The Croatian Democratic Union is a major conservative, centre-right political party in Croatia. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Croatia, along with the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP). It is currently the largest party in the Sabor with 62 seats. The HDZ governed Croatia from 1990 before the country gained independence from Yugoslavia until 2000 and, in coalition with junior partners, from 2003 to 2011, and since 2016. The HDZ's leader, Andrej Plenković, is the current Prime Minister of Croatia, having taken office following the 2016 parliamentary election.
This is the history of Croatia since the end of the Croatian War of Independence.
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović is a Croatian politician and diplomat who served as President of Croatia from 2015 to 2020. She was the first woman to be elected to the office since the first multi-party elections in 1990 and independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. At 46 years of age, she also became the youngest person to assume the presidency.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Croatia have expanded since the turn of the 21st century, especially in the 2010s and 2020s. However, LGBT people still face some legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. The status of same-sex relationships was first formally recognized in 2003 under a law dealing with unregistered cohabitations. As a result of a 2013 referendum, the Constitution of Croatia defines marriage solely as a union between a woman and man, effectively prohibiting same-sex marriage. Since the introduction of the Life Partnership Act in 2014, same-sex couples have effectively enjoyed rights equal to heterosexual married couples in almost all of its aspects, except adoption. In 2022, a final court judgement allowed same-sex adoption under the same conditions as for mixed-sex couples. Same-sex couples in Croatia can also apply for foster care since 2020. Croatian law forbids all discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in all civil and state matters; any such identity is considered a private matter, and such information gathering for any purpose is forbidden as well.
Parliamentary elections were held in the Socialist Republic of Croatia between 22 and 23 April 1990; the second round of voting occurred on 6–7 May. These were the first free, multi-party elections held in Croatia since 1938, and the first such elections for the Croatian Parliament since 1913. Voters elected candidates for 356 seats in the tri-cameral parliament; the turnout in the first round ranged between 76.56% and 84.54% for various parliamentary chambers. In the second round, the turnout was 74.82%. The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won 205 seats, ousted the League of Communists of Croatia – Party of Democratic Reform (SKH-SDP) from power and ended 45 years of communist rule in Croatia. The new parliament convened for the first time on 30 May, elected Franjo Tuđman as President of the Croatian Presidency and soon after renamed the office to President of Croatia.
Croatian Pure Party of Rights is a far-right political party in Croatia founded in 1992. The party claims to be an ideological descendant of the identically named right-wing Serbophobic historical party which was active in the early 20th century and which advocated the right to self-determination for Croatia at the time when it was part of Austria-Hungary and Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Arsenije "Arsen" Dedić was a Croatian singer-songwriter. He wrote and performed chansons, as well as film music. He was also an award-winning poet, and was one of the best-selling poets of former Yugoslavia and Croatia.
Zoran Milanović is a Croatian politician serving as the president of Croatia since 2020. Prior to assuming the presidency, he was prime minister of Croatia from 2011 to 2016, as well as president of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) from 2007 to 2016.
Croatia and Russia established diplomatic relations on 25 May 1992. Croatia has an embassy in Moscow and honorary consulates in Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk, and Sochi. Russia has an embassy in Zagreb and honorary consulates in Pula and Split.
The Anti-Cyrillic protests in Croatia were a series of serbophobic protests in late 2013 against the application of bilingualism in Vukovar, whereby Serbian and the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet were assigned co-official status due to the local minority population. The implementation of this decision became mandatory after the 2011 Croatian census, according to which Serbs in Vukovar comprise more than one-third (34.8%) of Vukovar's total population. Signs in the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet had been put up as the Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities mandates bilingual signs in any area where more than one-third of the population belongs to an ethnic minority. This decision became subject of intense agitation by, among others, Croatian war veterans and many ordinary citizens who believe that due to events, particularly the Battle of Vukovar, the city should have been excluded from the application of the law on minority rights, although protests and vandalism have occurred in other towns and cities. The Serbs of Croatia are a minority group that have the narrowest usage of right to bilingualism among all national minorities in Croatia.
The Workers' Front is a democratic socialist and progressive political party in Croatia. Formed in May 2014 as a political initiative of workers, trade unionists, unemployed, and students in Croatia, it supports anti-clericalism, anti-fascism, antimilitarism, eco-socialism, labour rights, progressivism, and socialist feminism. Some left-libertarian and Trotskyist critics characterize it as left-wing populist in the mold of Podemos and SYRIZA.
Serbian Action is an ultranationalist and clerical fascist movement, active in Serbia since 2010.
Drago Prgomet is a Croatian physician, university professor and politician. He served as a Member of Croatian Parliament, later as President of the Zagreb Assembly, as well as a head of Department of Ear, Nose, Throat, and Head and Neck Surgery at the University Hospital Centre Zagreb, and head of Department of Otorhinolaryngology with Audiology and Phoniatry of the Zagreb School of Medicine.
Zlatko Hasanbegović is a Croatian politician and historian who has served as a member of the Croatian Parliament since 2016. He served as Minister of Culture in the cabinet of Tihomir Orešković from 22 January to 19 October 2016. Hasanbegović is also a member of the Zagreb Assembly and one of the founders of the Independents for Croatia party.
Marijana Petir is a Croatian politician, former Member of the European Parliament.
The 2017 Serbian protests against perceived dictatorship were ongoing mass protests organized across Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš and other cities and towns in Serbia, against Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, as a result of the presidential election. The election was marred by accusations of voter intimidation and a near total domination of Serbia's media by Vučić and his populist conservative Serbian Progressive Party. The protests started on 3 April and thousands of people had been gathering on the streets of Serbia's cities on a daily basis. They informed themselves via official Facebook protest pages.
Anarchism emerged on territories of Serbia in the second half of the 19th century as part of the wider workers' movement in the Southern Slavic and future Yugoslavian region, and was embraced along with other freedom-centered ideas as part of the struggle for national liberation from Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Among the first people to espouse ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was Živojin Žujović, who was at the time a student of law and economy, later credited as the first Serbian socialist. A sizeable community of South Slavic students and revolutionaries was based in Switzerland, where they kept in touch with Mikhail Bakunin and the Slavic section of Jura Federation.
Do not let Belgrade drown, previously stylised as Do not let Belgrade d(r)own, was a green political organisation in Serbia.
Following the rise of nationalism and political tensions, as well as the outbreaks of the Yugoslav Wars, numerous anti-war movements developed in Serbia. The 1991 mass protests against Slobodan Milošević regime which have continued throughout the wars reinforced young people's antiwar orientation. The demonstrations in Belgrade were held mostly because of opposition the Battle of Vukovar, Siege of Dubrovnik and Siege of Sarajevo, while protesters demanded the referendum on a declaration of war and disruption of military conscription.
Anarchism in Croatia first emerged in the late 19th century within the socialist workers' movement. Anarchist tendencies subsequently spread from neighboring countries, taking root in a number of cities throughout the country. The movement experienced repression from a succession of authoritarian regimes before finally reemerging around the time of the independence of Croatia.
