoples) we started out united and then slowly drifted apart. Thats all I could come up with now off the top of my head. ZA DOM SPREMAN --Previous Message--
Yeah man we definetly agree on most things. You are dead on correct with the assesment of Serbian culture and Croatian culture. Serbs always seem to be expanding while we Croatians since the end of our Kingdom in the 11th cent. seem to be contracting. Not only in land but also mentaly. We keep rejecting things while Serbs keep absorbing. The problem with that is that Serbs have now many Vlahs and Cigani and other peoples they forced to call themselves Serbians while we Croatians reject that we seem to accept others as they are and let them keep thier national identities(like Italians in Istra and Dalmacija as well as Hungarians in Slavonia) we absorb not assimilate. Just like when we first came to the presend day land of Croatia and instead of ransacking and destroying some Roman towns such as Split, Dubrovnik etc... we absorbed them and copied some things from them which were more advanced from us. We learned the balance of give and take while Serbs always just seem to want to take.
: Hey Tomislav: You know
I think we actually
: agree on most things. But I wanted to get
: your (and anyone elsess) thoughts on some
: stuffI brought up earlier.
: The Serbian national mythology has been well
: documented and we should know better than to
: have anything to do with that rotten bunch.
: Its well known that the Orthodox religion
: was tolerated much better by the
: Turks
Catholicism was the enemy both
: spiritually as well as politically. The
: Orthodox church was based in Constantinople
: and could be easily reigned in while
: Catholicism was represented by Rome and by
: hated Austria. The Serb propaganda machine
: was always better and they have always been
: more united in both their identity as well as
: their goals. Its just really a shame that
: Croatia had a guy like Tudjman leading it who
: did everything to help the Serbs achieve most
: of their goals.
: But it brings up some very interesting
: questions and Im going to go back to my
: earlier characteristics of nationhood.
: 1. Common territory
: 2. Common economic life
: 3. Common language
: 4. Common psychological makeup
: 5. Common cultural aspects
: Serbian nationalism is very different from
: Croat nationalism. Part of it has to do with
: the national character of their religion
a
: Catholic who converts to Serbian Orthodoxy
: instantly becomes a Serb. Plus since Vuk
: Karadzic, the Serbs have believed that anyone
: speaking the stokavian dialect is a Serb
: regardless of religion. The Universal nature
: of Catholicism means that an Italian in
: Istra, regardless of his Catholicism, is
: still Italian. Plus, our literary and
: linguistic tradition encompasses three
: distinct traditions
stokavian, cakavian and
: kajkavian.
: In fact, due to all of the obstacles (Turks,
: Hungarians, language etc) the early national
: movement in Croatia was actually Illyrian
: (read up on Ljudevit Gaj) which looked for a
: union of all Slavs and not necessarily
: exclusively Croatian. This did evolve later,
: I think mostly in reaction to the Serbs. It
: seems that as the Serbs further expand their
: definitions of Serbdom, we narrow our
: definitions of Croatness.
: Based on the criteria above or anything I
: might have missed, what defines and unites us
: as Croats? What does it mean to be a Croat?
: What is our unifying mythology? Ill start
: the discussion by saying that I think the
: continuity of the Croatian Sabor provides a
: historical continuity. What do you think?
:
:
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