Croatian Parliament Reels In Croatian Language Act – Historic and Proud Moment For Croatian Nation

Accompanied by cheery, loud applause from the floor the Croatian Parliament has Friday 26 January 2024 passed the Croatian Language Act (Zakon o hrvatskom jeziku), which for the first time in history regulates the issue of official and public use of the Croatian language and ensures systematic and professional care for it. 95 votes for, 17 against and 10 MPs present during the voting session abstained from voting.  There were 122 out of 151 MPs present in chamber for the voting.

With this, the Republic of Croatia has lifted itself to stand at the side of European countries that take care of their own official language through their national legislation. Thus, after decades of frets for the survival of the Croatian language amidst anti-Croat pressures such as the ill-fated and ill-meaning concoction pushed by the former Yugoslav communists called Serbo-Croatian language, to name only one, anticipation, the dream of many generations of Croatian patriots finally became a reality. BRAVO!

In developing and in passing the Croatian Language Act, the Croatian Parliament and the Government, acknowledge and install the facts into the legislation:

– that the Croatian language is one of the fundamental national values and an important component of Croatian national identity and Croatian national identity,

– that all attacks and attempts to suppress the Croatian language in the past were always also attempts to denationalise and disintegrate the Croatian people,

– that in the process of globalisation it is important to protect national uniqueness,

– that Croatian culture is part of European culture, and the protection, care and development of the Croatian language are particularly important for the preservation of both Croatian and European cultural heritage,

– that the promotion and protection of the Croatian language is an obligation and duty of all institutions of public and social life and all citizens of the Republic of Croatia, this Law on the Public Use of the Croatian Language is enacted.

Care for the development of the Croatian language is thus vested in the responsibility of the entire Croatian society and therefore must be placed on a broad supra-institutional and national level. All Croatians and their families should play an active part in the development of the language and culture. This is the law on the future of the Croatian language. With that, preservation and use of the Croatian language will be ensured for generations to come.

As to those who opposed the new Croatian Language Act, Croatian journalist and author of note, Hrvoje Hitrec, recently wrote “classic hate speech is reserved for opponents of the Law on the Croatian Language, terrorists very nicely placed in the daily press who seem to compete among themselves in presenting anti-Croatian baggage and it’s not post-Yugoslav, but rather Yugoslav nastiness, and it seems to the reader that we are still in the happy former a superstate where the Croatian must move cautiously so as not to provoke the wrath of other nations and nationalities.

The common denominator of all these sans-culottes is, when the dust is shaken off, that the Croatian language under that name is admittedly acceptable, but only as a variant of some ‘greater’ language (which in the current polemics they don’t dare to name, but they would be happy to do so). That’s why, they insinuate, all those who won’t and don’t want to take and use words from that ‘greater’ are ordinary purists, Zagorje turkeys and the like, more or less Ustasha … Nothing new, but useful: in the heat of late summer, they crawled out from under a rock and those to whose smut we were used to, then forgot, we are just the way we are.

And that is one of the good things about the Law on the Croatian Language – to remind us how many of those Yugoslav, Oryuna (Organisation of Yugoslav Nationalists) politicians have infiltrated our homeland, into the media, into higher education, and how despite the tragedies of the 1990s that should have kept them silent forever – managed to survive and assert themselves, become ‘reputable’ and cited, playing on the zithers of ordinary  Vukovianisms and quasi-libertarian tendencies…”

At the end of his presentation in favor of the new Law on the Croatian Language in the Croatian Parliament on January 26, 2024, before the vote, the Minister of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia, Radovan Fuchs, concluded that “the law bothers those who de facto do not recognize the Croatian language as a unique language, as a language with all its specificities and personalities, and who still think that we can all speak everything that is spinning in the language pot of these areas and that is a certain legacy of the former state.”

According to information on the Croatian Parliament website (click here for pdf voting results), Members of Parliament Mirela Ahmetović, Barbara Antolić Vupora, Boška Ban Vlahek, Arsen Bauk, Erik Fabijanić, Sabina Glasovac, Peđa Grbin, Branko Grčić, Siniša Hajdaš Dončić, Mišel Jakšić, Boris Lalovac, Andreja Marić, Anka Mrak-Taritaš, Dalija Orešković, Katarina Peović, Marijana Puljak and Martina Vlašić Iljkić voted against the passing of the Act. Members of Parliament Domagoj Hajduković, Marin Lerotić, Vesna Nađ, Željko Pavić, Ivana Posavec Krivec, Sanja Udović, Davorko Vidović, Franko Vidović and Nikšta Vukas abstained from voting. Members of the government majority party HDZ, members of opposition parties MOST, Homeland Movement (Domovinski pokret), among others, voted for the passing of the Act.

Suffice to say, those that made the bulk of the “against” and the “abstaining” voting camp are diehard political spawns of the repugnantly oppressive former Yugoslav or Croatian Communist Party (borna again as the League of Communists at the threshold of vast majority of Croats vying for independence of Croatia during 1989 multi-political party system being introduced) who voted against the passing of this Act (Social Democratic Party, Workers’ Front Party, Glas, Centre…)  This lot and their supporters would be among those Hrvoje Hitrec writes about as quoted in paragraphs above.

As I wrote in a previous article of mine this law prescribes the official use of the Croatian language, regulates the establishment of the Council for the Croatian Language as a coordinating advisory body whose work will be focused on the protection, nurturing and development of the Croatian language, as well as the creation of the National Croatian Language Policy Plan in order to preserve the social role and legal position of the Croatian language.

Croatian language is the official language in Croatia and one of the official languages of the European Union, as well as that it is a fundamental component of Croatian identity and Croatian culture in its totality and integrity.

Those obliged to use the Croatian language officially and in compliance with the Act are state authorities, state administration bodies, local and regional self-government units and legal entities that have public powers, i.e. all public law bodies in Croatia.

In addition to prescribing the public use of the Croatian language and its use in education, the law also prescribes exceptions related to the education of children belonging to ethnic minorities, as well as exceptions related to teaching and other forms of educational work in foreign languages.

The Act also prescribes the rules for the use of the Croatian standard language in the European Parliament, institutions, and advisory bodies of the European Union and in international cooperation.

The new Act defines what is included in the term Croatian language, what are the peculiarities of the Croatian language, the area of application of the Croatian language and its division into three equal dialects – Chakavian, Kajkavian and Štokavian.

While in the public arena controversies regarding the new law on the Croatian language are sure to keep surfacing for some time to come, it is exactly in that environment of linguistic recklessness and/or purposeful usage of words belonging to the Serbian language or Serbo-Croatian one that Croatia has been struggling with for at least two decades that the Act is essential. To fully succeed in its mission of independence Croatia must have its official language legislation in force and that has dawned on 26 January 2024 – finally! Ina Vukic