Ante Trumbić (17 May 1864 – 17 November 1938) was a Yugoslav and Croatian lawyer and politician in the early 20th century.

Biography

Trumbić was born in

Split Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, enter ...

in the

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and studied law at

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, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

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and

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(with doctorate in 1890). He practiced as a lawyer, and then, from 1905 as the city mayor of Split. Trumbić was in favor of moderate reforms in Austro-Hungarian Slavic provinces. That included the unification of Dalmatia with Croatia-Slavonia demanded by the Trumbić helped draw up. After the

assassination in Sarajevo The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was one of the key events that led to World War I. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassina ...

Archduke Franz Ferdinand Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria (18 December 1863 – 28 June 1914) was the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. His assassination in Sarajevo was the most immediate cause of World War I. Fran ...

and the invasion of Serbia by Austria-Hungary, Trumbić became the prominent Yugoslav nationalist leader during World War I, and led the

Yugoslav Committee The Yugoslav Committee (, , ) was a World War I-era, unelected, '' ad-hoc'' committee. It largely consisted of émigré Croat, Slovene, and Bosnian Serb politicians and political activists whose aim was the detachment of Austro-Hungarian l ...

that lobbied the Allies to support the creation of an independent Yugoslavia.Spencer Tucker. ''Encyclopedia of World War I: A Political, Social, and Military History''. Santa Barbara, California, USA: ABC-CLIO, 2005. pp. 1189. Trumbić negotiated with Serbian Prime Minister

Nikola Pašić Nikola Pašić ( sr-Cyrl, Никола Пашић, ; 18 December 1845 – 10 December 1926) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat. During his political career, which spanned almost five decades, he served five times as prime minis ...

to have the

Kingdom of Serbia The Kingdom of Serbia was a country located in the Balkans which was created when the ruler of the Principality of Serbia, Milan I of Serbia, Milan I, was proclaimed king in 1882. Since 1817, the Principality was ruled by the Obrenović dynast ...

support the creation of a Yugoslav state, which was delivered at the

Corfu Declaration The Corfu Declaration ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Krfska deklaracija, Крфска декларација) was an agreement between the prime minister of Serbia, Nikola Pašić, and the president of the Yugoslav Committee, Ante Trumbić, concluded on the G ...

on 20 July 1917 that advocated the creation of a united state of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes that would be led by the Serbian

House of Karađorđević The House of Karađorđević or Karađorđević dynasty ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Династија Карађорђевић, Dinastija Karađorđević, ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, Карађорђевићи, Karađorđevići, label=none) was the former ruling Kin ...

. Trumbić led the Yugoslav Committee delegation at the conference in 1918 that produced the Geneva Declaration. In 1918, he became foreign minister in the first government of the

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () has been its colloq ...

. At the Versailles conference after World War I, Trumbić had to represent Yugoslav concerns in the face of

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territorial ambitions in Dalmatia (temporarily settled in 1920, but raised again with

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

). In spite of his support for a united Yugoslavia, Trumbić opposed the

1921 constitution Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number) * One of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (1987 film), a 1987 science fiction film * '' 19-Nineteen'', a 2009 South Korean film * '' Dici ...

over his belief that it was too centralized and allowed Serb hegemony over Yugoslavia. Trumbić was one of 35 representatives to vote against the constitution amid a wide boycott of the National Assembly by opposition parties. Trumbić grew steadily disillusioned with the Yugoslav government over time which he saw as Serb-dominated. He was elected for the last time in the 1927 elections on the list of the Croatian Bloc representing Zagreb together with

Ante Pavelić (1869–1938) Ante Pavelić (; 19 May 1869 – 11 February 1938) was a Croatian and Yugoslavia, Yugoslav dentist and politician. In Croatian sources, he is usually referred as (Senior) or (the Dentist) to be distinguished from the better known Independen ...

. In 1929, claiming to bring an end to the ongoing bickering between the Serbian and the Croatian representatives within the kingdom, King Alexander of Yugoslavia staged a coup d'état and banned all political parties, and removed the individual nationalities ''Serb'' and ''Croat'' from the bigger picture. He renamed the land ''Yugoslavia'', and abrogated the constitution to establish a royal dictatorship. Trumbić was by now in retirement in Zagreb. King Alexander's division of Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia into oblasts and then into banovinas, countered all previous reforms Trumbić had sought. In a September 1932 interview with

The Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

Trumbić wondered whether Croatia should separate from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and pursue a union with Austria. In November 1932 Trumbić edited the ''

Zagreb Points The Zagreb Points () was the name of a resolution released on November 7, 1932, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which condemned Serb hegemony in that country and called for a return to political life as it was in 1918. The document was released afte ...

'', a series of demands put forth by the Peasant-Democratic coalition to counter Serbian hegemony. With the arrest of Croatian Peasant Party leader

Vladko Maček Vladimir Maček (20 June 1879 – 15 May 1964) was a politician in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. As a leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) following the 1928 assassination of Stjepan Radić, Maček had been a leading Croatian political figure ...

in April 1933 Trumbić and Josip Predavec became the caretaker heads of the party. With Predavec's assassination on 14 July, Trumbić was essentially the head of the party in Maček's absence. According to Henri Pozzi, Trumbić later regretted the end of Austria-Hungary, Henri Pozzi, ''Black Hand over Europe (La Guerre Revient...)''. F. Mott and Co, 1935. as the South Slav state he had helped to create proved incapable of his intended reforms.

References

External links

FirstWorldWar.com biography of Ante Trumbić

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trumbic, Ante 1864 births 1938 deaths Lawyers from Split, Croatia People from the Kingdom of Dalmatia Party of Rights politicians Croatian Peasant Party politicians Foreign ministers of Yugoslavia Representatives in the Yugoslav National Assembly (1921–1941) Mayors of Split, Croatia Yugoslavism Lawyers from Austria-Hungary Yugoslav lawyers