Rukavina
Rukavina is one of the oldest Croatian surnames. It's most common in Lika ( region in Croatia )
The surname is connected to the old Croatian Noble family, Vladimirović. One of the members of Vladimirović family, Grgur Vladimirović, is the founder of Rukavina's.
Grgur Vladimirović had 7 sons. Only one of those sons is important for my family branch, his name was Miloš. After Grgur was captured by Ottomans ( later he died, one of his sons killed him ), all of his sons left to the different parts of Croatia, but Miloš settled in area of Perušić, wich is today a small city near city of Gospić ( it's a city in Lika, wich is region in Croatia, like I said earlier ). He started his family there.
You now ask yourself, how the heck they changed thier surname from Vladimirović to Rukavina? When Grgur Vladimirović was captured by Ottomans, the guards were not able to remember his name, they called him "The one with the long sleeves", because his uniform had long sleeves. Rukav means SLEEVE on Croatian. They called him like that many times, so they accepted to call him "Rukavina".
Rukavina's are best known in military. They were soldiers and military commanders. They didn't really had anything to do with politics, they lived on battlefield, and died on battlefield.
Rukavina's also have WWI and WWII history. One of the soldiers, and later a commander, is Juraj Rukavina. Juraj finished his school in city of Gospić, and went to the military academy in Vienna. He was a normal soldier until the end of Austria Hungary when the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was formed. He became a captain of the police, until he was retired in 1920.
After that, in the year of 1932, he was involved in the "Lički Ustanak" ( Velebit uprising ), actually, he was the commander in that uprising ( wich was planned by Ante Pavelić ). Later, when Axis occupied Yugoslavia, and formed Indenpendent State of Croatia, he became lieutenant colonel of "Ustaška vojnica", the elite army of "Ustaše" party in Croatia ( Something like SS in Nazi Party. An elite force of the party ). He was named lieutenant colonel by Ante Pavelić himself ( the "Poglavnik" of Croatia. Poglavnik was like "Fuhrer" in Germany in that time. He was the leader of the country )
After the fall of Axis, he was captured by UK soldiers near Bleiburg. UK deported him to Communist Party of Yugoslavia, and he went to trial with other Croatian fascist leaders/generals. He was sentenced to death ( he was executed ).
That's it.