Ante Starčević
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ante Starčević (May 23, 1823 - February 28, 1896) was a Croatian politician and writer. His diverse activities and works laid the foundations for the modern Croatian state.
Contents |
[edit] Life
Starčević was born in Žitnik near Gospić. In 1845 he graduated from the comprehensive secondary school in Zagreb. He started his studies at the seminary in Senj, but moved to Pest, where he received his Ph. D. in philosophy in 1848. Starčević immediately returned to Croatia and continued studying theology in Senj. When he was supposed to become a priest, however, he decided to engage in secular pursuits and started working in the law firm of Ladislav Šram in Zagreb.
He tried to get an academic post with the University of Zagreb, but was unsuccessful, so he remained in Šram's office until 1861. He was also a member of the committee of Matica Ilirska, a Croatian cultural society (see Illyrian movement), in the Historical Society and in the editorial board of Neven, a literary magazine.
In 1861 he was appointed the chief notary of the Rijeka county. That same year, he was elected to the Croatian Parliament as the representative of Rijeka and founded the Croatian Party of Rights with Eugen Kvaternik. Starčević would be reelected to the parliament in 1865, 1871, and from 1878 to his death.
In 1862, when Rijeka was the scene of protests against Austria, he was suspended and sentenced to one month in prison as an enemy of the regime. When he was released, Starčević returned to Šram's office, where he remained until 11 October 1871, when he was arrested again, this time on the occasion of the Rakovica Revolt. The Croatian Party of Rights was abolished. Starčević was released after two months in prison.
In his old age, he moved to Starčević House (Starčevićev dom), built for him by the Croatian people in 1895. That same year, after the split in his party, he founded the Pure Party of Rights with Josip Frank. He died in his house a year later, when he was 73. According to his wish, he was buried in the Church of St Mirko in the Zagreb suburb of Šestine. His bust was made by Ivan Rendić. At his deathbed, he requested that no monuments be raised to his honor, but his statue was put up in front of Starčević House in 1998.
[edit] Political activity
As the chief notary in Rijeka in 1861, Starčević wrote "the four petitions of the Rijeka county", which are considered the basis of the political program of the Croatian Party of Rights. He pointed out that Croatia needed to determine its relationships with Austria and Hungary through international agreements. Moreover, he demanded the reintegration of the Croatian lands, the large kingdom of Croatia of old, the homeland of one people with the same blood, language, past and (God willing) future.
On that ideological basis, he founded the Croatian Party of Rights together with his school friend Eugen Kvaternik in 1861. His party advocated total national freedom and independence of Croatia (neither under Vienna, nor under Pest, but for a free, independent Croatia). Starčević was the only parliamentary representative who agreed with Kvaternik's draft constitution of June 26, 1861. He advocated the termination of the Military Frontier and persuaded the Parliament on August 5, 1861, to pass the decision annulling any joint business with Austria.
He advocated the resolution of Bosnian issues by reforms and cooperation between the people and the nobility. Starčević believed that Bosniaks were the "the purest blood and tongue brethren" of Croatians (1858) and that the Bosnian beys were the "oldest and purest fighting nobility in the entire Europe" (Na čemu smo (1878), Iztočno pitanje (1899)).
[edit] Literary and linguistic work
Starčević wrote literary criticism, short stories, newspaper articles, philosophical essays, plays and political satire. He was also a translator.
His travelogue From Lika was published in Kušlan's magazine Slavenski Jug on 22 October 1848. He wrote four plays in the period 1851-52, but only the Village Prophet has been preserved. His translation of Anacreon from Ancient Greek was published in Danica in 1853. His critical review (1855) of Đurđević's Pjesni razlike was described by the Croatian literary historian Branko Vodnik as "our first genuine literary essay about older Dubrovnik literature". His opus shows an affinity with practical philosophy, which he calls "the science of life". As Josip Horvat said: His literary work from 1849 to the end of 1853 made Ante Starčević the most prolific and original Croatian writer along with Mirko Bogović.
In 1850, incited by Ljudevit Gaj, Starčević started working on the manuscript of Istarski razvod, a crucial Croatian document from 1325. He transcribed the text from the Glagolitic alphabet to the Latin alphabet, analyzed it and published it in 1852. In the foreword, young Starčević elaborated his linguistic ideas, pointing out that the mixture of all three Croatian dialects (Shtokavian, Chakavian and Kajkavian) and the Krajina dialect is called the Croatian language, which Starčević considers from the perspective of its six hundred years of history. Starčević accepted the etymological orthography and used the ekavian form for his entire life, considering it the heir of the old Kajkavian. His language is a "synthetic" form of Croatian, never used before or after him, most similar to the Ozalj idiom of Petar Zrinski, whom he probably never read.[1]
In that period, In the Call for Subscriptions to the Croatian Grammar (December 8, 1851) he stated his opposition to the Vienna Language Agreement of 1850 and the linguistic concept of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić. He continued his dispute with the followers of Karadžić in a series of articles published in 1852.
When Srbski dnevnik from Novi Sad published an article saying that "Croatians write in Serbian", Starčević wrote a fierce reply: (...) Instead of claiming that the Croats use anything else but the Croatian language, those writers who consider themselves Serbs (or whatever they like) would do well to write in the educated and pure Croatian language, like some of them are already doing, and they can call their language Coptic for all I care. (...) He published the reply as an unsigned article in Narodne novine, the newspaper of Ljudevit Gaj, so the Serbian side attacked Gaj, wrongly attributing the article to him. Starčević subsequently proclaimed he was the author, but Gaj, who cared to maintain good relations with Serbia, distanced himself from his friend.[1]
[edit] Historical findings about his political ideology
For a while, Starčević thought that the South Slav peoples should all be called Croats. He refused any other name, "especially Serb as non-ethnic and offensive", and believed that Slovenes were "mountain Croats". Once he was faced with negative reactions, he gave up on that idea. He expressed his new attitude in Sloboda, issue of March 23, 1883: The main thing is this: everybody should work for the people and the homeland, and let them call themselves as they wish... We have disputes and dissensions only because they are supported and strengthened from the outside... We believe that hungry and cold Serbs and Croats feel the same... Therefore, everybody can assume the name of Hottentots, every person can choose their own name, as long as we are all free and happy!...
Two Croatian historians M. Gross and I. Goldstein stated that Starčević was a racist and an anti-semite. They claim his understanding of the basic human rights and linking them to the civil liberties were extremely primitive and selective, as was seen throughout his writings. Starčević had based his ideological views on writings of those ancient Greek writers who thought that some people, by their very nature, are slaves. He wrote against both the Jews and the, Serbs, whom he called "Slavoserbs." His stance was firstly of a political nature: the "Slavoserbs" are his political opponents who "sold themselves to a foreign rule". Then all those who favorably look on the South Slavs unity not regarding them (the South Slavs) as the Croats.
[edit] Legacy
For his political and literary work, Starčević is commonly called Father of the Nation (Otac domovine) in Croatia. The picture of Ante Starčević appears on the 1000 kuna banknote. There are numerous squares and streets named after Starčević in most cities in the country, including a main square in Zagreb. He was put on a series of postage stamps titled "Great Croats" in 1992. [[1]]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Lika i Ličani u hrvatskom jezikoslovlju, (Lika and Its People in Croatian Linguistics), Proceedings of the Scientific Symposium of Days of Ante Starčević
- Mirjana Gross, Izvorno pravaštvo – ideologija, agitacija, pokret, Golden marketing, Zagreb, 2000.
- Barišić, Pavo, Ante Starčević (1823-1896) // Liberalna misao u Hrvatskoj / Feldman, Andrea ; *Stipetić, Vladimir ; Zenko, Franjo (ur.).Zagreb : Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung, 2000.
- Neke uspomene [Some Reminiscences], Djela dr. Ante Starcevica [The Works of Dr. Ante Starcevic] [Zagreb, 1894]
- Na cemu smo [Where We Stand], Djela dr. Ante Starcevica [The Works of Dr. Ante Starcevic][Zagreb, 1894]
- The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809-1918 : A History of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary (Paperback) by A. J. P. Taylor, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1976
- Ante Starčević: kulturno-povijesna slika by Josip Horvat, 1940, reprinted in 1990
- History of the Balkans (The Joint Committee on Eastern Europe Publication Series, No. 12) by Barbara Jelavich, Cambridge University Press 1983
