Melko Čingrija (1 April 1873 – 8 December 1949) was a Yugoslav politician.

Life and career

Čingrija completed his high school education in

Dubrovnik Dubrovnik (), historically known as Ragusa (; see notes on naming), is a city on the Adriatic Sea in the region of Dalmatia, in the southeastern semi-exclave of Croatia. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterran ...

before studying Law in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...

and receiving a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

. He was the son of the long-time Dubrovnik mayor,

Pero Čingrija Pero Čingrija (24 August 1837 – 13 July 1921) was a Croatian politician. As a long-time mayor of Dubrovnik and leader of the People's Party, he was one of the most prominent Dubrovnik and Dalmatian politicians at the turn of the 20th century. ...

. Until 1905, he was a member of the People's Party, then of the Croatian Party. From 1903–08, he served as a member of the Dalmatian Parliament. Čingrija was at the forefront of the struggle for Croatian national and political rights as one of the advocates of a "new course" policy. He was one of the signatories of the Rijeka resolution. He twice served as the mayor of Dubrovnik (1911–14 and 1919–20). At the beginning of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he was interned by the Austrian authorities for his opposition to the Austrian regime. When the Imperial Council was convened in May 1917, he was granted leave to perform parliamentary duties in Vienna. He signed the

May Declaration The May Declaration ( sl, Majniška deklaracija, hr, Svibanjska deklaracija, sr, Majska deklaracija, italic=yes/Мајска декларација) was a manifesto of political demands for unification of South Slav-inhabited territories with ...

of the Yugoslav Club in the Imperial Council (May 30, 1917) and the Geneva Declaration (November 9, 1918) on the creation of joint Yugoslav governments, of which he was a member. In 1920, he turned to the Serbian-centric policy pursued by King Aleksandar Karađorđević and the Prime Minister of the

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes Kingdom commonly refers to: * A monarchy ruled by a king or queen * Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy Kingdom may also refer to: Arts and media Television * ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...

, the Serbian radical

Nikola Pašić Nikola Pašić ( sr-Cyrl, Никола Пашић, ; 18 December 1845 – 10 December 1926) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat who was a leading political figure for almost 40 years. He was the leader of the People's Radical P ...

. In 1926, he formally became a member of Pasic's Serbian People's Radical Party. In addition, Čingrija was the vice-governor of the National Bank of Yugoslavia, and he signed the banknotes in Cyrillic. In 1939, he published the books ''Dubrovnik'' and ''The Croatian Question'', in which he advocated for the Serb-Catholic point of view, beauty in the territorial division and that it was not necessary to establish the Banovina of Croatia over Zeta Banovina.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cingrija, Melko 1873 births 1949 deaths People from Dubrovnik People from the Kingdom of Dalmatia People's Radical Party politicians Members of the Austrian House of Deputies (1911–1918) Mayors of Dubrovnik Croatian politicians Serbian politicians Serb-Catholic movement in Dubrovnik