Ivo Frank

Ivo Frank (17 December 1877 in Zagreb – 19 December 1939 in Budapest) was a Croatian politician and lawyer associated with the Party of Rights. Frank gained prominence as a member of the group that tore down a flag of Hungary in protest on the occasion of the 1895 visit by Emperor Franz Joseph to Zagreb. He was elected a member of the Sabor of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia in the final decade of Austria-Hungary. Before the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Frank advocated a trialist reform of the empire as a means of protection against the Magyarisation and Serbian irredentism. Following the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, Frank left the country to lead the émigré Croatian Committee advocating Croatian independence.

Frank sought political alliance with Gabriele D'Annunzio who seized the city of Rijeka (Fiume) in immediate aftermath of the World War I and Italian fascists. He reached agreements with D'Annunzio on Italian support in return for territorial concessions in Dalmatia, but the Kingdom of Italy withdrew its support following the Treaty of Rapallo concluded with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1920. Subsequently, Frank focused on gaining Hungarian support by advocating a revision of the Treaty of Trianon partitioning the Kingdom of Hungary after the war. He further proposed a political partnership of Hungary and Croatia against Pan-Slavism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Pan-Germanism. In 1927, Frank again sought Italian support for Croatian independence, promising Italian dominance in the Adriatic Sea and territorial concessions. He turned to Benito Mussolini together with Ante Pavelić. Frank's leading standing among the Croatian politcal émigrés waned from 1929 with the rise of Pavelić-led fascist Ustaše. Frank endorsed Ustaše in early 1930s, but he appeared to distance himself from them in 1934.

Early life

Ivo Frank, sometimes also referred to as Ivan or Ivica, was born in Zagreb in 1877 to politician Josip Frank and his wife Olga (née Rojčević). He took part in the protest organised at the occasion of the 1895 visit by Emperor Franz Joseph to Zagreb, consisting of taking down a flag of Hungary from a triumphal arch at the Zagreb Glavni kolodvor railway station. Frank was arrested and convicted for the action and sentenced to four months in prison. In 1905, Frank obtained a doctoral degree in law from the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb. According to Frank's wife Aglaja, he spoke German, English, and French fluently, and had a basic command of Italian. In the 1930s, Frank also learned and spoke Hungarian.

Career of an elected politician

Election to the Sabor

Frank ran for a seat in the Sabor, the legislative body of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia (an element of the Austria-Hungary at the time) unsuccessfully in 1906 and 1908 elections on the Party of Rights ticket before switching electoral districts to Vojni Križ, where his father was the incumbent, for the 1911 Croatian parliamentary election. Frank's father was the leader of a faction of the Party of Rights known as the Frankists (after him), advocating protection of Croatian autonomy against the Magyarisation and Serbian irredentism through a trialist reform of Austria-Hungary.

Frank was elected to the Sabor in 1911, and he kept the seat until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918. Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, Frank verbally attacked members of the ruling Croat-Serb Coalition, accusing them of treason as he deemed their response to the assassination inadequately strong. In his speech held at the Ban Jelačić Square in Zagreb on 30 June 1914, shortly after the anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo, Frank condemned the Serbs for the assassination and for undermining Austria-Hungary, sparking anti-Serb demonstrations in Zagreb. Some sources erroneously describe Frank as the president of the Party of Rights.

World War I

Following the outbreak of the World War I, Frank was drafted in as an artillery lieutenant and deployed in June 1915 to Bukovina until restoration of political work of the Sabor, when Frank returned to Zagreb. In this period Frank advocated a political reform of Austria-Hungary to save the empire. Frank was a part of the delegation of Croatian politicians to Emperor Charles I of Austria and prime minister István Tisza in the final year of the war. They unsuccessfully tried to persuade the emperor to reform Austria-Hungary according to trialist ideas giving Croats greater political autonomy within the empire. The move made Frank unpopular in Croatian media at the time. As Austria-Hungary disintegrated, and its South-Slavic population largely became ruled by the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia), Frank came in conflict with the new authorities as an opponent of the Yugoslavist ideas. Frank was arrested in relation to the protest of Croatian Home Guard soldiers in Zagreb in December 1918. Frank was not associated with the protest and he was soon released.

Political emigration

Croatian Committee

Frank moved to Graz, Republic of German-Austria in 1919. Then he became a prominent figure among Croatian political emigrés, largely consisting of former officers of the Austro-Hungarian Army. He chaired the Croatian Committee established in 1919 and operating in Budapest, Vienna, and Graz to promote Croatian independence. Historian Jozo Tomasevich described Frank as the only person of significant standing in Croatian political emigration in the aftermath of the World War I. After Frank left the country, the government revoked his licence to practice law in May 1920 and the University of Zagreb cancelled Frank's doctoral degree two months later.

Venice Agreements

Frank sought support from Gabriele D'Annunzio who seized the city of Rijeka (Fiume) in immediate aftermath of the World War I and established the Italian Regency of Carnaro there. He also contacted Italian fascists regarding potential alliances. Cooperation with D'Annunzio was first formalised on 5 July 1920, when Frank and his associate Emanuel Gagliardi met with D'Annunzio's representatives, Giovanni Host-Venturi and Giovanni Giuriati, in Venice and signed two agreements. The first agreement promised D'Annunzio's support of Croatian, as well as Albanian and Montenegrin emigres in the form of supply of money and arms for the struggle against the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The second agreement dealt with borders of the future Croatian republic which was envisaged as generally corresponding to the former Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. It stipulated Italian territorial gains around Rijeka and regarding some Adriatic islands. Main Dalmatian cities were to become politically autonomous free ports. Namely, Zadar, Šibenik, Trogir, Split, and Dubrovnik were to form an independent, loose federation or a "maritime alliance". The rest of Dalmatia would be organised as a separate republic. The Dalmatian republic was to decide on joining the Croatian republic in a plebiscite. Some sources claim that D'Annunzio was acting on behalf of Italy. When D'Annunzio organised a meeting in Rijeka in 1920 aimed at establishing an alternative League of Nations for politically opressed peoples, Frank attended and signed an alliance agreement with D'Annunzio.

Opposition to the Treaty of Trianon

Frank's efforts to forge a political alliance with the Kingdom of Italy against the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were ended by signing of the Treaty of Rapallo by the two countries. After this, the Croatian Committee became divided, and Frank led its Budapest-based faction, and moved to Budapest permanently. Frank and his faction of the committee then started advocating a revision of the Treaty of Trianon partitioning Hungary after the war. He promoted a position urging return of the southern Baranya, Bačka and Banat regions to Hungary which would in return accept the transfer of Međimurje to Croatia (which was not under Hungarian control since the 1918 occupation of the region). In this respect, Frank cooperated with the Hungarian Revisionist League Party of György Lukács. Frank advocated linking of Croatian struggle for independence based on the legal concept of the Croatian state right with Hungarian demands for revision of the Treaty of Trianon. He further proposed a political partnership of Hungary and Croatia and other states to resist against Pan-Slavism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Pan-Germanism. Frank presented these ideas in a 1933 lecture and accompanying brochure ''A revízió és a Horvátság'' (''Croats and the Revision'').

Relationship with Ustaše

After Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy, Frank sent him a letter seeking Italian support for Croatian independence while promising Croatia would be within an Italian sphere of influence and accepting Italian "political and military domination" on the Adriatic Sea. The letter, authored jointly with Ante Pavelić in 1927, also promised to cede to Italy the Bay of Kotor and parts of Dalmatia that were of strategic importance to Italy. Frank and Pavelić met in Budapest in 1927. They both sent copies of the memorandum, having the same contents, to Mussolini. Frank handed it to the Italian ambassador to Hungary, while Pavelić handed it to Roberto Forges Davanzati when he visited Rome that year. The influence Frank had among the Croatian political emigrés was eclipsed by the rise of the Pavelić-led fascist Ustaše in 1929. Subsequently, in early 1930s, Frank endorsed Ustaše. In 1934, he appeared to distance himself from them, cautioning his nephew and later Ustaše General-Lieutenant Dido Kvaternik to abandon fascism. Historian Bogdan Krizman claims that the change came about because Pavelić involved Kvaternik in planning of the assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in Marseille that year and Frank resented that.

Final years

Frank left politics and worked in Budapest as a gardener and a florist. He died in 1939. In 2007, his remains were moved from Budapest to Zagreb's Mirogoj Cemetery.

References

Sources

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Frank, Ivo
1877 births
1939 deaths
Politicians from Zagreb
Representatives in the Croatian Parliament (1848–1918)
Croatian Jews
Jews from Austria-Hungary
Croatian Austro-Hungarians
Party of Rights politicians
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism
Croatian nationalists
Croatian Roman Catholics
Catholicism and far-right politics
Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb alumni
Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery