Ranko Tajsić (1843–1903) was a Serbian politician and people's

tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the ...

. He was a radical-socialist Member of Parliament, first elected to the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...

in 1874, and was one of the founders and vice-president of the

People's Radical Party The People's Radical Party ( sr, Народна радикална странка, Narodna radikalna stranka, abbr. НРС or NRS) was the dominant ruling party of Kingdom of Serbia and later Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from the lat ...

Biography

Unlike other radicals, he voted against the draft of the new constitution of 1888 at a session of the Constituent Committee together with Dimitrije Katić. He fell as the last victim of the Obrenović

absolutism Absolutism may refer to: Government * Absolute monarchy, in which a monarch rules free of laws or legally organized opposition * Absolutism (European history), period c. 1610 – c. 1789 in Europe ** Enlightened absolutism, influenced by the E ...

. He was sentenced to death after an assassination attempt on Milan Obrenović on

Saint John's Eve Saint John's Eve, starting at sunset on 23 June, is the eve of celebration before the Feast Day of Saint John the Baptist. The Gospel of Luke (Luke 1:26–37, 56–57) states that John was born six months before Jesus; therefore, the feast o ...

, 1899 (in Serbian known as ''Ivanjdan'' according to

Old Calendar Old Calendarists (Greek: ''palaioimerologitai'' or ''palaioimerologites''), also known as Old Feasters (''palaioeortologitai''), Genuine Orthodox Christians or True Orthodox Christians (GOC; ), are traditionalist groups of Eastern Orthodox Chri ...

), but the sentence was not carried out because Tajšić was already in exile in

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under the protection of the royal family there. After an amnesty, he returned to Serbia where he died in 1903. Broken down by persecution, trials, emigration, exhausted by illness and affliction, Tajsić is remembered to have stood upright in defense of freedom,

parliamentary system A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, t ...

, and

democratic values Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...

Literature

The source of most of the information on Tajsić is the thorough and informative ''Narodni tribun: Ranko Tajsić'' by Dragoje M. Todorović (published in Belgrade, ''Srspska akademija nauka i umetnosti'',

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Serbica, sr-Cyr, Српска академија наука и уметности, САНУ, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, SANU) is a national academy and the ...

, Posebna izdanja 550, 1983).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tajsić, Ranko 1843 births 1903 deaths Serbian politicians People's Radical Party politicians