The Croats living in the territory of Hungary arrived here in different periods, escaping from the advancing Turks, during the Turkish rule of Hungary or after that, approximately from the 15th to 18th centuries. According to some researchers, there were already autochthonous Croat communities on the left bank of the Drava and Mur rivers when Hungarians arrived.
In terms of origins, dialectal and ethnological characteristics, ethnic Croats are among the most diverse nationalities in Hungary. According to researchers of Hungary’s Croat minority, this group can be divided into at least seven (according to some, twelve) subgroups, listed from North to South: Western Hungarian (Gradistye) Croats, Mur area (Zala county) Croats, Drava area Croats, Pécs area Bosnian-Croats, Baranya and Bácska county Šokci-Croats, Bunjevci-Croats, and Danube area (Rascian) Croats.
Most Croat towns in Hungary are in the area that spreads from the Hungarian-Austrian-Slovakian triple border all the way to Szeged, but a significant number of Croats live in Budapest and the neighbouring areas as well.
According to data of the 2001 census, 15,620 people living in Hungary declared themselves Croats, and 14,345 people reported that Croatian was their mother tongue. At the same time, the National Self-Government of the Croat Minority estimates the population of the Croat community in Hungary to be 70,000-80,000.
127 local Croat minority governments were set up as a result of the elections for ethnic minority self-governments held on 3 October 2010. Territorial self-governments were set up in the six counties with the largest Croat population (Baranya, Bács-Kiskun, Győr-Moson-Sopron, Somogy, Vas and Zala) and Budapest. At the elections for the National Croat Self-Government (OHÖ), the Hungarian Association of Croats had its own candidates, and the 507 Croat electors elected a 29-member national self-government. At the constitutive meeting held on 29 January 2011, Mihály Hepp was elected President of the national self-government.
The seat of the National Croat Self-Government is in Budapest. The OHÖ currently runs six institutions and companies: the Croatian language kindergarten, primary school and student residence in Hercegszántó, Croatica Cultural, Informational and Publishing Non-Profit Company, the Scientific Institute of Croats in Hungary, the August Šenoa Croat Club, the Zavičaj Cultural, Educational and Leisure Centre for Hungarian Croats and the Collection of the Christian Community of Croats in Hungary.
The Croatian education and training programme is being implemented as an integral part of public education. In the 2009/2010 academic year, there were 9 purely Croatian-language kindergartens, 18 bilingual kindergartens and 1 kindergarten with supplementary Croatian education, and 28 primary schools offered Croatian language teaching with 4-5 classes a week, and only five primary schools offered bilingual Croatian-Hungarian education: in Budapest, Felsőszentmárton, Hercegszántó, Pécs and Szentpéterfa.
Two secondary schools offer Croatian-language education in Hungary: one in Budapest (Budapest Croatian Kindergarten, Primary School, Secondary School and Student Residence) and one in Pécs (Miroslav Krleža Croatian Kindergarten, Primary School, Secondary School and Student Residence). Both institutions operate as educational centres, housing a kindergarten, a primary school, a secondary school and a student residence.
Higher education in Croatian is only available in part of teacher training. Several higher education institutions offer Croatian language and literature teacher and philologist training, but only one school (the National Minorities and Foreign Languages Department of Eötvös József College in Baja) offers kindergarten and primary school teacher training in Croatian. Croatian language and literature training is offered at the Slavic Philology Department at the Faculty of Humanities of ELTE, at the Croatian Department at the Faculty of Humanities of University of Pécs and the Savaria University Centre of the University of West Hungary in Szombathely. Unfortunately, no Hungarian higher education institution offers Croatian-language historian, physics teacher, mathematics teacher, biologist etc. programmes. This is partially compensated for by an intergovernmental agreement that allows students to pursue their studies at certain universities in Croatia with a state bursary.
The only weekly newspaper of Croats living in Hungary, ‘Hrvatski glasnik’ is published by Croatica Nonprofit Kft. The paper is available for download in PDF format on the publisher's website. ‘Hrvatski glasnik’ informs its readers about all the major events in the life of the ethnic Croat community in Hungary, as well as political, educational, artistic, cultural and other events, Hungarian-Croatian relations etc.
Since 2005, Croatica Nonprofit Kft. has been operating an Internet radio station named Radio Croatica as well. One of the advantages of the Internet radio is that its programmes can be downloaded at any time from the archive, while the public can keep up with news and current affairs by reading http://radio.croatica.hu
The Croatian Department of the Media Support and Asset Management Fund (MTVA) produces a two-hour daily radio show in Croatian, which is broadcast on MR4 between 8 and 10 AM, and there is also a 26-minute Croatian-language TV magazine, ‘Hrvatska kronika’. The television and radio shows are available for download on the websites of MR4 and MTV.
The Croatian Theatre in Pécs is the only Croatian minority theatre in Europe, with the primary mission of safeguarding the mother tongue and culture of the Croat community in Hungary. The theatre’s current repertoire is available at www.horvatszinhaz.hu.
The publishing of Croatian-language books in Hungary is primarily the task of Croatica Cultural, Informational and Publishing Non-Profit Company. Croatica is most active in the area of publishing textbooks. They own the property rights to 61 textbooks, including the textbooks of the Croat, German, Slovene, Slovak, Romanian, Greek and Bulgarian communities in Hungary, and they also publish the yearbook ‘Hrvatski kalendar’, the journal ‘Pogledi’ and numerous works of fiction.
The Scientific Institute of Croats in Hungary considers its main aim to be promoting a sense of community among researchers of the Croat minority in Hungary and training a new generation of scientists in this area. Apart from research, the Institute also organizes technical conferences, publishes scientific works and popularizes research results. (Website: www.mhti.hu)
The August Šenoa Croat Club in Pécs is a regional cultural centre, mostly organizing exhibitions, book launches, reader-writer meetings, lectures, theatre visits, memorial meetings etc.
The National Croat Self-Government set up the Christian Collection of Croats in Hungary in the West Hungarian town of Peresznye, based on a generous donation by Father István Dumovits. The collection, apart from its scientific and cultural value, will hopefully become a tourist attraction as well, due to its value and proximity to the Austrian border.
The town of Vlašići on Pag Island is home to the Education and Holiday Centre of Hungarian Croats, a unique ethnic minority project in Europe. Its aim is to organize in-service trainings, educational courses, camps and holidays for Croat students, youths, teachers and culture workers and cultural visit groups.
Apart from the institutions, regional and local heritage preservation groups, operating as NGOs, also have an important role in the preservation of the language and identity of Croats in Hungary. There are more than 100 cultural associations, adult, youth and children's cultural groups (choirs, orchestras, dance and theatre groups) operating at the local level.
The institutions, NGOs and minority self-governments of the ethnic Croat minority in Hungary have established good relations with their Croatian partners, and almost all Hungarian towns with a Croat population have some sort of partnership ties to Croatian entities. At the same time, similar ties have been established with Croat minorities living in other countries in the region (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Serbia).
