Original scientific paper
THE ARCHBISHOP JOSIP STADLER IN THE LIGHT OF THE PROGRESSIVISTS' JOURNAL "PRESS (1904-1918)"
Jure Krišto
; Croatian Institute of History, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The Vrhbosnian Archbishop dr. Josip Stadler was one of the ecclesiastical prelates who was most vigorously disputed and attacked. One group, which was particularly bitter toward archbishop Stadler, was the Progressive youth. Through their weekly and later daily Hrvatski pokret, published in Zagreb, they constantly attacked the archbishop, sometimes approaching the limit of insult.
Upon a closer analysis of their writing, however, it is clear that their attack was motivated primarily, almost exclusively, by the fact that the archbishop of Sarajevo espoused a diametrically opposite political vision of the future of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Furthermore, due to the fact that the Progressives, as they were called, adhered to an ideology impregnated with anti-Catholicism, the archbishop, who was an ardent protector of the interests of his Catholic flock in a land where they were a minority, their bitterness toward archbishop can also be understood from that standpoint. Politically, Stadler agreed with the ideas of dr. Josip Frank, the head of the Pure Party of the State Right, who supported first the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and then her incorporation to Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia, so that all Croatian lands can be unified in a single body within the confines of the Habsburg domain. The Progressives, on the other hand, who were members of the Croatian-Serbian Coalition in Croatia, advocated a complete independence of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Since the Serbs were majority population in that region, their opponents accused them of promoting and advocating Serbian interests.
In any event, the accusations against archbishop Stadler by the Progressivesshould be looked upon with the awareness of their ideological and political presuppositions, and, in that sense, considerably modified. The same applies to the farmer Yugoslav historiography, for it uncritically appropriated both the ideology and political assessments of the Progressives and other "liberal", anti-Catholic groups.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
212145
URI
Publication date:
1.7.1999.
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