74 years ago, Tito returned Istria and Dalmatia to Croatia; 20 days ago, HDZ removed Tito from Zagreb

On this day in 1943, the State Anti-fascist Council of the National Liberation of Croatia (ZAVNOH) made a decision to annex Istria, Rijeka, and occupied parts of Dalmatia back to Croatia. 

ZAVNOH, Index reminds, was practically the Croatian government founded by partisans during World War II. The decisions of ZAVNOH would later be incorporated into the Constitution of Yugoslavia, and it was precisely the 1974 Constitution that provided Croatia with a legal basis for independence in the early 1990s.

Among other things, the State Anti-fascist Council of the National Liberation of Croatia adopted a "resolution declaring null and void all treaties, pacts, and conventions that various Greater Serbian governments had concluded with Italy, and by which the Croatian regions of Istria, Rijeka, Zadar, Lošinj, Cres, Lastovo, and other Kvarner islands were ceded to Italy".

"All the aforementioned Croatian regions, i.e., Istria, Rijeka, Zadar, annexed parts of Hrvatsko Primorje, Gorski Kotar, Dalmatia, and all Adriatic islands (including Lastovo, Cres, Lošinj, and others), are annexed to the motherland - Croatia, and through it to the new democratic, fraternal community of the peoples of Yugoslavia, for which our peoples are fighting", the ZAVNOH resolution states.

"The Italian national minority residing in these regions is guaranteed autonomy", it is further stated. All governments of the allied countries were informed of this decision: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Great Britain, the United States of America, as well as the entire world public.

Now, 74 years later, the Croatian authorities voted to rename Marshal Tito Square to Republic of Croatia Square. Tito has thus, as reported by Croatian media, gone into history, and HDZ's Andrija Mikulić, president of the Zagreb City Assembly, concluded that he hopes he will remain there. For this decision, which many anti-fascists in Croatia called shameful, 29 representatives voted, 20 were against, and one abstained, reports NAP.