I croati erzegovesi sognano un loro stato

The article deals with the issue of the Croats of Hercegovina from the perspective of political sociology. Particularly, it describes the role played by the community of the Croats in Bosnia-Hercegovina since the collapse of former Yugoslavia till the present day. The authors, Emilio Cocco and Ana Petek, insist on the multiple politically relevant relationships that connected the Croats of Hercegovina both with the newly established state of Croatia and with their enemy/friends neighbours and state-fellows, namely the Muslims of Bosnia-.Hercegovina. The thesis of the authors is that the political community of the Croats in Hercegovina has been split between a dream of unification with the state of the Croats and the need to coexist and survive in the new independent state of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Thus, a pragmatic orientation towards political survival and the persistence of a long term dream is what has carachterised the experience of the Croats of Hercegovina, especially during the 1990s. In this regards, a special role has been played by the nationalist political party HDZ, which has dominated the political arena in Croatia throughout the 1990s. To the HDZ leaders, and among them President Franjo Tudjman, the goal of the HDZ was to protect the Croatian statehood by all internal and external enemies. Thus, to pursue such a goal, the party always kept an hybrid shape, something in between a liberation movement, a national front and a more traditional party. Here, in this fluid political context, the Croats of Hercegovina were acting strategically both as Croats abroad and as “the most Croats of all Croats” for theri religious sentiment, their ethnic ties, etc.. The authors analyses how this role has been performed in the 1990s by taking in consideration political discourses, national symbologies and some political-economic operations, such as the ones connected with privatization, where the privileges held by the Hercegovinians were quite clear. The death of Tudjman in 2000 opened up new scenarios. On one hand, the connection between Zagreb and Hercegovina has progressively been cut off, at least as far as irredentistim was concerned. On the other one, the new global fight aganst terrorism and the geopolitical raise of an Islamic question paved some new paths for the national ambitions of the Croats of Hercegovina.