Why did Croatian language purism become strong during the 1990s?

Following the collapse of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the rise of linguistic purism in Croatia was primarily driven by a political desire to establish a distinct national identity and distance the Croatian language from Serbian.12

During the Yugoslav era, government policy had often pressed for a unified "Serbo-Croatian" language to emphasize unity among the ethnic groups. After independence, Croatia sought to reverse this by setting its own independent standards. This process involved:2

• Proscription: The practice of actively identifying and removing words from the standard language that were perceived to be of Serbian origin.2
• Institutional Autonomy: Croatian standardizers ceased consulting with Serbian scholars, ensuring that the development of the language remained strictly within national control.2
• Cultural Differentiation: Purism served as a tool to emphasize the unique cultural and historical path of Croatia, which has historically been influenced by Western Europe and the Latin alphabet, in contrast to the influences found in Serbian.123

While this movement was particularly intense during the 1990s, it became somewhat less pronounced after 2000.2