Review article
How the Hungarian Noble Family Festetić Lost Their Properties in Croatia After the First World War
Mira Kolar-Dimitrijević
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb – Full Professor (retired)
Abstract
Samuel and Eugen (Jenö) or Tasilo Festetić were the owners of two large estates in today’s Croatia until 1919. Samuel owned the property Bajnski dvori near Ivanac in Varaždin, and Eugen and Tasilo owned the largest part of Međimurje with an arable area of 27,000 acres and a lot of land that they leased. Both estates, the first in Croatian Zagorje and the second in Međimurje, which until 1918 belonged to the narrower territory of Hungary, were excellently managed until 1918 and as such became desirable to many. Under the guise of implementing agrarian reform, the division of land and the sale of wood began in 1919, and the emphasis that agrarian reform was implemented in the interest of the people was often just a mask under which the people were robbed through lending or borrowing. After the dismemberment of Festetic’s estate, nothing remained of the earlier estate except the castles, and not even that in case of Bajnski dvori, because during the raid on the castle, the robbers set fire to Bajnski dvori, and thus there was no possibility of resuming the work on the estate. All this was done according to legal regulations and with the inclusion of several political factors from which Pribićević’s democrats and some members of Radić’s political party benefited, but most of all the banks that managed these affairs. The members of the Festetić family, as foreign citizens, Austrian and Hungarian, came under attack from the Serbian authorities, whose first goal in the new state was to eliminate the nobility, which in the past was the key foundation of the Croatian statehood. Both estates lost their significance as fiefdoms, but Stjepan Radić observed Hrvatsko Zagorje and its noble estates as the area where the peasants were most inclined to accept Croatia as a republic, thus identifying their interest with Radić’s republicanism until 1925. However, in the conflict with the Belgrade regime, the actions of the authorities prevailed, which little by little violated republicanism in favor of Karađorđević’s monarchy by various means, not shying away from using all means and tricks. Linked by this common interest in the republic, the peasants of Varaždin County and Međimurje were from 1920 to 1927 the most loyal voters of Stjepan Radić. However, Radić’s recognition of the Vidovdan Constitution and Karađorđević’s monarchy affected the peasantry and reduced their attachment to the Croatian Peasant Party, although this attachment did not disappear, but was only suppressed. There are very few sources about Festetic’s estates in Croatia, and whether there are sources elsewhere has not been investigated, so in this paper, based on several discovered documents, an attempt is made to describe the disintegration of these estates held by the Hungarians, who were exposed to the politics of Dr. Pero Magdić. Dr. Ivan Novak and Dr. Hink Krizman as democrats, but also to the Croatian Peasant Party, which was financially and perhaps professionally too weak to implement the ideas of its president and ideologist Stjepan Radić.
Keywords
Samuel Festetić; Eugen Festetić; Tasilo Festetić; Croatian Peasant Party; Democrats; Bajnski dvori; Međimurje; forests; agrarian reform; 1918-1929
Hrčak ID:
289353
URI
Publication date:
11.12.2022.
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