Page 170 - 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
manent financial support, and accepted the initiative for the foundation
of the University of Zagreb, which started operating in 1874. 31
The Ban Mažuranić was succeeded by the Unionist Ban Ladislav Pe-
jačević (1880–1883), who was then succeeded by the Slavonian-born Hun-
garian aristocrat Károly Khuen-Héderváry (1883–1903), with the task to
“pacify” Croatia (in the sense that he was to prevent the Croatian national
question from becoming too strong an issue on the level of the Empire, and
especially to prevent it from becoming a catalyst of discord or a disruptive
32
factor in a then still stable Dualism). Khuen-Héderváry skilfully exploit-
ed already existing political, national, social and regional conflicts to form
a strong basis of supporters (mainly Slavonian landlords, foreign bourgeoi-
sie, Serbian minority, conservatives and unionists), whom he awarded with
positions or privileges. At the same time, his rule was repressive – politi-
cal opponents were prosecuted and intimidated, while public officials were
threatened with losing their jobs if they did not vote for the government’s
33
candidates at elections. Such politics was often met with revolt, which was
most famously publicly demonstrated on two occasions: in 1885, after heat-
ed discussions as to whether Croatian historical documents should be kept
in Zagreb or Budapest, the Party of Rights’ MP Josip Gržanić physical-
ly grabbed the Ban and literary kicked him out of the assembly hall; and
in 1895, on the occasion of the festive opening of the new theatre build-
ing, when a group of students, protesting Khuen-Héderváry’s policies, pub-
licly burned a Hungarian tricolour banner (but not the official Hungari-
34
an flag). While details of political life in this period are too complex to be
presented in detail here, let us mention that Khuen-Héderváry mostly re-
lied on a coalition with the National Party, while his greatest opposition
was Ante Starčević’s Party of Rights (which insisted on a completely au-
tonomous Croatia), but he was also opposed by the Independent National
35
Party (which was more pragmatic and supported the trialistic idea). The
period of the 1880s and 1890s also coincided with the spread of Croatian na-
tional sentiment to the wider strata of society, when the modern political
31 Dinko Župan, “Kulturni i intelektualni razvoj u Hrvatskoj u ‘dugom’ 19. stoljeću,” in
Temelji moderne Hrvatske. Hrvatske zemlje u dugom 19. stoljeću, eds. Jasna Turkalj
and Vlasta Švoger (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 2016), 291–2, 295–6.
32 Markus, “Trojedna Kraljevina Hrvatska, Slavonija i Dalmacija od 1790. do 1918.,” 20.
33 Iskra Iveljić, “Prevlast unionista. Hrvatske zemlje od 1883.–1903. godine,” in Hrvat-
ska i Europa. Moderna hrvatska kultura od preporoda do moderne, Vol. 4, eds. Josip
Bratulić, Josip Vončina, and Dubravko Jelčić (Zagreb: Školska knjiga, 2010), 93–4.
34 Pavličević, Povijest Hrvatske, 288–90.
35 Cf. Iveljić, “Prevlast unionista,” 94.

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