Glina, Croatia


Glina is a town in central Croatia, located southwest of Petrinja and Sisak in the Sisak-Moslavina County. It lies on the eponymous river of Glina.

History

Glina was first mentioned as a city in June 1284. Later in September 1737, during the threat of the Turks, the Croatian Sabor met in Glina. It was also a post of Ban Jelačić when he became the commander the Military Frontier during the Turkish threat.
During the mid-18th century, Count Ivan Drašković created Freemason lodges in several Croatian cities and towns, including Glina, where officers and other members shared ideas of the Jacobins from the French Revolution, until Emperor Francis II banned them in 1798. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Glina was a district capital in the Zagreb County of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia.

World War II

During World War II, Glina was part of the Independent State of Croatia established by the Axis powers as a result of the Invasion of Yugoslavia. There were two Ustashe massacres of Serbs in 1941. On 11–12 May 1941, between 260–300 Serbs died, and on 3 August 1941, as many as 2,000 Serbs were killed, most in the town's Serbian Orthodox Church. After the end of war in 1964, the Committee for the Construction of Memorials to the July Victims of Fascist Terror in Banija and Kordun sent an request to the Veterans Associations of the People’s Liberation War of Yugoslavia to finally build the memorial as the failure to do so is particularly affecting the brotherhood and unity of the people in this region. A memorial house was thereafter built on the site of the destroyed Orthodox church and in 1985, its Executive Committee requested assistance in creating a permanent display for the museum commemorating "the Ustasha slaughtered around 1,200 Serbs from the surroundings of Glina on August 2, 1941," noting that it marked the beginning of the Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia.

Croatian War of Independence

During the Croatian War of Independence, Glina was a town in the unrecognised Republic of Serbian Krajina. On September 28, 1990, around 1,500 Serbs from the Glina municipality rebelled against a democratically elected Croatian government and carried out an attack on the police station and stole large quantities of weapons and ammunition from the station depot. In the early summer of 1991, the first major armed clashes between Croatian forces and rebelled Serbs took place in the Glina area. On June 26, a group of armed Serbs attacked the local police station. The second armed attack followed a month later, on July 26, but this time they also attacked civilian area of Jukinac - the northeast suburb of Glina, located along the road to Petrinja, which was until then free because it was protected by the Croatian police and whose inhabitants were loyal to Croatia. Croatian Police and National Guard unites had to withdraw while Croats from Glina took refugee in Donji and Gornji Viduševac, villages north of Glina that were free at the time. Subsequently, Glina was completely controlled by the Yugoslav People's Army and the Serb rebels. The remaining non-Serb population from Glina and the surrounding area were mostly expelled while many were taken to internment camps. During the war, Serbs occupied the territory up to the Kupa river, which was followed by many crimes against the civilians in Glinsko Novo Selo, Stankovci and Bučič area. In 1995 future Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić held a meeting in Glina during which he stated, among others that Glina would never be part of Croatia and advocated for it to be a part of Greater Serbia. A total of 396 Croatian civilians and soldiers were killed in Glina during the war. On 6 August 1995, Glina was liberated by the Croatian army with the Operation Storm. At the same time, most ethnic Serbs fled. In December 2015, 56 bodies of Serbian civilians and soldiers killed during the action were exhumed from a mass grave in the Gornje Selište municipality.

Demographics

The results are for the whole municipality of Glina which was larger during previous censuses. In some censuses, people listed themselves as Yugoslavs.

Settlements

The settlements part of the administrative area of Glina, total population 9,283, include: