Croats in the Czech Republic
As Moravian Croats (Croatian: Moravski Hrvati, Czech: Moravští Charvati ) is a small, established since the 16th century Croatian minority in the Czech Republic is called. You are in the broad sense of the Burgenland Croats and were until 1948, the northernmost island language in Europe, in which the čakavische dialect of the Croatian was spoken. Today, the ethnic group consists of around 1500 people, of which, however, only 150 of linguistic competence in Čakavischen.
Settlement
Triggered by the expansion of the Ottoman Empire after Croatia and Hungary in the 16th century, there was a migration of parts of the Croatian population. Has this been considered for a long time as a pure escape from the Turkish armies, one now believes that it has acted for the most part to ensure an orderly resettlement, were included in the individual refugee trains. The Croats were Located in abandoned villages in western Hungary and eastern Lower Austria. The northernmost of these settlements were of Moravian Croats in the area of Mikulov.
The settlement took place in two phases: the first village in 1538 Frélichov was founded on the territory of the deserted village Fröllersdorf. In the second phase in 1570 the villages Neuprerau, Guttenfeld and florins were ford ( Kolenfurt ) entirely, white Sites ( Pasohlavky ), Lednice, Grusbach ( Hrusovany ) and settled Howoran partly Croatian.
During the 19th century the majority of the Croat language and culture gave up and assimilated to the German majority population.
Development in the 20th century
At the time of the first Czechoslovak Republic were in Moravia three places where even Croats lived, who had preserved their language and cultural traditions: Frélichov, today Jevišovka ( kroat. Frielištof, dt Fröllersdorf ), Nový Přerov ( kroat. Nova Prerava, German New Prerau ) and Dobré poles ( Dobro Polje kroat., dt Guttenfeld ). From the census of 1918 shows that in these villages 1,682 people of Croatian origin living.
In the schools exclusively Czech was taught. A large part of the population of Croatian origin was Germanized. Even the folk customs and folk costumes were gone for the most part. Apart from the local association of Národná jednota for the southwestern Moravia in Frélichov had the Moravian Croats do not own cultural organizations, none of them had closer ties to Croatia and Croatian did not read books or newspapers.
The Československo - Jihoslovanská league in Brno tried in the 1930s to strengthen the cultural identity of Moravian Croats and also their loyalty to the Czechoslovak state. Thus was held Celebrate the 350th anniversary of the settlement of Moravian Croats and built in all three places Monuments commemorating the arrival of Croatian settlers in 1934 with the participation of representatives of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Starting basis for this anniversary was the then widespread and 1937 refuted by research Adolf Turek's argument, namely that of Christoph von Teuffenbach should have based on Dürnholz 1584, the first Croatian villages in Moravia.
Contrary to the attempts of the Czechoslovak government to win the Croats themselves, however, were the majority of Moravian Croats in the elections of 1935 Henlein's Sudeten German Party their votes.
As a result of the Munich Agreement in 1938, Moravia became part of the German Reich and integrated in the Lower Danube.
After the Second World War, South Moravia came back to Czechoslovakia. After the communist takeover in 1948, the new rulers accused the Croats, among other things, to have collaborated during the war with the Nazis. During the year 1948, the Croatian -born population of the three villages Frielištof, Dobro Polje and Prerava was resettled in smaller groups in the northern parts of Moravia. Part of the Croats withdrew from the resettlement by fleeing to Austria and settled in Burgenland.
Current situation
The 2001 census showed 1585 people of Croatian nationality, which is not reported how much of it is due to immigration in the 1990s. In a survey of 2002 gave 400 people on to dominate the Moravian variant of the Croatian language, but only 150 to use them actively. There is no Croatian education in schools, even within families, the language is not passed on to the children.
Was founded in 1991 ( association of citizens of the Croatian minority in the Czech Republic ) in Brno, the " CR Sdružení občanů Chorvatské narodnosti v". It is still the only official representation of minority and appoint one member to the Minority Council of the Czech Republic. In Jevišovka every September is the festival of Croatian culture " Kiritov ", also called the "Croatian Cultural Day ", organized.
Language
The Moravian Croats speak a dialect čakavischen, in which folk literature has been published. Since the Burgenland-Croatian written language is also based on a čakavische dialect, it is well understood.