nte Starčević was born on May 22, 1823 in the village of Žitnik near Gospić, a small town in the Military Frontier within Austria-Hungary, son of a Croat Catholic father and a Serb Orthodox mother.

born in Žitnik
1823

A Croatian philosopher, politician and writer, Starčević's diverse activities and works laid the foundation for Croatian nationalism and the modern Croatian state. He is often referred to by Croats as the Father of the Nation (Otac domovine).

In 1845, Starčević graduated from a comprehensive secondary school in Zagreb. In 1845, he briefly attended the seminary in Senj, but that same year moved to Pest (Budapest) to attend a Roman Catholic theological seminary where he attended classes in philosophy and liberal arts. A year later, he was awarded an honoris causa degree.

Starčević then returned to Croatia and resumed his studies in theology at the seminary in Senj. Rather than becoming a priest, however, he decided to engage in secular pursuits. He 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, inspired by Ljudevit Gaj, Starčević started working on the manuscript of Istarski razvod, a Croatian document dating from 1325. He transcribed the text from the Glagolitic alphabet to the Latin alphabet, analysed it and published it in 1852. In his foreword the 27-year-old Starčević elaborated his linguistic theories - specifically that the Croatian language was a mixture of all three Croatian dialects (Shtokavian, Chakavian and Kajkavian) and the Krajina (Carniola) dialect with its 600-year history. Starčević accepted the etymological orthography and used the Ekavian accent for his entire life, considering it the heir of the old Kajkavian. He did not use assibilation, coarticulation nor assimilation, accepted in Croatian orthography from the time of Ljudevit Gaj. His orthography was adopted by the Ustaše regime in the Independent State of Croatia. 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.

In his December 8, 1851 Call for Subscriptions to the Croatian Grammar, 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. His opposition to Karadžić's work was based in complete denial of the Serbs as a nation, or of their language, culture and history. He also did not recognize Slovenes and Bosniaks as separate nations or groups, referring to them all as Croats. This was not a popular or widely accepted theory; educated people headed by Strossmayer and Gaj supported Karadžić. This was publicly demonstrated immediately after Karadžić's death - when the Croatian Parliament (Sabor) collected a considerable amount of money in order to erect a monument to honor Karadžić in Croatia. Also, Ivan Mažuranić, the Court chancellor, got the Viennese Imperial Court to financially support Karadžić's widow.

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, not Gaj, who cared to maintain good relations with Serbia and thereby distanced himself from his friend.

Starčević was the only Croatian politician from his era that was respected by writer Miroslav Krleža. Krleža used to compare Starčević's struggles to those of Don Quixote. For Miroslav Krleža, Starčević was the most intelligent Croatian politician. Krleža, however, did not pay much attention to the more political aspects of Starčević's works.

Starčević began working at the law firm of Ladislav Šram in Zagreb, then sought an academic position with the University of Zagreb which he did not get. He remained in Šram's office until 1857 when he was banned from practicing law. At that time he was also a member of the committee of Matica ilirska, a Croatian cultural society connected with the Illyrian movement, in the Historical Society and in the editorial board of Neven, a literary magazine.

After the ban, Starčević travelled to Russia where he hoped he would gather support from his country's eastern rival. When this failed, he went to France, pinning his hopes on French emperor Napoleon III. While in Paris, he published his work La Croatie et la confédération italienne, considered by some to be the precursor to his Party of Rights' political program. In 1859, the Austrian Empire was defeated in the Second Italian War of Independence, and her weakening status in the world paved the way for Starčević's career.

Starčević then returned to Croatia and resumed working in Šram's office. He left that post in 1861 after being appointed as chief notary of the county of Fiume (Rijeka) and also being elected to the Croatian Parliament as the representative of Fiume. In his capacity as chief notary, he wrote "the four petitions of Rijeka county", which are considered the ideological basis for the Party of Rights which he co-founded with his school friend Eugen Kvaternik that same year.

The "Party of Rights" was clerical, conservative, and pro-Habsburg, and named after the Croatian national and ethnic rights that he vowed to protect. Its only concession to nationalism was hostility to the Serbs who, since the incorporation of the "military frontiers" into Croatia in 1868, made up a quarter of the population. 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 parliament to pass on August 5, 1861 the decision annulling any joint business with Austria. Starčević called for greater Croatian autonomy and self-rule. He opposed both Austrian and Hungarian attempts to deny Croatians their political aspirations for self-governance. His fervent patriotism would subsequently earn him the title of Father of the Nation. frl Iztočno pitanje (Zagreb: Hrvatsko pravo, 1899)

Their party demanded a Croatia that was independent of both Austria and Hungary. Starčević's famous phrase was: "Ni s Bečom ni s Peštom" ("Neither with Vienna nor with Pest"). Starčević was the only parliamentary representative to agree with Kvaternik's draft constitution of 26 June 1861. He advocated the termination of the Military Frontier and persuaded parliament to pass a decision on 5 August 1861 to annul joint business ties with Austria.

He pointed out that Croatia needed to determine its relationships with Austria and Hungary through international agreements. He demanded the reintegration of the Croatian lands, the large kingdom of Croatia of old (the Middle Age's Kingdom of Croatia), the homeland of one people, with the same blood, language, past and (God willing) future. He advocated the resolution of Bosnian issues by reforms and cooperation between the people and the nobility. Starčević believed that Bosniaks were "the best Croats", and claimed that "Bosnian Muslims are a part of the Croatian people and of the purest Croatian blood". He advocated the resolution of Bosnian issues by reforms and cooperation between the people and the nobility.

In 1862, when Fiume was implicated in the participation of protests against the Austrian Empire, Starčević was suspended from his post and sentenced to one month in prison as an enemy of the regime. When he was released, he again returned to Šram's office and remained there until 11 October 1871, at which time he was arrested once more, this time on the occasion of the Rakovica Revolt. The revolt was launched by Kvaternik who by then came to believe that the type of political solution that Starčević had been seeking was not possible. While the revolt drew several hundred men, both Croats and Serbs, it was soon crushed by Imperial Austrian troops. The Croatian Party of Rights was abolished. Starčević was released after two months in prison.

Starčević was re-elected to the parliament in 1865, 1871, and 1878 to his death. In 1895, Starčević moved to the house that was built for him by the Croatian people. He died there a year later on February 28, 1896 at the age of 73. In accordance with his wishes, he was buried in the Church of St. Mirko in the Zagreb suburb of Šestine.

Ante Starcevic, grave at Sestine, Zagreb, made by sculptor Rendic.

On his deathbed, he requested that no monuments be raised in his honor. Nonetheless, a bust of him was sculpted by Ivan Rendić in 1903. and it is found at his gravesite at the Church of St Mirko in the Zagreb suburb of Šestine. A statue was also erected in front of Starčević's House (Starčevićev dom) in 1998.

Accusations and controversiess

Some Croatian historians like Mirjana Gross and Ivo Goldstein state that Starčević was a racist and an anti-Semite. According to them, his understanding of basic human rights and civil liberties were extremely primitive and selective. Starčević criticized socialism as "unshaped" and he supported colonialism, claimed that "Algeria should be densely populated by a few million of happy Frenchmen and not to allow to have one hundred fifty thousand of them against two and half million of Arabs".

Starčević had based his ideological views on writings of those ancient Greek writers who thought that some people, by their very nature, are slaves, for they had "just half of the human mind" and, for that reason, they "shall be governed by people of the human nature". About the people and nations which he saw as cursed and lower ranked races - he spoke as of the animal breeds and uses the "breed" word to mark them.

Later, Starčević increasingly marked the Slavoserbs as a separate ethnic group or breed, and he ranked them as lower than Jews: "The Jews are less harmful than the Slavoserbs. For the Jews care for themselves and their people ... but the Slavoserbs are always for the evil: if they cannot gain a benefit, then they tend to harm the good or just affair, or to harm those who are for the affair." Further, he claimed that "cursed breeds" were "vengeful against their oppressors". He stated that lower races should not be given any role in the public life.

As an aged man, he described the Serbs as identical to the Slavoserb breed and mocked them for defeats they suffered long ago. This provoked negative reactions, even in his Party of Right. Party member Erazmo Barčić described Starčević's mockery and racism as "throwing mud at people and primitive cheeky invectives". After facing negative reactions to his views, Starčević temporarily retreated. He wrote an article in the March 23, 1883 issue of Sloboda:

He wrote a whole tractate about the Jews that could be summarized in a few sencences: "Jews ... are the breed, except a few, without any morality and without any homeland, the breed of which every unit strives to its personal gain, or to its relatives' gain. To let the Jews to participate in public life is dangerous: throw a piece of mud in a glass of the clearest water - then all the water will be puddled. That way the Jews spoiled and poisoned the French people too much".

But, for Starčević, there was a race worst than the Jews. For him, the "Slavoserb" notion 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.

Later, and with years, Starčević more and more marked the "Slavoserbs" as a separate ethnic group, or - as he used to say the "breed", ranked, as humans, lower than the Jews: "The Jews are less harmful than the Slavoserbs. For the Jews care for themselves and their people ... but the Slavoserbs are always for the evil: if they cannot gain a benefit, then they tend to harm the good or just affair, or to harm those who are for the affair." - he wrote once.

As an aged man, he makes the Serbs identical to the "Slavoserb breed" and mocks them for their defeats they suffered long ago - which provoked negative reactions even in his "Party of Right". On that occasion, the Party member Erazmo Barčić (1894.) described Starčević's mockery and racism as "throwing mud at people and primitive cheeky invectives".

However, when once facing with negative reactions to his open racism, he temporarily retreated. That was a reason that he wrote an article in Sloboda, issue of 23 March 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!...

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante_Starčević
• https://www.library.yale.edu/slavic/croatia/history/history.html
• and others

1823. - u Žitniku kod Gospića rodio se Ante Starčević, hrvatski političar, publicist i književnik, često nazivan ocem domovine. U Hrvatskom saboru je bio najgorljiviji zagovornik hrvatske neovisnosti odlučno se protiveći bilo kakvim upravnim i državnim vezama Hrvatske s Austrijom i Mađarskom, gradeći tako temelje za osnivanje Stranke prava, koju je osnovao s Eugenom Kvaternikom.

U drugoj polovici 19. stoljeća Starčević je bio najuporniji i najdosljedniji pobornik demokratskih narodnih prava i političkih sloboda. Vjerujući u narodno jedinstvo Južnih Slavena neko vrijeme je smatrao kako se to jedinstvo treba manifestirati i u jedinstvenom, hrvatskom imenu, otklanjajući svako drugo ime, a naročito Serb kao nenarodno i pogrdno, dok je Slovence smatrao planinskim Hrvatima. Međutim, kada su se pokazali negativni rezultati tog nastojanja da svi narodi prihvate hrvatsko ime Ante Starčević napušta to stajalište. Tako je u listu Sloboda od 23. ožujka 1883. godine izrazio svoje shvaćanje da nije važno ime, nego zajednička borba za stvaranje slobodne i samostalne države:

Hrvatski političar i književnik rođen 23. svibnja 1823. u mjestu Žitnik kod Gospića. Pored političkih aktivnosti bavio se poviješću, filologijom, književnom kritikom, filozofijom, pisanjem pjesama, drama i političkom satirom (Pisma magjarolacah). Danas se često naziva ocem domovine. U jesen 1845. završava gimnaziju u Zagrebu te odlazi u sjemenište u Senj, a od tamo u Peštu na studij teologije. Filozofiju doktorira u Pešti 1848. Tada odlučuje ne posvetiti se svećenićkom pozivu već borbi za slobodnu i suverenu Hrvatsku. Nakon neuspjelog pokušaja da dobije mjesto predavača na Zagrebačkom Sveučilištu radi u odvjetničkom uredu odvjetnika Šrama sve do 1861. Te je godine izabran za velikog bilježnika Riječke županije, ali je 1862. suspendiran i kao protivnik režima osuđen na mjesec dana zatvora. Iste godine izabran je u Hrvatski sabor kao predstavnik Rijeke. Za zastupnika u Hrvatskom saboru biće biran ponovo 1865., 1871., i od 1878. do kraja života..

U Hrvatskom saboru je bio najgorljiviji zagovornik hrvatske neovisnosti odlučno se protiveći bilo kakvim upravnim i državnim vezama Hrvatske s Austrijom i Mađarskom. Gradeći tako temelje za osnivanje Stranke prava koju je osnovao s Eugenom Kvaternikom. Od prvih svojih svojih zapisa iz 1861. pa do zadnjeg svog govora Starčević je punih 30 godina neumorno dokazivao kako je glavna i najpreča stvar osloboditi se austrijskog sužanjstva i da za hrvatski narod nema života ni sretnije budućnosti "dok bude pod Austriom-Madjarijom". Dosljedno je zauzimao krajnje neprijateljski stav prema "umišljotini koja se zove Austrija; u kojoj su se vlade i vladari... urotili protiv narodima". Najvećim neprijateljima hrvatskog naroda Starčević je smatrao Habsburšku dinastiju.

Zbog svog političkog djelovalanja utamničen je 1863. Nakon izlaska iz zatvora ponovno se zapošljava u Šramovu uredu do listopada 1871. Nakon Kvaternikovog ustanka u Rakovici ponovno je utamničen, a Stranka Prava raspuštena. Sedam godina kasnije (1878.) nanovo je izabran za zastupnika u Hrvatskom saboru, čijim je zastupnikom bio sve do svoje smrti. Starčevića su godinama klerikalci napadali kao "buntovnika, neznabožca, anitkersta, koji ruši sve naredbe Boga, ljudi i crkve". To dolazi otuda što u drugoj polovici 19. stoljeća nitko nije tako oštro i argumentirano ustrajavao protiv negativne uloge klera u nacionalnom i političkom životu Hrvatske kao što je to činio Ante Starčević. Tri su glavna uzroka Starčevićevu anitklerikalizmu: što je crkva kulturno unazađivala narod; što je služila tuđinskim ugnjetačima Hrvatske i što se različitost vjerske pripadnosti zloupotrebljavala za širenje nacionalog razdora. Prema Starčeviću sjeme razdora baciše "Isusovci i Austrija" (Djela III, str. 214). "A u puku zapadne crkve, gde potiče štogod dobra i poštena, to prečesto dolazi samo otuda, što on ne sluša i ne sledi popa." (Djela III, str. 216)

U Habsuburškoj monarhiji vidio je neprijatelja hrvatskog naroda. Bio je protivnik klera kome je pripisivao krivicu za zaostalost masa i službu tuđincima. Vjerovao je u sposbnost hrvatskog naroda da sam sobom upravlja. Pod utjecajem ideja francuske revolucije borio se protiv ostataka feudalizma i zalagao se za demokratizaciju političkog života. U politici se oslanjao na građanske slojeve, imućnije seljaštvo i inteligenciju. U drugoj polovici 19. stoljeća bio je najuporniji i najdosljedniji pobornik demokratskih narodnih prava i političkih sloboda. Vjerujući u narodno jedinstvo Južnih Slavena neko vrijeme je smatrao kako se to jedinstvo treba manifestirati i u jedinstvenom, hrvatskom imenu, otklanjajući svako drugo ime, a "naročito Serb kao nenarodno i pogrdno". Dok je Slovence smatrao "planinskim Hrvatima". Međutim kada su se pokazali negativni rezultati tog nastojanja da svi narodi prihvate hrvatsko ime napušta to stajalište. Tako je u listu Sloboda od 23. ožujka 1883. izrazio svoje shvaćanje da nije važno ime, nego zajednička borba za stvaranje slobodne i samostalne države: "Glavna je stvar, da svi rade za narod i za domovinu, a neka se zovu kako im drago... Naše cepanje, naša nesloga stoji samo zato, jer ih izvana uzdržavaju i ojačuju... mi ne verujemo, da je gladnu i na studeni na pr. Srbu drugačije, nego na pr. Hrvatu... Zato makar se svi proglasili za Hotentote ili nas se svaki zvao posebnim imenom, samo da budemo svi slobodni i srećni!..."

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Created: Monday, February 12, 2010; Updated Saturday, September 30, 2023
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