Image: Croats in Ragusan postcard.
In the publication “Stenographische Protokolle über die Sitzungen des Hauses der Abgeordneten des österreichischen Reichrathes” from the Austrian state archives, from the “Abgeordnetenhaus” from 1918, we can read:
“About 15 years ago, a citizen of Serbian nationality died in Spalato (Split). He donated the sum of 400,000 crowns for the establishment of a Serbian public education institution in Ragusa.
Context
The donator was Konstantin “Kosta” Vučković, a wealthy Serbian merchant and banker who lived in Split and died in 1893. In his will, he left behind a considerable fortune for the establishment and maintenance of a Serbian “adult education institution or foundation”.
The purpose this donation could have been part of a Greater Serbian agenda. By investing in a Serbian education institution, Vučković contributed to the Serbian theory of a continued presence of Serbs of the Dalmatia. Even though Austrian maps from 1851 show that there were no such things as “Serbs of Dalmatia”.
What do historians say?
Several historians have challenged nationalist narratives claiming an uninterrupted Serbian presence in Dalmatia since the early medieval period. Instead, they argue that ethnic and national identities in the region were fluid and often shaped by later political developments.
According to this interpretation, much of the Serbian Orthodox population that became established in Dalmatia arrived through migration processes associated with the Ottoman conquests and subsequent Habsburg-Ottoman wars between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The demographic structure of Dalmatia was therefore significantly altered by these migrations, rather than reflecting a continuous Serbian ethnic presence from antiquity or the early Middle Ages.
Furthermore, some scholars argue that modern Serbian national identiy were frequently projected retrospectively onto populations whose historical self-identification was Catholic, Dalmatian and other cultures. They identified as anything but Serbian.
Sources
Stenographische Protokolle über die Sitzungen des Hauses der Abgeordneten des österreichischen Reichrathes. Austria. Reichsrat. Abgeordnetenhaus. 1918.
Banac, Ivo. The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Mrduljaš, Saša. “Numerical and Territorial Relations Between Croats and Serbs in Dalmatia Prior to Contemporary Migrations.” Polemos: Journal of Interdisciplinary Research on War and Peace 18, no. 35 (2015): 47–73.
Wörsdörfer, Rolf. “Ethnizität und Entnationalisierung: Umsiedlung und Vertreibung in Dalmatien, Istrien und Julisch-Venetien (1927–1954).” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 5, no. 2 (1994): 201–232.
