Vukovar

The bank of the Danube here has been inhabited for some 5,000 years. At Vučedol, just downstream, a Copper Age culture flourished around 3000 BC; the bird-shaped ritual vessel found there in 1938, the Vučedol Dove, is now the town's symbol. Romans planted the first vineyards and guarded the river frontier, and Slavs settled the area in the 6th century. Medieval Vukovo, seat of a large county, received the privileges of a royal free town in 1231, and by the late 14th century it was one of the largest towns in Slavonia.

The Ottomans took Vukovar in 1526 and held it until the end of the 17th century, leaving it almost empty. In 1736 the Eltz counts bought the estate and for two centuries shaped the town's economy and culture, building the baroque manor that still stands. Croats returned and Germans, Hungarians, Jews, Ruthenians, Slovaks and Ukrainians settled, making Vukovar a multinational town and the trading centre of western Syrmia, with steamers on the Danube from 1840 and a railway from 1878. In 1931 the Bata shoe factory, later Borovo, opened, and by the late 1980s it employed more than 22,000 people.

In 1991 the town was at the centre of the war. The Battle of Vukovar lasted 87 days, from 25 August to 18 November, and left the town in ruins, in damage compared with the worst in Europe since the Second World War; it was followed by the killing of at least 200 prisoners of war and civilians at Ovčara. After a period of UN administration the region was peacefully reintegrated into Croatia in 1998, and much of the town has been rebuilt since, though many ruins remain.

Vukovar is a place of memory. Each 18 November, the national day of remembrance, a procession of remembrance walks from the hospital to the memorial cemetery, and the water tower, the hospital museum and the memorial cemetery keep that memory present all year. The town is also marked by an earlier war: Dudik Memorial Park commemorates people executed in the Second World War, with a monument by the architect Bogdan Bogdanović.

It remains an ethnically mixed town. Serbs made up just under 30 per cent of the population at the 2021 census, and children attend separate Croatian and Serbian classes. The status of the Serbian Cyrillic script has long been debated; in November 2023 the government ended mandatory bilingualism in the town after the census showed the Serb share below one third.

Culture reaches beyond the war. The Vučedol Culture Museum presents the town's deep past, Eltz Manor houses the city museum, and the Vukovar Film Festival, devoted to films from the Danube region and neighbouring countries, is held each late August, its screenings once staged on a barge on the river. Like the rest of Slavonia, Vukovar keeps up tamburica music, and the autumn pig slaughter, when kulen is made, remains a household tradition across the region.

At the 2021 census the town had 22,616 residents and the municipality 23,536, making it the seat of Vukovar-Syrmia County and its second-largest town after Vinkovci. People live in the rebuilt centre, in districts such as Mitnica, Sajmište and Lužac, and in Borovo Naselje to the north.

The economy has never recovered the scale of the Yugoslav years, when Borovo and other industries gave the town one of the highest standards of living in the country. Borovo still makes shoes, at a fraction of its former size, and the river port, Croatia's largest, handles goods on the Danube. Farming, public services and a modest tourism, partly drawn by memorial visits and Danube cruise ships, make up much of the rest.

Days follow the Slavonian rhythm: an early start, lunch as the main meal, coffee on the square and Sundays for church, football and family. The town's shared life between Croats and Serbs is calm but often separate, with divided institutions and separate schooling.

Vukovar eats in the Slavonian way, built on pork, paprika and river fish. The emblem of the region is kulen, a thick sausage of pork, garlic and plenty of red paprika, smoked and air-dried for months, a product of the autumn pig slaughter.

The Danube supplies the fish for fiš paprikaš, a fiery red paprika stew of carp or mixed river fish, traditionally cooked in a kettle over an open fire. Čobanac, a shepherd's stew of several meats sometimes including game, is simmered slowly in a cauldron in the same way. Sweet breads rolled with walnuts or poppy seeds, orahnjača and makovnjača, are standard Croatian baking.

Wine comes from Ilok just downstream, whose castle wine cellars are among the most famous in Croatia, and Graševina is the most planted white grape in the country. Rakija is distilled from plums, as šljivovica, and from other fruit, and portions everywhere assume a hearty appetite.