Miroslav Tuđman (; 25 May 1946 – 31 January 2021) was a Croatian scientist and politician, the son and eldest child of the first

President of Croatia The president of Croatia, officially the President of the Republic of Croatia ( hr, Predsjednik Republike Hrvatske), is the head of state, commander-in-chief of the military and chief representative of the Republic of Croatia both within the ...

, Franjo Tuđman, and his wife Ankica.

Biography

Tuđman was born in Belgrade, where he completed grade school, before he moved with his family to

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...

in 1961. He was born on his parents' 1st anniversary. He was named Miroslav after the famous writer

Miroslav Krleža Miroslav Krleža (; 7 July 1893 – 29 December 1981) was a Yugoslav and Croatian writer who is widely considered to be the greatest Croatian writer of the 20th century. He wrote notable works in all the literary genres, including poetry (''Ba ...

who was adored by his father at that period. He graduated from gymnasium and then from the

Faculty of Philosophy A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

at the

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb ( hr, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, ; la, Universitas Studiorum Zagrabiensis) is the largest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of ...

in 1970. He became part of the faculty, and received a doctorate in information sciences at the same university in 1985. In 1989 he founded the Institute for Information Studies at the Faculty. He participated in the Croatian War of Independence in 1991, and in 1992 he became the head of the Center for Strategic Research. Later he was the deputy head of the National Security Office and then the founder and leader of the first Croatian Intelligence Agency ( hr, Hrvatska izvještajna služba; HIS) between 1993 and 1998, and then from 1999 to 2000. In 1995, President Tuđman decorated him with the

Order of Duke Domagoj The Order of Duke Domagoj ( hr, Red kneza Domagoja) is the 8th most important medal given by the Republic of Croatia and is the nation's highest award for bravery. The order was founded on April 1, 1995. The medal is awarded for valor in combat. ...

, for war-time merit as a member of the political administration of the Ministry of Defence. In 1998 he became a tenured professor at the

. His first venture into politics was as co-founding member of the briefly active leftist

Social Democrats of Croatia The Social Democratic Party of Croatia ( hr, Socijaldemokratska partija Hrvatske, SDP) is a social-democratic political party in Croatia. The SDP is anti-fascist, progressive, and strongly pro-European. The SDP was formed in 1990 as the succes ...

(SDSH) together with his friend

Antun Vujić Antun Vujić (born 14 July 1945) is a Croatian politician, philosopher, political analyst, lexicographer and author serving as a director of the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography since 2012. He was a member of Croatian Parliament and Mini ...

in 1990, but he soon switched to his father's party – the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). However, he was largely politically inactive during the 1990s. Following his father's death and HDZ's first election defeat in 2000, he ran for the

Zagreb Assembly The City Assembly of the City of Zagreb is the lawmaking body of the Croatian capital of Zagreb. It consists of 47 members who were elected by universal suffrage and secret ballot at 2017 elections for a term of four years. The assembly meets a ...

as an independent candidate in the 2001 local elections, winning 7.6% of the vote. That same year he and Nenad Ivanković founded a fringe right-wing party Croatian True Revival (HIP), which later cooperated with Croatian Bloc (HB) led by Ivić Pašalić–another HDZ offshoot–but they gained no traction at the 2003 parliamentary election. In 2009 he was a nominally independent candidate in the

presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The pre ...

, finishing seventh in the first round with 4.09% of the vote. He later re-joined HDZ and in 2011 won a seat in the

parliamentary election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

on an HDZ ticket in the 7th assembly. He retained his seat in the following three elections in 2015 (8th assembly),

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...

(9th assembly) and

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...

(10th assembly). Tuđman died on 31 January 2021, at Zagreb's Hospital for Infectious Diseases where he had been hospitalized days earlier due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

complications during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia The COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. The first case in the Republic of Croatia was reported in Zagreb on 25 February, when a patient who had come from Italy was tested positive. On the same ...

References

External links

Miroslav Tuđman
at Zagreb Faculty of Philosophy
Miroslav Tuđman
at HRČAK
Miroslav Tuđman
at Croatian Encyclopedia {{DEFAULTSORT:Tudman, Miroslav 1946 births 2021 deaths Politicians from Belgrade Politicians from Zagreb Scientists from Belgrade Scientists from Zagreb Representatives in the modern Croatian Parliament Candidates for President of Croatia Croats of Serbia Croatian nationalists Croatian scientists Croatian Democratic Union politicians Social Democrats of Croatia politicians Croatian True Revival politicians Children of national leaders Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery Category : University of Zagreb faculty Order of Duke Domagoj recipients Miroslav 20th-century Croatian philosophers 21st-century Croatian philosophers 21st-century Croatian politicians