With the 20th anniversary of Operation Storm a few days ago, I'd like to ask a few questions related to the war and life during it.
Was there any tourism in Croatia during the war? I've found one reference to the tourist industry in Istria during it, but what about areas such as near Split?
Did the JNA have any intention of conquering Croatia as a whole, or was their aim specifically to secure strategic interests such as the RSK and some other areas such as Konavle and Prevlaka?
In general, how was life for Croatians living in places far away from the front lines? I'm aware of the general attacks on Zagreb and so on, but for instance - would someone living near the Slovenian border have a normal life?
Were Croatians free to travel (for instance, to Slovenia and onwards to Austria or to Italy) during the war, or did they require visas?
Thank you for any help with this!
It is hard to find information about tourist numbers in early 90's. Croatian Wikipedia claims 70% drop in tourist arrivals generally. Any site I check of towns and tourist offices just says the tourism dropped drastically during the 90's. I am not finding any professional articles or essays on the subject. All I can say with certainty is that since majority of hotels were housing refugees, there was very little capacity for tourism in the first place. This affected Istria the most because it still had some hope of tourists coming.
JNA planned to cut Croatia in 4 pieces. TOver 1990 and 1991, before proper war, they pulled most of equipment and troops within Serb majority areas, helped them establish control and advanced from there to: a) cut Slavonia from Zagreb by reaching Drava river from Serb Western Slavonia. b) cut Dalmatia from Zagreb by reaching Adriatic coast at Zadar. c) Cut Istria and Primorje from zagreb by taking Karlovac and reaching Slovenian border. Then, if Croatian government didn't surrender, they would move to Zagreb. Plans changed when Croatia was recognized by EU.
It was fairly normal in the fact that they didn't feel direct effects of war. They watched about it on TV. But there were indirect effects. Industry was transformed to war purposes, all available housing (hotels) was transformed to house refugees, many families housed their family members from war affected areas and there was mobilisation all over the territory. It all weighted heavily on economy.
I can't answer this. There were tens of thousands Croatian refugees in Europe, but I don't know how difficult was toi get there. Actually I do know from personal experience, my family sat in the train day after Vukovar fell (we lived nearby), spent a week with family in zagreb and then headed to Austria. In Vienna we were housed in asylum seekers center for 3 days, to leave which you had to receive a daily pass, and were granted visa as refugees and also housed in a small hotel in Burgenland. I was too young to remember the details. I know we were given "allowance" and help to find a job. My parents worked at picking grapes. We are still in touch with a family from Bosnia who were there with us, but they remained and eventually acquired Austrian citizenship while we returned after 2 months.
edit: fixed numbering