Etnosi i konfesije u Vukovaru i vukovarskom kraju od 1918. do 1941. s posebnim osvrtom na manjinske zajednice

Vukovarski prostor je prostor velike strukturne dinamike stanovništva, koju određuju brojne migracije. Već u srednjem vijeku formira se kao multikulturalni prostor. Plodna zemlja, ugodna klima, velika plovna rijeka na kojoj se nalazi, odredile su ga kao prostor brojnih doseljavanja, a politička nestabilnost kao prostor iseljavanja. Migracije stoljećima čine bitnu dinamičnu sastavnicu ukupnog kretanja stanovništva. Novovjekovna povijest vukovarskog područja počinje kada i novovjekovna povijest Slavonije – izgonom Osmanlija i planskim naseljavanjem opustošenog područja. Vukovarsko vlastelinstvo formira se početkom 18. stoljeća i u tom obliku traje do 1945. godine kada je oduzeto vlasnicima, grofovima Eltz, a prostorno se uglavnom poklapa s kasnijim vukovarskim kotarom. Kolektivne i organizirane, pojedinačne i stihijske, sezonske i trajne, političke i ekonomske – migracije su trajno obilježje vukovarskog područja. Zbog njih se na tom prostoru formira izrazito mješovita etnička i konfesionalna struktura stanovništva, koja ga s vremenom oblikuje u jedini istinski multikulturalni prostor Hrvatske. U doba Austro-Ugarske, to je prirodno stanje multikonfesionalne, multietničke i multilingvalne Monarhije, ali napuštanjem srednjoeuropskog okvira i formiranjem Kraljevine SHS, odnosno Kraljevine Jugoslavije na južnoslavenskom/jugoslavenskom unitarizmu, velik broj njegovih stanovnika gubi svoju konstitutivnu odrednicu i postaje u novoj državi „drugi“. Bez osnovnih građanskih prava, izloženi brojnim pritiscima, ekonomski, politički i društveno obespravljeni i marginalizirani, reagiraju različito. Veći dio ih se asimilira u hrvatsku jezičnu/etničku zajednicu, a manji dio se politički i društveno homogenizira, a s vremenom i radikalizira. Provedba agrarne reforme, i s njom povezana kolonizacija,dodatno, planski mijenjaju etničku i konfesionalnu strukturu stanovništva vukovarskog područja. Tako on sve više od srednjoeuropskog prostora ugodnog za život postaje mjesto političkih i etničkih sukoba.The Vukovar area is an area of significant structural population dynamics determined by numerous migrations. As early as the Middle Ages, a multicultural area had been formed. Fertile lands, agreeable climate and a large navigable river on which it is situated have determined Vukovar as an area of significant immigration, and political instability as an area of emigration. Migrations have for centuries constituted an important dynamic component of the overall population movement. The early modern history of the Vukovar area begins with the early modern history of Slavonia – with the banishment of Ottomans and planned settlement of the ravaged area. The Vukovar demesne was formed in the early 18th century and continued in that form until 1945 when it was taken from its owners, the Counts of Eltz, and its reach was largely the same as of the later Vukovar district. Collective and organised, individual and random, seasonal and permanent, political and economic – migrations have been a permanent hallmark of the Vukovar area. They have spawned an intensely mixed ethnic and confessional population structure in the area, which has moulded it over time into the only truly multicultural area of Croatia. During the Austro-Hungarian Empire this was the natural state of the multi-confessional, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Monarchy, but with the abandonment of the Central European realm and the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, based on the unitarism of Southern Slavs/Yugoslavia, a significant number of its inhabitants lost its constitutional determinant and became the “other” in the new country. With no basic civil rights and under considerable pressure, without economic, political and social rights, and marginalised, the population responded diversely. A large portion was assimilated in the Croatian linguistic/ethnic community, and a smaller portion became politically and socially homogenous, and later on even radical. The implementation of the agrarian reform, and the ensuing colonisation, provide an additional planned alteration of the ethnic and confessional population structure of the Vukovar area. It thus began to transform more and more from a Central European agreeable living area to a place of political and ethnic confrontation