Publisher: Institut za migracije i narodnosti

Migration and Ethnic Themes

Migracijske i etničke teme

Frequency: irregular and other / Country: Croatia

The journal Migracijske i etničke teme primarily publishes scientific articles in a wide range of fields relating to migration, ethnicity and identity problems in social sciences and humanities (sociology, anthropology, history, demography, human geography, psychology, political science, economics, legal sciences, linguistics, etc.), as well as in interdisciplinary frameworks. The journal publishes also other contributions of scientific and professional interest: essays, professional papers, reviews and book reports, notes on scientific meetings, etc. Papers are published in Croatian, English, French and Russian, and the editorial board may also decide to publish some of them in other languages. From 1985 to the year 2000 the journal was named Migracijske teme. The journal has been published quarterly since 1985 (until 2000 under the name Migracijske teme). From 2010 the journal is published three times per year. The Journal is indexed in: Sociological Abstracts, Inc. (San Diego, USA); Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (San Diego, USA); Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (Bethesda, USA); International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (London, UK); REMISIS – Revue Bibliographique sur les Migrations Internationales (Paris, France). EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jadranka Čačić-Kumpes EDITORIAL BOARD Aleksandra Ålund (Norrköping) William Berthomière (Poitiers) Ružica Čičak-Chand (Zagreb) Josip Kumpes (Zagreb) Ivan Lajić (Zagreb) Sanja Lazanin (Zagreb) Ivo Nejašmić (Zagreb) Sonja Podgorelec (Zagreb) Sergei Romanenko (Moscow) Laura Šakaja (Zagreb) INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD Ivan Čizmić (Zagreb) Petr Dostál (Prague) Mladen Ante Friganović (Zagreb) Emil Heršak (Zagreb) Marie-Antoinette Hily (Poitiers) Vjeran Katunarić (Zagreb) Károly Kocsis (Budapest) Ante Markotić (Mostar) Milan Mesić (Zagreb) Armando Montanari (Rome) Mirjana Morokvašić-Müller (Paris) Rainer Münz (Berlin) Maria Nazaré Oliveira Roca (Lisbon) William O'Reilly (Galway) André-Louis Sanguin (Paris) Carl-Ulrik Schierup (Norrköping) Fahrudin Šebić (Sarajevo) Alexander Vovin (Honolulu) Jonas Widgren (Vienna) Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya (Moscow) Jernej Zupančič (Ljubljana)

Growing Old on an Island. The Quality of Life of Elderly Populations on Croatian Islands

Ostarjeti na otoku. Kvaliteta života starijega stanovništva hrvatskih otoka

Author(s): Sonja Podgorelec / Language(s): Croatian

Keywords: retirement age; ageing; Croatian islands; demographic ageing; island life; life story interviews; island communities

The ageing of the populations of Croatian island is the result of the process that marked island life during the past century – emigration. Permanent outflow from the islands of mainly younger people of working age had a gradual effect on the total reduction of population, and also on natural demographic trends, causing a fall in the birth-rate and relative growth of the death rate. The result of such natural and mechanical trends was the ageing of the island population reinforced by the return of islanders after retirement to their island. The specificity of island life, the age and gender structure of the population as well as the self-reliance of frequently small populations, have determined the roles of individual groups and have forced the inhabitants of the Croatian islands to lead active lives into advanced old age. The author argues for a broader conception of understanding the activities of elderly members of island communities and provides an answer to the questions of the ways of island life and the role of migration, evaluates the problems of island community and ways of solving them, and talks about the place of elderly people in revival programmes for the islands and the quality of their life at the beginning of the 3rd millennium. In this connection a quantitative analysis of census data and data from various other institutions were used, while in the field survey the questionnaire method was applied as well as the biographic method or the method of deep interviews. The questionnaire survey was conducted on a sample of the populations of Ugljan, Iž and Dugi Otok. Likewise we tried to give a broader and more individual picture of the quality of life of the elderly island people through ten life stories of old islanders, the majority of whom were inhabitants of the Kvarner islands: Krk, Cres and Lošinj.

Wars, colonizations and the national structure of Slavonia in the 20th century

Ratovi, kolonizacije i nacionalna struktura Slavonije u dvadesetom stoljeću

Author(s): Ivan Lajić,Mario Bara / Language(s): Croatian

Keywords: Slavonia; East Croatia; Baranja; population; Serb population; Croat population; “Yugoslav” population; demography; migration; Croatian War of Independence; World War I; World War II; colonization

Due to favourable terrain, hydrographic, climatic and traffic characteristics, the territory of Slavonia was from ancient times an attractive settlement zone and therefore had a dynamic demographic development. In the first half of the 20th century, the national character of migration was strongly determined by: territorial affiliation of the region to various political entities during recent history (the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of SHS/Yugoslavia, the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/, socialist Yugoslavia), political-social systems that organized colonizations of the area, and economic factors. War events by their meaning encompass the characteristics of ethnic conflict as well, making the consequences particularly obvious through selective war mortality, forced migrations and changes in the ethnic composition of certain areas (this was especially obvious in the Second World War and the Homeland War). On the other hand, colonizations after the First and Second World War, which were also ethnically based as a reflection of relations of power among various political and social elites, had an almost equally strong impact. Peacetime periods brought other forms of mechanical, unforced population movements (mostly rural-urban migrations). The post-war development of Slavonia, along with increased deruralization and industrialization, attracted not only the surrounding rural population but also labour force from other parts of the former state thus causing change in the ethnic structure. Recent demographic trends have been determined by the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the armed conflict following the entire process. The consequences of war and post-war events are most apparent in the field of mechanical movement (forced and mandatory migrations). Comparative demographic analysis of two last censuses in 1991 and 2001 proved that during this decade the following took place: a significant depopulation of most cities and municipalities, a change in the ethnic/national structure, an absolute and relative decrease of the Serb population, an absolute and relative decrease of other minority populations, a relative and absolute increase in the proportion and number of Croats, and aging of the entire population of Slavonia with more intense aging in the areas where the Serbs constituted a relative and absolute majority in the Homeland War.The result of these long-term processes - colonizations, war and ethnic conflicts, war and post-war mechanical population movements with selective forced and involuntary migrations - had an effect on a significant increase in the number of the majority population followed by the reduction or almost disappearance of certain minorities.