Španovica, known as Novo Selo under the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, is a village in Pakrac, Croatia. It is located on the Pakrac– Požega main road, south of the

Papuk Papuk is the largest mountain in the Slavonia region in eastern Croatia, near the city of Požega. It extends between Bilogora to the northwest, Krndija to the east, and Ravna gora and Psunj to the southwest. The highest peak is the eponymous ...

mountain in western Slavonia. It has a population of 23, according to the 2011 Croatian census.

History

Španovica was established in the second half of the 19th century when Croats from Ravna Gora, in the mountainous region of Gorski Kotar, settled there. The surrounding villages were inhabited by ethnic Serbs. The inhabitants of Španovica and their Serb neighbours coexisted peacefully until the outbreak of World War II, when the village became a stronghold of the

fascist Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...

Ustaše movement, which began arresting Serbs from the surrounding area. In the summer of 1942, Ustaše official

Vjekoslav Luburić Vjekoslav Luburić (6 March 1914 – 20 April 1969) was a Croatian Ustaše official who headed the system of concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during much of World War II. Luburić also personally oversaw and spe ...

oversaw the "cleansing" of the surrounding Serb villages, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Serb villagers and the deportation of many others to detention camps. Some residents of Španovica took part in these operations. That autumn, the Yugoslav Partisans captured Španovica from the Ustaše. Serb villagers whose relatives had previously been killed by the Ustaše subsequently burned most of the village to the ground, killing an undetermined number of Croat civilians and forcing the survivors to flee to the nearby town of Pakrac. After World War II, Španovica was renamed Novo Selo and repopulated by Serbs from

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...

. Its previous Croat inhabitants were prohibited from returning. During the

Croatian War of Independence The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the Government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugosl ...

, Novo Selo was initially under the control of Croatian Serb rebels. It was captured by the Croatian Army in December 1991, and its Serb inhabitants fled. The village's earlier name was subsequently reinstated. By 2020, only around a dozen of Španovica's former inhabitants had returned to the village. That year, director Jadran Boban released a documentary film about Španovica and its history, titled ''Ono drugo selo'' ().

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spanovica Populated places in Požega-Slavonia County