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 Glina.

Glina was first mentioned as a city on 1 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. During the 1790 Siege of Cetingrad, Glina was quickly fortified in preparation for an Ottoman assault if Cetingrad were to fall which it did not. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Glina was a district capital in the Zagreb County of the Kingdom of Croatia Slavonia.

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 major Ustashe massacres of Serbs in Glina in 1941. On the night of 11 May, Ustaše arrested male Serbs over the age of sixteen, regardless of occupation or class. The men were first imprisoned in a small holding area of a former gendarmerie building, then on the night of 12 May, they were tied up in pairs, loaded into trucks and taken to a large pit where they were killed, primarily with guns. Historian Slavko Goldstein writes that "less than four hundred, but certainly higher than three hundred" were killed in total. Another massacre occurred on 30 July 2 August when 700 Serbs were gathered under the threat of forced conversion and executed in the local Serbian Orthodox Church. The dates as well as the number of victims in this massacre are disputed in sources. According to Italian reports, in total, more than 18,000 Serbs were killed in the district of Glina during the war. The Yugoslav Partisans attacked Glina and Hrastovica in late November 1943. The position was held by the Nazi Germany army with support from the Danish 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. The Partisans liberated and entered the town on January 11, 1944.

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 a request to the Veterans Associations of the People’s Liberation War of Yugoslavia (SUBNOR) to finally build a memorial as the failure to do so was particularly affecting the brotherhood and unity of the people in this region. The second armed attack followed a month later, on July 26. Serb militias were reported to have used ethnic Croats as human shields in the conflict. Civilians from both sides died as a result of the fighting in Glina. In 1995, future President of Serbia 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 returned to Croatia by the Croatian Army during Operation Storm. At the same time, most ethnic Serbs fled. In December 2015, the bodies of 56 Serb civilians and soldiers killed during the action were exhumed from a mass grave in the Gornje Selište municipality.

The area of Glina suffered extensive damage during the 2020 Petrinja earthquake.

+ National structure of the municipality of Glina Year of census total Croats Serbs Yugoslavs Other 2011 9,283 6,468 (69.68%) 2,549 (27.46%) 0 (0%) 266 (2.86%) 2001 9,868 6,712 (68%) 2,829 (29%) 0 (0%) 327 (3.31%) 1991 23,040 8,041 (34,90%) 13,975 (60.65%) 473 (2.05%) 551 (2.39%) 1981 25,079 8,961 (35.73%) 14,223 (56.71%) 1,580 (6.30%) 315 (1.26%) 1971 28,336 10,785 (38.06%) 16,936 (59.77%) 381 (1.34%) 234 (0.83%) 1961 27,747 9,152 (33.31%) 18,388 (66.93%) 60 (0.22%) 147 (0,53%)

The results are for the whole municipality of Glina which was larger during previous censuses. In some censuses, people listed themselves as Yugoslavs (not Serbs or Croats). + National structure of the town of Glina Year of census total Croats Serbs Yugoslavs Other 2001 3,116 2,315 (74.29%) 643 (20.64%) 0 (0%) 158 (5.07%) 1991 6,933 1,448 (20.88%) 4,831 (69.68%) 362 (5.22%) 352 (5.08%) 1981 5,790 1,262 (21.79%) 3,531 (60.98%) 870 (15.02%) 127 (2,19%) 1971 4,558 1,394 (30.58%) 2,873 (63.03%) 193 (4.23%) 98 (2.15%) 1961 2,412 884 (36.65%) 1,425 (59.08%) 33 (1.37%) 70 (2.90%) 1948 2,098 1,126 (53.67%) 930 (44.33%) 0 (0%) 42 (2%)

Directly elected minority councils and representatives are tasked with consulting tasks for the local or regional authorities in which they are advocating for minority rights and interests, integration into public life and participation in the management of local affairs. At the 2023 Croatian national minorities councils and representatives elections Serbs of Croatia fulfilled legal requirements to elect 15 members minority council of the Town of Glina.