Transition and Perspectives of Modernization of Croatian Village

The pivot of this work, that results from “The Village in Transition” project, is the relation between socio-economic changes in Croatian village and the possibilities of revitalization of rural areas. In the past 50 years Croatia went through a sequence of dramatic changes marked by the processes of industrialization, de-agrarization and urbanization. From mostly agrarian country with prevailing peasantry and small-scale farming, Croatia became a medium developed country in which a portion of agrarian population decreased to 7 - 8 per cent of total population. The village followed these tendencies in development, but even today the agriculture is one of the most important occupations of its population. The property structure of peasant farming is unfavourable as two thirds of households own less than 3 ha land, and most of them are part-time agrarian households earning ever greater part of their income out of household. The process of de-agrarization deteriorated vital characteristics of rural population, and strong rural exodus de-vitalized the greatest part of rural area, which is today behind the urban entities. A huge part of rural area, especially uplands and mountain regions, is subject to strong de-population. The author showed that Croatian village, which compared to “classical” transitional countries had different developmental movements, shares the same difficulties because Croatian rural areas have the same developmental problems and, like rural areas in other countries, do not fit easily in predominant trends of modem society. The author considers that under the condition that polycentric and dispersive developmental concept be adopted, the transitional period - in spite of all the difficulties - can make possible the village modernization and its easier integration into global society, as in transitional circumstances this concept gives chance for village re-vitalization