Original scientific paper
The politicization of the funeral of Ivan Meštrović
Slađana Josipović
Abstract
The main parameters of this article are the events relating to the organization and celebration of the funeral of Ivan Meštrović, the world-renowned Croatian sculptor, who died on January 16, 1962, in South Bend (USA) in the 79th year of his life. Besides bringing to light differences between the state authorities and the Meštrović family, this work closely examines the relations between the communist government and the Catholic Church, due to which the funeral or a prominent Croatian artist was transformed into a political event. Since these events received a lot of publicity in the international press, talks between the representatives of the Commission for Religious Affairs and the Catholic Church began a few days after the funeral’s conclusion in order to dispel some of the bad press directed at the Yugoslavian government. In addition to these events, the introduction to this article provides information about the time Meštrović spent in Switzerland and the United States, and the efforts of the Communist regime to have him return to Yugoslavia in the early days of its takeover of power.
Keywords
Croatia; Yugoslavia; the Communist Government; the Commission for Religious Affairs; Ivan Meštrović; Catholic Church
Hrčak ID:
19015
URI
Publication date:
16.10.2007.
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