Serbian version
A chauvinist Croat movement which demanded for:
- the inclusion of Herzegovina into Croatia
- a separate National Croat Bank which would keep profits made from Croat tourism inside of Croatia but allow Croatia to profit from the common fund for the underdevelopped regions
- greater Croat political affirmation with the restoration of controversial war-time symbols associated with the Croat extremist movement known as the Ustashe
Hrvatsko proljeće was a political movement from the early 1970s that called for greater civil rights in Croatia which was then part of Yugoslavia.
Among these rights there was the right to take pride in one's nationality which irritated Tito's communist government which had made every attempt to suppress and erase all such notions ever since World War II, fearing loss of stability and eventual breakup of the country due to ethnic tensions. The banning of national symbols was intended to suppress all fascist ideological symbols such as the Ustaša or Četnik markings, but it also extended to banning most patriotic songs and customs.
The movement organized demonstrations in 1971 and thousands of Zagreb students publically protested, but were suppressed by the police. Many student activists were detained and some were even sentenced to years of prison.
High-ranked members of the Communist Party from Croatia such as Savka Dabčević-Kučar and Mika Tripalo also supported these ideas so the government couldn't sweep it all under the rug. In 1974, a new federal Constitution was ratified that allowed gave autonomy for the individual republics. One of the provisions of the new constitution was that each republic officially had the option to secede, an option which most of them utilized twenty years later.Croatian version
