Page 163 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2026 Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes.../Composers’ Societies Past and Present...

Between Music and Politics: The Role of Composers in Musical Societies …
9
of these lands within one political entity. The most important revival ide-
as were presented in a booklet by Janko Drašković, one of the most prom-
inent members of the national revival movement, as well as a member of
one of the most important Croatian noble families. Disertacija iliti Razgov-
or darovan gospodi poklisarom zakonotvorcem Kraljevinah naših za budu-
ću Dietu ungarsku odaslanem [Dissertation or Discussion Presented to the
Gentleman the Envoys of our Kingdoms Sent to the Coming Hungarian
Parliament] (1832) was originally written as instructions for Croatian depu-
ties at the joint Croatian-Hungarian Parliament, and is today considered to
be the first formulated political programme of the Croatian national reviv-
al movement. Drašković dealt with matters of language, territory, and poli-
tics in general: he advocated for the re-empowerment of the authority of the
Croatian Ban and for the foundation of the Croatian autonomous govern-
ment. He propagated the use of Štokavian dialect, as the most widespread
one, and advocated for Croatian to become the official language in the en-
tire Croatian territory. He was also in favour of the abolition of the Military
Frontier and advocated for the Croatian lands to be united, as well as for the
establishment of “the Great Illyria/Illyrian Kingdom”, which would encom-
pass Croatian lands, Slovenian lands, and Bosnia. On top of that, in this
text Drašković made numerous modernising proposals concerning trade,
loans, industrial development and vocational education. 10
With the shift from culture to politics, the national movement entered
its mature phase, whose two greatest achievements were the establishment
of the first political parties and the introduction of Croatian as the official
language. The symbolic beginning of the National Revival’s mature phase
is usually taken to be the launch of the first newspaper, Novine horvatz-
ko-slavonzko-dalmatinzke, in 1835. The initiator and first editor-in-chief
was one of the leaders of the Illyrian movement, Ljudevit Gaj. The newspa-
pers were first issued in Kajkavian dialect and in old orthography, and from
1836 onwards, and under the name Ilirske narodne novine, in Štokavian di-
alect and in the new orthography proposed by Gaj. They also had a literary
supplement, Danica horvatzka, slavonzka i dalmatinzka, in which a num-
ber of important revival poems were first published, including Antun Mi-
hanović Horvatska domovina, which was later adopted as the Croatian na-
tional anthem under the name Lijepa naša.
9 Cf. Ivo Perić, “Pretpreporodno doba,” in Povijest Hrvata. Druga knjiga, od kraja
15. st. do kraja Prvoga svjetskog rata, ed. Franko Mirošević (Zagreb: Školska knjiga,
2005), 366.
10 Ibid., 375–7.

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