Page 171 - 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 …
nation consisted of the nobility (the old natio Croatica that lost part of its
social identity after 1848, but adopted a new, modern national identity), of
the old bourgeoisie, and of the new bourgeoisie (which emerged in the sec-
ond half of the 19 century, after the abolition of serfdom and especially due
th
to stronger urbanisation at the end of the century). 36
While Khuen-Héderváry’s term in office is traditionally viewed as a
period of great anti-Croatian repression, it was also a time of modernisa-
tion, mostly thanks to Izidor Kršnjavi, the Minister of Religious Affairs and
Education: new schools and churches were built all over Croatia, the elec-
trification of the country was initiated, and the railway network was ex-
panded (however, this was highly intentional and in line with the saying
“Whoever owns the railways, owns the land”, which represented the con-
viction of part of the Hungarian political elite that through control of the
railways and other services the Hungarian language would be more easi-
37
ly introduced as the official language in Croatia). Moreover, in this peri-
od Zagreb was elevated to a modern European metropolis. Most of the city
centre was built in that time, including its most representative buildings
such as the high school complex – today the Mimara Museum, the build-
ings of the School and the Museum of Arts and Crafts, the Art Pavilion, the
main railway building, the park complex of “the Lenuci horse shoe”, and so
38
on. The new National Theatre building was inaugurated in 1895, and King
Franz Josef I visited Zagreb on that occasion.
Music and culture were the most important platforms for legitimisation
of national demands and national identity, while from the 1860s onwards
their main purpose was to affirm the nation, i.e. they served as proof that the
Croatian nation was on an equal level of development as other European na-
tions. The 1860s and early 1870s was thus a period of definite institutionalisa-
tion. As early as 1861, the Parliament bore the cost of their finances and made
the Zagreb National Theatre and the Družtvo prijateljah muzike u Zagrebu
[Society of the Friends of Music in Zagreb] into state institutions of the Roy-
al Croatian Land Theatre and the Music Institute. The Croatian Academy of
Sciences and Arts was also founded in 1861, the Opera of the National The-
atre in 1870, and the University of Zagreb in 1874. The late 1870s, 1880s and
subsequent decades were a period of general modernisation and the intense

36 Stančić, Hrvatska nacija i nacionalizam u 19. i 20. stoljeću, 124–5.
37 For more details see the chapter “Čije željeznice, njegova i zemlja” [Whoever owns
the railways, owns the land] in: Pavličević, Povijest Hrvatske, 288–9.
38 Ladislav Heka, “Grof Karlo (Károly) Khuen-Héderváry i Hrvati,” Zbornik Pravnog
fakulteta Sveučilišta u Splitu 37, no. 3 (2016): 1069–70.

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