South Moravian Croats represent the northernmost location of the infamous colonisation that took place in the 16th century on the territory of the former Habsburg monarchy as a result of the lost Battle of Mohács (1526). Throughout the 19th century the Moravian Croat community was downsized to two enclaves: one with three villages in German encirclement, one with three villages in the Břeclav region within the Bohemian settlement. During the 19th century the Moravian Croats merged with the residential population of Slavonic nations. Therefore, at the end of the 19th century the only places with the Moravian Croats are around the town of Mikulov, in villages Nový Přerov, Dobré Pole and Frélichov (today’s Jevišovka).
Their traditional culture has always been manifested especially by their folk costume. Collections of clothes owned by the Institute of Ethnography of the Moravian Museum in Brno document individual stages of development (especially that of women’s clothes), represented by a sufficient number of items. Of particular importance are also old photographs (e.g. by J. Klvaňa, Fr. Pospíšil, A. Blažek). In 2002, the existing collection was enlarged to include a collection of 101 photographs depicting the life of south Moravian Croats from the village of Frélichov. These photographs were taken by Othmar Ruzicka (1877-1962), an artist from Vienna. He used these photos as models for paintings. He took these photos during his first visits to the villages at the beginning of the 20th century. They are valuable evidence of the traditional clothing worn by Moravian Croats during the period of time when it was still normal to wear it on a daily basis and they are an important source of information on its individual parts, design, material and embroideries.