KULTURA KAO SINE QUA NON RJEŠENJA HRVATSKOGA PITANJA

: The main topic of the article is the cultural identity of the Croat nation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By analysing in detail the position and the status of national cultural institutions, the author wants to confirm the thesis that the cultural specifics of the Croat nation are a key for resolving the Croat issue in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Croat issue in Bosnia and Herzegovina is in its core the issue of culture, both in its narrow and wider sense. The author emphasises that not a single political issue is exclusively of a political nature, but that they all include a cultural component, but may on the other hand not be resolved in the cultural field only. What the author suggests is reiteration of the cultural institutions in institutional terms, resp., not to indulge in national romantici-sm, but to put efforts in founding, maintaining and further developing the institutions with public funds, whereby the maintenance of those institutions does not necessarily have to be exclusively market-based, as a cultural industry, as suggested in the global perspective. The author describes and opposes the paradigm that a sensibility for culture may be de-veloped only after the material and political conditions have already been secured. The author argues that maintenance and development of the cultural identity must go hand in hand with the development of other social segments. Moreover, the development of the cultural identity very often boosts and drives the national and social development. Therefore, it is of uttermost importance for the solution of the Croat issue in Bosnia and Herzegovina that the BiH Croats are recognised and respected as a nation with a develo-ped sensibility for culture.