Effects of the War in Croatia 1991-1995 on Changes in the Share of Ethnic Serbs in the Ethnic composition of Slavonia

Abstract

The subject of this paper are the ethno-demographical changes in the area of Slavonia during the last decade of the twentieth century. Focus is primarily turned to negative influences (direct and indirect) of socio-political changes on the mechanical movement of population. Especially, the influence of war on the movement of Serbian and Slavonic population in general is apostrophised. Leading hypothesis is that the peaceful reintegration of East Slavonia, Srem and Baranja caused less demographic shifts then the military operation "Flash" in West Slavonia.

Used methodology consists of statistical analysis and interpretation of data collected from censuses and other secondary publications that featured data relevant to the subject of this research. The authors show the afore mentioned changes in ethnic composition of the population on several different levels (city level, municipality level and county level) following the modern day administrative distribution of counties in the Republic of Croatia to ensure comparability of two most recent population censuses (1991 – 2001).

Contemporary demographic structure of Slavonia is formed by inherited negative trends in population movements from previous periods in history and a considerably strong mechanical drain of autochthonous population and the influx of new one from neighboring countries in the 1990s. Political and territorial changes as well as war conflicts that followed the collapse of the Yugoslav Federation carried with them clear characteristics of ethnic conflict, making the consequences particularly noticeable through selective war mortality, forced and impelled migrations and changes in the ethnic composition of certain areas.

Population census in 2001. registered the absolute and relative decrease in population of Serbian nationality in Slavonia, or to be more accurate decrease of the population of Serbian nationality from 167,094 or 17.1% of the total population in 1991, to 78,085 or 8.8% in 2001. It can be concluded that the impaired sex-age structure of the Serbian population, along with the absence of a larger number of returnees of a younger fertile demographical profile from surrounding countries, predominantly from Serbia, will further influence the demographic aging of the observed populations, and therefore the decline of their share in certain areas along with increased ethnic homogenization of parts of Slavonia, i.e. Croatia. Somewhat more favorable demographic structure of the Serbian population is kept in Eastern Slavonia, where there were no mass emigrations.