Josip Frank

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Josip (Joseph) Frank (b. April 16, 1844 in Osijek; d. December 17, 1911 in Zagreb) was a Croatian lawyer and politician.[1]

[edit] Career

Frank attended the gymnasium in Osijek. After having finished his law studies at the Vienna University in 1872, he moved to Zagreb and worked as an attorney at law. In 1877, he founded the newspapers Agramer Presse and Kroatische Post, which were soon banned by the Austro-Hungarian authorities. [2]

In 1880, Frank published a brochure titled Die Quote Kroatiens, in which he tried to prove that Croatia bore an disproportionately high financial burden since the 1868 Nagodba (Compromise), a legal arrangement that regulated the constitutional position of Croatia within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1880, Frank was elected to the Zagreb City council, where he served until 1894. In 1884, he was elected delegate to the Croatian Sabor. At first acting as an independent delegate, he joined Ante Starčevićs Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) in 1890, soon advancing to the highest ranks of the party.

In 1895, shortly before Starčević died, Frank persuaded Starčević to split off his fraction to form the Pure Party of Rights (ČSP) with its mouthpiece Hrvatsko pravo. By 1897, Frank had become the true leader of the Croatian states' rights movement, advancing to president of the party after Starčević's death.

Politically, Frank appeared as a radical nationalist, who apparently lent himself to the political ideas of a "Greater Croatia" and a trialistic approach to the Habsburg lands by making the Kingdom of Croatia the third entity in the empire. But in reality, Frank was an exponent of Austrian and Hungarian court circles, a pro-Habsburg, anti-Serb and anti-Yugoslav chauvinist and clericalist, who staunchly opposed the Croato-Serbian Coalition. In the later stages of his career, he appeared as a man of confidence to the Viennese authorities, often acting secretly on their behalf. During the Bosnian annexation crisis in 1908, he was the initiator of a persecution of Serbs accused for high treason. He has played a role in the Friedjung Trial as well.[3]

In 1880, the Croatian poet August Šenoa characterised Frank in the following manner: "The infamous Zagreb attorney ... degrades and befouls all that is Croatian, first to the benefit of the Magyars, now of the Austrians ... Frank is a political louse, who served Rauch, then the Swabian Generalkommando ... he offered himself to the Orthodox voter in Pakrac, bragging about ... protecting Serbian interests."[4]

Frank fell terminally ill in 1909, and lived only to witness the fusion of the two party factions in 1910. His followers, calling themselves Frankists (Frankovci), served as examples to a new generation of ultra-nationalist Croatian politicians, the fascist Ustaša movement. Frank's armed "Croatian legions", formed after the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to fight "Serbian gangs", laid the ground for the appearance of the Ustaša military formations Bojna and Legion.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Gregory C. Ference (2000). "Frank, Josip". Encyclopedia of Eastern Europe: From the Congress of Vienna to the Fall of Communism. Ed. Richard Frucht. New York & London: Garland Publishing. 276-277. 
  2. ^ Milan Prelog (1925). "FRANK JOSIP DR.". Narodna enciklopedija srpsko-hrvatsko-slovenačka 1. Ed. St. Stanojević. Zagreb: Bibliografski zavod d. d.. 691. 
  3. ^ Mirjana Gross (1987). "FRANK, Josip". Enciklopedija Jugoslavije (2nd ed.) 4. Zagreb: Jugoslavenski leksikografski zavod "Miroslav Krleža". 255. 
  4. ^ "FRANK, Josip". Enciklopedija Jugoslavije (1st ed.) 3. (1958). Ed. Miroslav Krleža. Zagreb: Leksikografski zavod FNRJ. 387.