The birthday of Count Josip Jelačić, who served as the Ban (governor) of Croatia from 1848 to 1859, was celebrated by the Croat community in Petrovaradin in the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina on Wednesday.
According to local Croatian-language media, the celebration was overshadowed by the disappointment that the birthplace of Croatia’s most renowned ban has not been restored even after four years.
Ban Jelačić was born in Petrovaradin on 16 October 1801 and his birthday is one of the four holidays of the Croat minority in Serbia. The house where he was born was returned to the Croat community in 2020 and should have become a memorial centre and a meeting place for local Croats.
“We all remember how Ban Josip Jelačić’s birthplace was pompously opened four years ago, and today, a full four years on, this house is unfortunately still not functioning,” said Mile BoÅ¡njak, an adviser at Croatia’s Central State Office for Croats Abroad, as reported by the local newspaper Hrvatska Riječ.
He added that Croatia will not allow it to remain so, “even if it is an obligation assumed by Serbia, even if it should have been done differently, more transparently and faster.”
“The Serb minority in Croatia is getting cultural centres all over Croatia. It would also be expected of Serbia to fulfill its obligations too,” Bošnjak said.
He recalled that Serbia had taken on the obligation to open a Croatian language department, while only a Croatian language instructorship was opened at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Novi Sad, which is financed by Croatia and is not fully functioning.
Bošnjak also noted that Serbia has failed to fulfil its obligation to guarantee positions for Croat representatives at all levels of government.
Petrovaradin is an old military town that served as Austria-Hungary’s point of resistance against the penetration of the Turkish army in the 17th century, when Croats settled there. At the beginning of the 19th century, Croats made up more than ninety per cent of its population, but today their number has been reduced to less than ten per cent.
