Croatia–Serbia relations
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Croatian–Serbian relations are foreign relations between Croatia and Serbia. The two countries established diplomatic relations on September 9, 1996 following the end of Croatian War of Independence.
From 1918 to 1991, both countries were part of Yugoslavia. They now share 241 kilometers of common border. In the 2011 Croatian census, there were 186,633 people of Serbian descent living in Croatia. In the 2011 Serbian census, there were 57,900 people of Croatian descent living in Serbia. Smaller lasting disputes include border disputes over the Island of Šarengrad and the Island of Vukovar.
Croatia has an embassy in Belgrade and a general consulate in Subotica. Serbia has an embassy in Zagreb and two general consulates, one in Rijeka and one in Vukovar.
During Duke Muncimir of Croatia's reign, the exiled Prince Petar Gojniković of the Serbian House of Vlastimirović stayed in Croatia during his exile and later returned to Rascia and seized power there. Prince Petar exiled his cousins who were pretenders to the Grand Princely throne: Pribislav, Bran and Stefan whom Muncimir received and put under his protection.
With the nation-building process in mid-19th century, first Croatian-Serbian tension appeared. Serbian minister Ilija Garašanin's Načertanije (1844) claimed lands that were inhabited by Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Hungarians and Croats were part of Serbia. Garašanin's plan also includes methods of spreading Serbian influence in the claimed lands. He proposed ways to influence Croats, who Garašanin regarded as "Serbs of Catholic faith". This plan considered surrounding peoples to be devoid of national consciousness.Vuk Karadžić in the 1850s then denied the existence of Croatians and Croatian language, counting them as "Catholic Serbs". Croatia was at the time a kingdom in Habsburg Monarchy, with Dalmatia and Istria being separate Habsburg Crown lands. Ante Starčević, head of the Croatian Party of Rights, proved that Croats and Croatia do exist and reciprocated, denying Serbia. After Austro-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 and Serbia gained its independence from Ottoman Empire, Croatian and Serbian relations deteriorated as both sides had pretensions on Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1902 major anti-Serb riots in Croatia were caused by reprinted article written by Serb Nikola Stojanović that was published in the publication of the Serbian Independent Party from Zagreb titled Do istrage vaše ili naše (Till the Annihiliation, ours or yours) in which denying of the existence of Croat nation as well as forecasting the result of the "inevitable" Serbian-Croatian conflict occurred.
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