Udbina in the Krajina ("Krayina")

 [NOTE: This post is meant to be a brief introduction to the region's history.  I think it is important to understand the history in order to understand the family's experiences.  Unfortunately the area's history involves much conflict, with all sides carrying out atrocities at one point or another.  I hope that this posts provides background information without either justifying or blaming one group or another.]


Udbina is located in a region that has been known at various times as the Krayina.  The word Krayina comes from the Slavic word "Kraj" (pronounced "Kray"), which means "edge" or "frontier".  During the 16th-19th centuries the Hapsburgs denoted the region where Udbina is located as the "Vojna Krajina" (or military frontier) because it was on the edge of their empire and the Ottoman empire.  [SIDE NOTE: the name Ukraine comes from the same Slavic root "Kray".  In the case of of U-Kra-ine, meaning "at the edge" (of the Russian empire)]

Croatia held the region where Udbina in located at the beginning of the 16th century but during that century they lost ground to the Ottoman Empire.  In 1527 the Ottomans overran Udbina ("Croatia: A Nation Forged in War." Marcus Tanner. Page 37). Eventually the Hapsburgs took the area back and it become part of their military frontier.  In the map below, the bottom part of the map shows the land controlled by the Ottoman Empire ("Bosnien Serbieng Ossmanisches").   The area outlined in brownish-red is the military frontier.  Udbina is located in the Military frontier on the far left (or west) part of the map, near the border with the Ottoman-controlled lands. 

In order to encourage people to settle in the Military frontier, which was wasted and ravaged by war, the Haspburg empire promised settlers land and religious freedom.  They were also exempted from the feudal system.  This brought both Catholic and Orthodox settlers into the region.

The military frontier was abolished in 1881 and formerly incorporated into the Kingdom of Croatia.  The records that I have been looking at show that a large number of people immigrated from Udbina between 1880 and 1910 (more on that in future posts!). Andrew and his in-laws (Joseph and Sophia) were part of that migration. 

One legacy of the military frontier is that this region in Croatia was close to being evenly split between Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Catholics (although my records indicate that in my areas they still lived in separate communities that were located side-by-side).  When ethnic conflict broke out in later decades, these areas were strongly affected because it was a region where the groups in conflict lived in close-quarters.  For instance, during WWII, the axis powers invaded Croatia and put the Ustaše regime into power.  The Ustaše regime had a negative killed many Jews, Serbs, and Roma. (The number of Serbian deaths is a contentious point; but most seem to agree that a significant number of Serbs were negatively affected during these years.)

After the fall of Yugoslavia, conflict returned again to this region.  When Croatia declared independence in 1991, Serbs in this region declared independence for a separate Serb-parastate which they called the Republic of Serbian Krayina (invoking the name of the military frontier from the period of the Haspburgs).  Here is a rough map of Serbian Krajina.  Udbnia is located in Lika province (yellow on the map) and is roughly at the midpoint between Korenica and Gračac. 

From 1991 to 1995 there was a military conflict in this region between local Serb paramilitary and the Croatian military.  In this particular region, the Serbs either killed or drove many of Croats from the region.  In turn, the Serbs were driven from the country.  The Croatian military ended the conflict by carrying out Operation Storm on the Serbian Krajina in August 1995.  Here's a 2005 article from the Economist that discusses the exodus of approximately 200,000 Serbs from this area following Operation Storm.

Because of the conflict, much of the region and its records are destroyed.  For example, many of the Orthodox churches in Udbina, and their graveyards, are completely destroyed.  Here are two pictures of the Orthodox Church in Mutilić, Croatia that Deb took on her visit there in October 2014.  Our family in Kurjak might have attended church here because Udbina, and consequently Kurjak, was assigned to this church.  Based on information here, we believe that this church was built in 1745 and burned in World War II.

Also, because ethnic tensions remain, even new monuments get destroyed.  Here is a picture of (what remains) of a monument built in Jošan, Croatia to remember people from there who were killed in World War II, between the years of 1941 and 1945.

We are fortunate because the family maintained its own burial plot, away from an Orthodox church. As a result, it remains intact to this day (we'll share more on that in a future post).