Negation of the Croatian language and violation of minority rights of Croats in Vojvodina

About the non-recognition of Croatian identity and the systematic negation of Croats in the wider area of Novi Sad

On the website of the City Library in Novi Sad, the following (minority) peoples are listed: Bunjevci, Jews, Hungarians, Germans, Roma, Russians, Ruthenians, Slovaks. Almost all ethnic groups are listed except for Croats, and instead, there is the so-called Bunjevci people, for whom it is written as follows: They suffered the greatest blow in Vojvodina in 1945 when Josip Broz Tito issued an order that, no matter how they declared themselves, they had to sign official books as Croats .

https://www.gbns.rs/lice-novog-sada/narodi-u-novom-sadu/bunjevci

Although such a policy is continuous in Serbia, which is also reflected in the education system (let's take just one example, such as Serbian language textbooks in elementary schools, which state that Croats call Serbian the Croatian language) – this can be interpreted as a renewed denial of the Croatian language and identity at the local level, by a single institution.

https://www.hrvatskarijec.rs/vijest/6633/Ucenici-osmih-razreda-uce-da-hrvatski-jezik-ne-postoji/

This is not just about insisting on the existence of the Bunjevac people or the Bunjevac language, but about the systematic negation of Croats in the wider Novi Sad area (which also includes Petrovaradin, the historical center with a former 98% Croat population and the birthplace of Ban Josip Jelačić Bužimski, which is mentioned on the library's pages as a historical city and part of the Novi Sad agglomeration, but tragically - without any mention of the Croatian people), given that the Croatian name is used exclusively in the context of some kind of "Croatization" of the Bunjevac population.

If we take into account all historical, scientific facts and the current number of Croats (according to the latest census - 2022, regardless of the quantitative decline, the third largest national minority in the city: after Hungarians and Slovaks) and the fact that Novi Sad is the largest and capital of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, and the Croatian language is one of the (six) official languages of the province itself - we come to the conclusion that such a thing is unacceptable!

One of the proofs of the presence of Croats is the fact that in the area of today's city there was a Hrvatsko selo / Croatian village (German: Kroatendorf or Hungarian: Horvátfalu), which appears on the map of the Battle of Vezirac from 1716.

https://www.zkvh.org.rs/storage/app/uploads/public/62f/e31/a21/62fe31a213a47612842372.pdf

In addition, I would like to note that the official languages in Novi Sad are: Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak and Ruthenian.

The situation at the academic level is particularly worrying. At the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, despite the constitutional and legal guarantees of the rights of national minorities to language preservation and education, the Croatian language still does not enjoy equal treatment compared to other languages of national communities. The Croatian language is present only through a lectureship that was launched in 2018/2019, but without the possibility of studying Croatian studies or the existence of an independent department, which the Hungarian, Slovak, Ruthenian and Romanian languages have long had.

Article 24 of the Statute of the AP of Vojvodina states: In addition to the Serbian language and the Cyrillic script, the Hungarian, Slovak, Croatian, Romanian and Ruthenian languages and their scripts are in equal official use in the bodies of the AP of Vojvodina, in accordance with the law .

Within the framework of their competences, AP Vojvodina authorities take measures with the aim of consistently achieving the legally regulated official use of the languages and scripts of national minorities – national communities.

https://www.skupstinavojvodine.gov.rs/Strana.aspx?s=statut&j=HR

The failure to recognize Croatian identity in an institution called 'city' in a multi-confessional city such as Novi Sad, a city that is also the ‘srpska Atena’ / 'Serbian Athens' (Serbian: Atina), harms not only Croats and the Croatian community, but also the reputation of Novi Sad itself as a Central European city that boasts of its openness, tolerance and culture, and is also the center of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and the second most important city in the Republic of Serbia.