Ivo Frank and the Revision of the Treaty of Trianon

Abstract

Using several sources that have not been referred to often in Croatian historiography, such as Ivo Frank’s brochure A revízió és a Horvátság (Croats and the Revision), this paper analyses Frank’s interwar positions on Croatian-Hungarian relations and the Treaty of Trianon, with the accompanying historiographical contextualisation. Using an analytical approach, an attempt was made to determine the reasons why Frank abandoned his originally anti-Hungarian political activity in favour of political cooperation with the Hungarians, and to present his vision of future Croatian-Hungarian relations within the frame of Central Europe. As a politician active in the period before the collapse of Austria-Hungary, Frank was a typical Frankist Rightist, even participating in the famous tearing down of the Hungarian flag near the Zagreb railway station in 1895. However, due to the changed geopolitical situation, and following experiences gained in Graz and Vienna, and later while living in Budapest, he made a tactical manoeuvre in the post-war years, attempting to achieve the goals he had set down earlier. He believed that the Croatian Question in monarchist Yugoslavia, as well as the long-term foreign policy of a potential independent Croatian state, could hardly be resolved without cooperation with Hungary, which he considered the central factor of the Central European political order, and this can be clearly seen in the brochure A revízió és a Horvátság. In addition to the sources and other relevant literature, the analysis presented in the paper is based on certain Hungarian interwar newspapers (Pester Lloyd and Pesti Napló) and periodical publications (Budapesti Szemle and Magyar Szemle), which were found by searching digitised materials. The addendum contains a complete translation of Frank’s brochure from Hungarian to Croatian.