Theory and practice of human Rights and minority rights ... - EURAC

municipalities, e.g. in Istria and Slavonia, were adequately adapted, other
remained abstract and general, and still others did not mention minorities at all. 276
Italian, Hungarian and Czech minorities enjoyed education in their mother tongue
in some parts of Croatia, while other municipalities provided only hours of
Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Ruthanian and Ukrainian for their nationality
members. 277 In the municipalities and communities of municipalities that had
adopted minority rights, commissions for nationalities were established, as well as
a committee for inter-national relations, which had to be consulted on questions of
relevance to the nationalities. 278
2.2.3. Macedonia
Sixty-seven percent (1,279,323) of the population of SR Macedonia were
Macedonians 279 . Macedonia had the second largest number of nationalities after SR
Serbia, altogether 516,814 people according to the census of 1981 280 . Albanians
numbered 377,726 persons (19.8%), followed by Turks with 86,891 (4.5%), 43,223
Romany (2.3%), 6,392 Vlachs (0.3%), and 1,984 Bulgarians (0.1%). 281 All nationalities
together made up 19.3% of the nationalities living in Yugoslavia and 27% of
Macedonia’s population. Albanians and Turks had their own primary schools,
television and broadcasting in their own languages, and various cultural
organizations and representatives in the assemblies on local and republican
levels. 282
Due to nationality politics, the Romany were capable of making gains with
respect to the other nationalities in Macedonia, to some extent. In addition to their
own television and radio broadcastings, the representation of Romany in the local
assemblies and the republican assembly was enhanced. 283 The municipality of
Struga was e.g. the only municipality in Yugoslavia that applied the right to
proportional representation also to ethnic groups. 284 However, the same policies
failed for the Vlach group, which became more and more assimilated within the
Macedonian majority population. 285
2.2.4 Serbia and the Autonomous Provinces
As stated above, 75.8 % of all nationalities and ethnic groups lived in SR Serbia, the
largest parts of them in the autonomous provinces. Nationalities made up 21.8 % of
Serbia’s whole population; 1,896,774 members of nationalities and 136,555
members of ethnic groups lived there. 286 In 1981, 70.9% of the Albanian inhabitants
lived in the territory of SAP Kosovo, 21.8 % in SR Macedonia, 4.19 % in Serbia
proper, 2.18 % in Montenegro and 0.93 % in the territory of the rest of the socialist
republics. 287 Ninety percent (90.28 %) of the Hungarians lived in SAP Vojvodina,
5.96 % in Croatia, and 2.22 % in Slovenia. The Romany lived mostly in Serbia
276
Marinko Gruic, “Aktuelni problemi samoupravnog polozaja narodnosti u socijalistickoj
republici hrvatskoj”, (13-14) RIG (1981) 189-199, at 192.
277
Novak-Lukanovič, op. cit. note 265, at 171, 173.
278
Gruic, op. cit. note 276, at 198.
279
Seewann and Dippold, op. cit. note 178, 1179.
280
Breznik and Sentić, op. cit. note 193, 10.
281 Ibid.
282 Poulton, op. cit. note 104, 28.
283 Ibid., 29
284 Vera Klopčič, “Urejanje polozaja narodnosti v statutih obcin na narodnostno mesanih
obmocijh SFRJ” (16) RIG (1982) 191-199, at 197.
285 Poulton, op. cit. note 104, 29.
286 Breznik and Sentić, op. cit. note 193, 10.
287 Žuljić, op. cit. note 184, 19.
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