Page 164 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2026 Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes.../Composers’ Societies Past and Present...

Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes | Composers’ Societies Past and Present
The first political parties were founded in 1841: the pro-Hungarian
Croatian-Hungarian Party, which advocated for close Croatian-Hungari-
an relations and for Hungarian to become the official language in Croatia;
and the pro-national Illyrian Party, which promoted territorial unification
of Croatian lands and cultural cooperation of south Slavic nations. Ljude-
vit Gaj formulated the Illyrian Party’s creed thus: “May God live the Hun-
11
garian constitution, the Croatian Kingdom and the Illyrian nation!” The
Illyrian Party and its leader never opposed the Habsburg Monarchy itself,
and not even the union with Hungary per se, but were against the total, ab-
solute, union which some pro-Hungarian politicians often advocated. That
would prove to be a stumbling block in Croatian-Hungarian relations in
subsequent years, culminating in 1848. The first conflicts occurred as soon
as after the elections in 1842, but especially violent were those in 1845, which
12
resulted in “the victims of July” in which 13 were killed and 27 wounded.
These conflicts continued in the years following the renewal of constitu-
tionalism and of political life after 1860.
The second great achievement of this period was the formal proclama-
tion by the Parliament, and on Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski’s motion, of Cro-
atian as the official language in the Croatian Kingdom in 1847. This was ac-
complished after more than half a century of struggles against Hungarian
attempts to introduce Hungarian as the official language in Croatia, while
the Parliament and the estates insisted on the usage of Latin as a sort of a
barrier against the political imposition of Hungarian.
The Croatian national movement experienced its height in the revo-
lutionary year of 1848. On the Great National Assembly (25 March 1848)
30 “Demands of the Nation” (Zahtijevanja Naroda) were proclaimed. This
document, which in essence represented the National Party’s political ide-
13
as, called for national and liberal reforms. They demanded, among other
things, for Josip Jelačić (then a commander of the First Banal Regiment in
the Military Frontier and a known patriot) to be elected Ban, for territorial
unification of the Croatian lands, the abolition of serfdom, regular conven-
ing of Parliament, establishment of an independent Croatian government,

11 Cf. Ivo Perić, “Hrvatski narodni preporod – ilirski pokret,” in Povijest Hrvata. Dru-
ga knjiga, od kraja 15. st. do kraja Prvoga svjetskog rata, 389–90.
12 Cf. Dragutin Pavličević, Povijest Hrvatske (Zagreb: Naklada Pavičić, 2002), 253–4.
13 After the Illyrian name had been banned in 1843, the Illyrian Party changed its
name to the National Party and remained an important factor in Croatian political
life throughout the 19th century. For more details see: “Narodna stranka,” in Hrvat-
ska enciklopedija, online edition, https://enciklopedija.hr/clanak/narodna-stranka.

164