Croatian Argentine
Encyclopedia
Croatians in Argentina or Croatian Argentine are Argentine of Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

n descent. Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...

 and their descendants have made valuable contributions to their new country. Mostly settled in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 capital, Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

.

History

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries there were 133 settlements, with some 120,000 Croats in Argentina, for the most part hailing from the coastal regions of Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....

 and the Croatian Littoral
Croatian Littoral
The Croatian Littoral is a geographical term that refers to the narrow coastal strip along the Adriatic Sea in Croatia extending from east the city Rijeka south to Karlobag...

, who were among the first European immigrants to settle in the Argentine pampa
Pampa
The Pampas are the fertile South American lowlands, covering more than , that include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Córdoba, most of Uruguay, and the southernmost Brazilian State, Rio Grande do Sul...

s. The pioneers from the island of Hvar
Hvar
- Climate :The climate of Hvar is characterized by mild winters and warm summers. The yearly average air temperature is , 686 mm of precipitation fall on the town of Hvar on average every year and the town has a total of 2800 sunshine hours per year. For comparison Hvar has an average of 7.7...

 were followed by emigrants from other parts of Dalmatia and the other historic Croatian lands, mostly the present-day Republic of Croatia.

The most successful of all the Croats in Argentina was also almost the first to arrive: Nikola Mihanović
Nicolás Mihanovich
Nicolás Mihanovich was a Croatian Argentine businessman closely linked to the development of the Argentine merchant marine.-The Beginnings:Nicolás Mihanovich was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in what is today Croatia, in 1844...

 came to Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...

, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...

 in 1867, and, having settled in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

, Mihanović owned 350 vessels of one kind or another by 1909, including 82 steamers. By 1918, he employed 5,000 people, mostly from his native Dalmatia Mihanović by himself was thus a major factor in building up a Croat community which remains primarily Dalmatian to this day.

The second wave of Croat immigration was far more numerous, totalling 15,000 by 1939. Mostly peasants, these immigrants fanned out to work the land in Buenos Aires province
Buenos Aires Province
The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...

, Santa Fe
Santa Fe Province
The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...

, Chaco
Chaco Province
Chaco is an Argentine province located in the north of the country, near the border with Paraguay. Its capital is Resistencia on the Paraná River opposite the city of Corrientes...

, and Patagonia
Patagonia
Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...

. This wave was accompanied by a numerous clergy to attend their spiritual needs, especially Franciscans.

If the first two waves had been primarily economic, the third wave after the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 was eminently political. Some 20,000 Croatian political refugees came to Argentina, and most became construction workers on Peron's public works projects until they started to pick up some Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. Argentina today has the second largest number of Croatian descendants in Latin America since Chile (380,000 Croats), and the third largest one in the world since USA.

Notable Croatian Argentines

  • Daniel Bilos
    Daniel Bilos
    Daniel Rubén Bilos is an Argentine footballer, who has played professional football in Argentina, France and Mexico and up to now he made 3 appearances for the Argentina national team...

     - Footballer
  • José María Buljubasich
    José María Buljubasich
    José María Buljubasich is a former Argentine football player who played as goalkeeper in Argentina, Spain, Mexico, Chile and Paraguay. He won two titles, one in Argentina and the other in Chile.-Biography:...

     - Footballer
  • Darío Cvitanich
    Darío Cvitanich
    Darío Cvitanich is an Argentine-Croatian football striker who plays for Boca Juniors.-Banfield:...

     - Footballer
  • Javier Frana
    Javier Frana
    Javier Alberto Frana is a former tennis player from Argentina and current tennis commentator for ESPN Latin America.-Tennis career:...

     - Tennis
    Tennis
    Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

     player
  • Estanislao Esteban Karlic
    Estanislao Esteban Karlic
    Estanislao Esteban Karlic is an Argentine Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Paraná from 1986 to 2003, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 2007.-Biography:...

     - Argentine prelate of the Roman Catholic Church
    Roman Catholic Church
    The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

  • Alicia Kirchner de Mercado - Argentine Justicialist Party politician
  • Néstor Kirchner Ostoić
    Néstor Kirchner
    Néstor Carlos Kirchner was an Argentine politician who served as the 54th President of Argentina from 25 May 2003 until 10 December 2007. Previously, he was Governor of Santa Cruz Province since 10 December 1991. He briefly served as Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations ...

     - Former President of Argentina
  • Nicolás Mihanovich
    Nicolás Mihanovich
    Nicolás Mihanovich was a Croatian Argentine businessman closely linked to the development of the Argentine merchant marine.-The Beginnings:Nicolás Mihanovich was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in what is today Croatia, in 1844...

     - Shipping magnate
  • Sandra Mihanovich
    Sandra Mihanovich
    Sandra Mihanovich Cahen is an Argentine singer, musician, and composer of Rock, Blues, and Tango rhythms.She was born in the Recoleta neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the daughter of Iván Mihanovich Nazar, a polo player of Croatian descent -and heir to a shipping fortune- and Mónica Cahen...

     - Singer/songwriter
  • Marcos Milinkovic
    Marcos Milinkovic
    Marcos Antonio Milinković is an Argentine volleyball player. Milinković is 203 cm and weighs 100 kg.Milinković started playing the sport at age 17, a relatively late age....

     - Volleyball
    Volleyball
    Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...

     player
  • Daniel Orsanic
    Daniel Orsanic
    Daniel Orsanic is a former professional male tennis player from Argentina and currently works as a coach on ATP tour.-Playing career:Orsanic was a left-hander and a double handed backhand...

     - Tennis player
  • Leonardo Pisculichi
    Leonardo Pisculichi
    Leonardo Nicolás Pisculichi is an Argentine footballer who currently plays for Al-Arabi Sports Club, as a forward...

     - Footballer
  • Martin Šarić
    Martin Šaric
    Martin Šarić is an Argentine footballer of Croatian descent who currently plays for Sportivo Luqueño in Paraguay.-Career:...

     - Footballer
  • Fernando Siro
    Fernando Siro
    Fernando Siro was an Argentine film actor, film director and screenwriter.-Life and work:Born Francisco Ángel Luksich in Villa Ballester, he developed an early interest in acting and in 1950 was given his first Argentine cinema role in El otro yo de Marcela, directed by Alberto de Zavalía...

     - born Francisco Luksich, actor
  • Alejandro Spajic
    Alejandro Spajic
    Alejandro Spajić is an Argentine volleyball player. Spajić is clearly a volleyball player both for Argentina and his club...

     - Volleyball player
  • Lita Stantic
    Lita Stantic
    Élida Stantic , and more commonly known and credited as Lita Stantic, is an Argentine cinema producer, screenplay writer, and director....

     - Filmmaker
  • Juan Vucetich
    Juan Vucetich
    Juan Vucetich was a Croatian-born Argentine anthropologist and police official who pioneered the use of fingerprinting.-Biography:...

     - Anthropologist and police official who pioneered the use of fingerprinting

External links

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