Split Zagora (hinterlands) in the Croatia National Revival movement

Abstract

Split Zagora (hinterlands) was the most underdeveloped part of Dalmatia in the nineteenth century agriculturally, socially and culturally. During the French reign the township community was formed with its quarters in Muć Donji. This was a predominantly rural region with a traditional way of life. During the French reign villagers got the land into their possession but they lost it during the nineteenth century by paying off their debts to village and city usurers. As in the other parts of Dalmatian hinterlands there were some intellectuals in a rural society who claimed political integration of Dalmatia with the northern Croatian lands in 1848. During the national revival movement, in the sixties and seventies, the ethnic consciousness of these rural intellectuals of Split hinterlands transformed itself faster and easier into Croatian national awareness than their political counterparts on the coast and on the islands who, for specific reasons, had to go through the transitional Yugoslav phase. National party in Dalmatia had a firm support in the rural intellectuals which was obvious from the composition of the township council and the political views of the mayor who was always »narodnjak« (»people's man«), from the support given to their favorites in township electorials and from the use of Croatian language, not so much in the administration, as in the local schools. These were the visible signs of a modest beginning of national and political integration in this region.