The parliament of Croatia. Its local name is Hrvatski Sabor (the word "sabor" means something like a gathering, a congress).
There are 151 representatives, a president and five deputy presidents. The Parliament's web page is at http://www.sabor.hr/
Historic background
The Croat nobles agreed to form two Croatian states after settling in the Illyric territory in the 7th century AD, after the great migration of the Slavs. Their meeting and agreement over the issues important for the people is considered the foundation of Croatian parliament.
Croatian earls and dukes later established a country and elected a king among themselves in the 9th and 10th century, but the legend says that they always made decisions as a group (who knows these days...).
After Croatia joined the Hungarian state in 1102, these nobles formed a real parliament and their decisions had significant influence in the state politics. In fact, when the country lost its leader after Mohacs battle in 1527 when king Leopold died, the Croats chose to join the Habsburgs instead of a new king with the Hungarians.
In 1712, the Croatian Parliament decided on the so called "pragmatic sanction", thus taking the side of the Maria Theresa, supporting her to become a queen of the Habsburg monarchy (previously no woman was allowed to rule the country without a king, that is, a man).
In 1848 Sabor decided to renew some of the country autonomy by exerting its power to all of the old Croatian regions and having a "ban" (baron) govern them. In 1868 they made a bargain with the Hungarians to make stronger ties between the countries.
In 1918 the Parliament decided to split off Croatia from Austro-Hungary (like did all the other parts of the monarchy), and join the State of Slovenians, Croats and Serbs (the same territory but with a different name :-).
The country entered the State of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians (yes, the ordering is important :-) soon after, though this was never sanctioned by Sabor, which was decomissioned.
The post-WWII parliament developed from the council of antifascists formed in 1943. It functioned as the Parliament of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (as a part of Yugoslavia), until 1990 when Croatia regained full independence.
| 
