Croatian political diversity and national development in the nineteenth century

Long exposed to frequent warfare and subsequent waves of migration, the Croatian lands were divided between Venetian, Habsburg, and Ottoman rule through the early modern period. The regional heterogeneity was compounded by noted geographic and cultural differences, ranging from Mediterranean influences in Dalmatia and Istria, the hostile Karst environment in the hinterland, to the Pannonian plains in the East. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Croatian lands passed largely to the Habsburg Monarchy, with only a small historically Croatian part of Bosnia remaining under Ottoman rule. Historic Croatia remained divided socially and culturally among inhabitants from different ethnic and religious groups and even among Croats speaking three different dialects. This diversity presented a challenge which the Croatian national movements would have to address.