Citat:
The BH Croats are the result of merging the romantic integral Party-of-Rights Croatianism of Ante Starčević with the political Catholicism appearing on the historical stage by the end of the 19th and the early 20th century.
Citat:
The Croatization of Bosniak-Catholics commenced at the turn of the 19th and 20th century – in the early stages of the industrialization and modernization of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and has brought about consequences of political, cultural and psychological nature. The then commenced process of cultural standardization and equalization will eventually - by converting the Bosniak Catholics to Croat-Catholics - result in a core change of terms such as ‘historical land’, ‘homeland’, ‘culture’ and ‘state’ for a trans-generational transformation of their political and cultural tradition.
I find this interesting as Lovrenović regurgutates the same things that I have read in the past from sources loyal to Sarajevo saying how Catholics were turned into Croats, etc.
I hate to have to be the one to point this out but almost all of Europe in the 19th Century was swept up with national revival movements which went from one end of Europe to the other - BiH was not immune or lived in a vacuum outside of it.
People were casting aside their own local and provincial identities and adopting larger identities. Bavarians became German and Lombards became Italian.
If people think it was somehow strange for Catholics in BiH to be turned into Croatians or that it was some cultural imperialism, fine. In the 19th century people became modern Germans, modern Frenchmen, etc as we now know them so given the time it was neither unusual or unprecedented for Catholics in Bosnia to be "turned" into Croatians. Consider the words of Massimo d'Azeglio an Italian statesman who had this to say after Italian unification in 1861: "We have made Italy. Now we must make Italians."
I won't get into the Croatian National Revival but even without it, look at the social and technological advancements that were being inplemented right on the doorstep of Bosnia. Feudalism was abolished midway through the 19th century in Austria-Hungary. In Bosnia I think it was abolished with the agararian reform in the 1920's almost 100 years later. There is no way the Ottomans could have isolated Bosnia from being exposed to these changes.
I could just imagine the conversation being had with someone crossing the Sava into Slavonija in the 19th century and a local who told them they now own their own land and their children have to go get educated and everything else that is going on, and for the man to cross back across the Sava into Bosnia to where he was a 2nd class citizen.
I'm sure he would think that life wasn't fair. Maybe that person thought what if I could be Croatian then I could be free?
No Lovrenović is right that there was a profound change. People got tired of being beat down and decided to do something about it - hence the uprising in Herzegovina that would kick the Ottomans out once and for all and usher in a new era for the region.
Yet despite attempts by Austria and Hungeary to foster a pan Bosnian consciousness the Croatians of BiH wanted no part of it. That they did not want to be reminded of a time when they were 2nd class citizens.
Being a Croatian meant you were free. It meant being part of a larger whole. It meant a two way exchange of culture and ideas. It meant progress.
