Professional paper
Administrative System in the County of Virovitica after Constitutional Restoration from 1861
Davor Brunčić
; Osječko-baranjska županija, Osijek, Hrvatska
Abstract
Enthusiasm of the revolutionary years of national movement in 1848/49 was soon stopped (1851) in the Hapsburg monarchy by a rearrangement of state-system on the centralistic foundations and an absolute power of the sovereign. The restoration of constitutional system in 1861 meant the revival of county and municipal self-government in Croatia. That process of the Croatian self-government restoration on the county and local levels was followed by the rise of democratic but national aspirations. As one of the Croatian politically prominent persons the bishop J. J. Strossmayer accepted those challenges hoping to support the process with his reputation and strength, in 1861 he accepted the post of the great district prefect in the county of Virovitica. But the return to the old system of the Croatian counties was just an illusion. It reflected a restitution of seven counties but their composition and appointing modality showed that the institutions were no longer of feudal character but of a new civic society. The time from 1861 until conclusion of the Croatian-Hungarian agreement in 1868 was a transitional period in context of which, the old legal institutions worked on the basis of rules and regulations set in time of absolutism. A strife between old feudal laws and common law with the new ones (in 1852 the common civil code was proclaimed), absolutistic licenses and demands that the administration should be modernized as soon as possible, it resulted in incomplete and contradictory regulations, indistinctnesses which were in favour of some willful counties as well as in misunderstandings and complaints over infringement of county and municipal self-government. The arrangement of counties and other administrative bodies from 1861 was only temporary and transitional one towards rearrangement which would proceed in 1870. The great district prefect J. J. Strossmayer was disappointed by an administration condition and the possibility to solve the problems. He expressed his discontent at functioning of rule of law and real impotence of county government, which was opposed to omnipotent centralistic-organized state administration, to work independently and effectively. In addition to it, he spoke of the financing problem mentioning decentralization ideas as the first step. His inability to alter this unsatisfactory condition, Strossmayer incorporated in his resignation which was submitted by the Croatian viceroy to his royal and imperial majesty who accepted it in 1862.
Keywords
administration; self-government; county; district prefect; Strossmayer
Hrčak ID:
21574
URI
Publication date:
27.12.2007.
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