CROATIA

Croatia's Homeland War produced approximately 500,000 veterans — in a country of less than 4 million. This means that nearly every Croatian family has a man who fought, and the war's psychological legacy touches every household. Veterans received national hero status and material benefits, but psychological support was minimal and culturally resisted. Admitting PTSD was perceived as questioning the heroism of the defense, which in Croatia's nationalism-infused culture amounts to political betrayal.

The post-war period saw a surge in domestic violence, alcoholism, and veteran suicides that the government addressed with memorials rather than therapy. The Croatian Catholic Church — deeply intertwined with national identity — reinforced a wartime masculinity that prizes suffering as sacrifice. EU accession in 2013 opened borders, and the resulting emigration wave drained Croatia of the young men who might have built a new masculine culture: doctors, engineers, and tradesmen left for Germany, Ireland, and Austria, leaving behind an aging population and the unprocessed trauma of a war that the nation celebrates but the men who fought it are still surviving.