Croatia
and the Colonization Question
Prior to 1848, the
Croatians paid little attention to the small groups of
settlers in the wilderness. It was only in 1865 when the
Croatian intelligentsia acknowledged that there were German
and Hungarian minorities present in their country.
In Srem, it was a
different matter living there among the Serbians who as
early as 1846 and 1847 began expressing their concern that
they were being “replaced” by the industrious Germans, whose
hard work had led to success, which unfortunately led to
embitterment on the part of their Serbian neighbors.
The nationalist
press raised a hue and cry against the “invaders” from the
north even though they made a tremendous contribution of the
economy. Radicalization set in.
By and large there
were voices of the opposition but the government had to have
a greater concern for the nation’s finances rather than its
nationalistic feelings. After 1848 there was simply no let
up in ongoing immigration and “foreign” settlement. The
entry of more and more Hungarian settlers and their setting
up of their Hungarian schools created quite an uproar.
Every minority was as seen as a threat by the Croatians and
from their perspective assimilation was the only solution.
The German threat eastwards as the official policy of
Prussianized Germany was read into the real motivations of
the German settlers moving into Croatia. This would prove especially
true in Bosnia were some of the settlers
actually came from the Reich.
When that argument
failed to work, the Croatian nationalists pictured the
Germans as the tools and weapons of the Magyars in their
ongoing attempt to lord it over them. It was a matter of
the indolence of the Slavic peasants and the industriousness
of the “Swabians” and the economic consequences. The
Swabians created an economic miracle in a marginal
wilderness for which the Slavs were not grateful as long as
they were there.
Many areas of Slavonia were uninhabited and were of no real economic
value. Only settlers and capital investment could change
that. Many of the settlers brought capital with them. That
served as an antidote to the charge that they were
opportunists and carpetbaggers and ne’er-do-wells. By 1910,
ten per cent of the arable land was still undeveloped.
First of all, the nobles preferred German settlers and then
Slovaks and Czechs who were seen as their Slavic brothers.
Their last choice was the Magyars (Hungarians) who usually
assimilated within one generation. It was the Germans who
resisted assimilation the longest. This would prove to be
dangerous in the future.
As neighbors the
Germans got along with the Croatian and Serbian
populations. The government saw them as a necessary
economic evil at best, and as a threat to the unity of the
Slavs at the worst. It was the latter view that would
prevail. The answer was to make the Slavs industrious,
thrifty and work focused so that they no longer sold their
land to the Germans. The banking institutions would support
their peasantry in this endeavor. But there were only minor
initiatives, especially in the new areas opening for
settlement. The Slavs decided they would rather be farm
laborers working for the Germans. All of the new settlement
laws of the government favored inner-migration and attempted
to thwart emigration elsewhere as much as possible. Still
the population stagnated. The only group that was affected
was the Hungarians who began to leave.
But as the 19th
century ended, the major issue was no longer immigration
into Slavonia but the emigration of countless thousands of
young people to the United States
and this also included vast numbers of the German
population. By the outbreak of the First World War almost
all immigration into Slavonia had ceased and the presence of Germans,
Hungarians, Slovaks and the other nationalities was simply
accepted as an economic and social reality that had no
political implications. There was no conspiracy or a fifth
column directed against the Croatians.
Next:
The
German Population and the Revolution of 1848
