Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag line
Encyclopedia
Karlobag
Karlobag is a historic and picturesque seaside municipality on the Adriatic coast in Croatia, located underneath Velebit overlooking the island of Pag, west of Gospić and south of Senj. The Gacka river also runs through the area...
-Ogulin
Ogulin
Ogulin is a town in north-western Croatia, in Karlovac County. It has a population of 8,712 , and a total municipal population of 15,054...
-Karlovac
Karlovac
Karlovac is a city and municipality in central Croatia. The city proper has a population of 49,082, while the municipality has a population of 59,395 inhabitants .Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County...
-Virovitica
Virovitica
Virovitica is a Croatian town near the Croatian-Hungarian border. It is situated near the Drava river and belongs to the historic region of Slavonia. Virovitica has a population of 14,663, with 21,327 people in the municipality...
line is a hypothetical boundary often used to describe the western extent of an irredentist nationalist Serbian state
Greater Serbia
The term Greater Serbia or Great Serbia applies to the Serbian nationalist and irredentist ideology directed towards the creation of a Serbian land which would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to the Serbian nation...
. Everything east of this line would form a part of Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, while the west of it would be within Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
, and all which might remain of Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. Such a boundary would give the majority of the territory of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
to the Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
.
This line was frequently referenced by Serbian politician Vojislav Šešelj
Vojislav Šešelj
Vojislav Šešelj, JD is a Serbian politician, writer and lawyer. He is the founder and president of the Serbian Radical Party and was vice-president of Serbia between 1998 and 2000...
.
Some Serbian nationalists supported the line and a greater Serbian state for national and economical reasons. It would give Serbia a large coastline, heavy industries, agricultural farmland, natural resources and all of the crude oil (mostly found in the Pannonian Plain
Pannonian Basin
The Pannonian Basin or Carpathian Basin is a large basin in East-Central Europe.The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense - meaning only the lowlands, the plain that remained when the Pliocene Pannonian Sea dried...
), particularly in the Socialist Republic of Croatia
Socialist Republic of Croatia
Socialist Republic of Croatia was a sovereign constituent country of the second Yugoslavia. It came to existence during World War II, becoming a socialist state after the war, and was also renamed four times in its existence . It was the second largest republic in Yugoslavia by territory and...
. Also, it would gather over 98% of Serbs of Yugoslavia in one state. In his speeches and books, Šešelj claimed that all of the population of these areas are in fact ethnic Serbs, of Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Muslim faith. However, outside of Šešelj's Serbian Radical Party
Serbian Radical Party
The Serbian Radical Party is a far-right Serbian nationalist political party in Serbia, founded in 1991. Currently the second-largest party in the Serbian National Assembly, it has branches in three of the nations that currently border Serbia – all former federal republics of Yugoslavia...
the line was never promoted in recent Serbian political life, and in recent years that party has abandoned actively advocating the line, (though it still officially considers it a long-term goal).
External links
- http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/serbian_digest/3/t3-1.htm
- http://www.nsf-journal.hr/issues/v3_n3-4/pdf/11-footnotes.pdf
- Evidence from the ICTY trial Case No. IT-94-1-T that details Stevan Moljevic's Greater Serbia plan
- ICTY transcripts of court case discussing the Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag line: http://www.un.org/icty/transe14/980910oed.htm, http://www.un.org/icty/transe67/030226IA.htm, http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/030627IT.htm, http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/050915IT.htm, http://www.un.org/icty/transe13-1/051121IT.htm
- Vojislave Seselj trial - ICTY information sheet