| On May 30th Croatia marks its Statehood Day On 30 May 1990, the first modern multi-party Croatian Parliament convened, following the 1990 Croatian parliamentary election. Croatian Deit (Sabor) is one of the oldest in Europe. During many centuries the Croats had their bans (viceroys) and their assembly called Sabor (Deit). The oldest known Sabor was held in Split in 925 and in 928 (devoted more to religious than to secular questions), and in 1076 when Dmitar Zvonimir was elected the Croatian King by the “unanimous choice of the clergy and the people”. The Croats preserved these important state institutions of ban and Sabor also when they decided to enter the Habsburg state (1527-1918). Today the Sabor has the meaning of the Croatian Parliament. The National anthem of the Republic of Croatia is “Our Beautiful Homeland”. It was written by Antun Mihanović. It was printed for the first time as “Croatian Homeland” in the ‘Danica’ newspaper in 1835. Under the name “Our Beautiful” it became the Croatian anthem. A cadet named Josip Runjanin set Mihanović’s lyrics to music, with V. Lichtenegger noting and harmonising the piece in 1891. In 1891, during the exhibition of the Croatian-Slavonian Economic Association in Zagreb, it was sung for the first time as the Croatian anthem under the title “Our Beautiful”.
Our Beautiful Homeland Our beautiful homeland,
Dear, you are our only glory,
Sava, Drava, keep on flowing,
Whilst his fields are kissed by sunshine, Source www.mvep.hr |
The oldest known minutes of Croatian Deit (Hrvatski sabor), dating from 1273 (Conclusions of the Deit of the Kingdom of Slavonia, held in Zagreb)