Editing Croatian Spring (section)

===Demands for autonomy and a new constitution===
At the time of the Croatian Spring, civic relations between Croats and Serbs in Croatia were increasingly framed by diverging narratives of [[World War I]] and especially World War II. While Croats focused on the role of the [[Royal Serbian Army]] in the creation of the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and killings of [[collaborationism|collaborationist]] Ustaše troops and their sympathisers in the [[1945 Yugoslav pursuit of Nazi collaborators]], Serbs negatively evaluated the Croatian participation in Austria-Hungary's [[Serbian campaign]] during World War I, and especially the [[Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia|genocide of Serbs]] committed by the Ustaše in the [[Axis powers|Axis]] [[puppet state]] known as the [[Independent State of Croatia]] (NDH).{{sfn|Pavlowitch|2007|pp=86–87}} In a series of articles in {{lang|hr|Hrvatski tjednik}}, Tuđman expressed the view of the majority of the SKH as well as {{lang|hr|Matica hrvatska}}: that Croats had made a significant contribution to the Partisan struggle and were not collectively to blame for Ustaše atrocities.{{sfn|Irvine|2007|p=163}}

Among Croatian Serbs, Serbian nationalism flared in response to the Croatian national resurgence. By 1969, the cultural society {{lang|sh|[[Prosvjeta]]}} came to the forefront of Croatian Serb nationalist discourse.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|pp=242–243}} A plan put forward by SKH reformists to revise elementary and middle school literature and history [[Curriculum|curricula]] so 75 per cent of the coverage would be on Croatian topics{{sfn|Irvine|2007|p=157}} drew complaints from {{lang|sh|Prosvjeta}}, which argued that the plan was a threat to Serb cultural rights. {{lang|sh|Prosvjeta}} also objected to the SKH's attempts to reinterpret the wartime Partisan struggle as a liberation of Croatian nationality within the Yugoslav framework.{{sfn|Irvine|2007|p=166}} By 1971, {{lang|sh|Prosvjeta}} demanded that the Serbian language and Cyrillic script be officially used in Croatia alongside the Croatian language and [[Latin script]], as well as legislative safeguards guaranteeing the national equality of Serbs.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|pp=242–243}} {{lang|sh|Prosvjeta}} rejected the federal model advocated by the ZAVNOH and the SKH, arguing that nationalism was no longer needed in Yugoslavia. Furthermore, {{lang|sh|Prosvjeta}} denounced the work of {{lang|sh|Matica hrvatska}} and asserted that the Serbs of Croatia would preserve their national identity by relying on Serbia's help regardless of the borders of the republics.{{sfn|Irvine|2007|p=167}}

Finally, {{lang|sh|Prosvjeta}}'s [[Rade Bulat]] demanded the establishment of an autonomous province for the Croatian Serbs, and there were calls to grant autonomy for Dalmatia as well.{{sfn|Irvine|2007|p=167}} The SKH Central Committee declared that no region of Croatia could make any legitimate claim to autonomy of any kind and labelled calls for regional Dalmatian autonomy as treason to the Croatian nation.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|p=234}} Such responses aligned with the SKH's objective of national homogenisation. To that end, the SKH blocked the option of declaring one's ethnic identity as regional in the 1971 census.{{sfn|Irvine|2007|p=157}} The campaign led by {{lang|sh|Matica hrvatska}} to emphasise the distinction between Croatian and Serbian was reflected in the prevailing speech of Croatian Serbs, which changed from predominantly Ijekavian, or an Ekavian-Ijekavian blend, to predominantly Ekavian.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|p=238}}

The Serbian philosopher [[Mihailo Đurić]] argued that Croatia's constitution should be amended to describe the republic as the national state of Croats and Serbs. This remark sparked another series of public debates in March 1971 in the context of the constitutional reform of Yugoslavia. The SKJ responded by bringing charges against Đurić and imprisoning him. {{lang|sh|Matica hrvatska}} proposed an amendment to the constitution, further emphasising the national character of Croatia. The SKH dismissed the proposal and drafted its own wording, arguing it was a compromise. Ultimately passed, the SKH's amendment mentioned the Croatian Serbs specifically but defined Croatia as a "national state" of the Croats, avoiding use of the exact same phrase for the Croatian Serbs.{{efn|The amendment defined the Socialist Republic of Croatia as "the national state of the Croatian nation, the state of the Serbian nation in Croatia, and state of the nationalities inhabiting it."{{sfn|Ramet|2006|pp=239–240}}}} The meaning of this difference in formulations was not explained in the text of the constitution.{{sfn|Ramet|2006|pp=239–240}} By mid-September 1971, ethnic tensions had worsened to the point that in northern Dalmatia, some Serb and Croat villagers took up arms in fear of each other.{{sfn|Swain|2011|p=172}}