FAMOUS CROATS 2014 - I. MAZURANIC

IVAN MAŽURANIĆ (1814 – 1890)

This year Croatia celebrates the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Ivan Mažuranić, poet, linguist, politician and first viceroy commoner. He was born in Novi Vinodolski where he finished elementary school. He attended Gymnasium in Rijeka, studied philosophy in Zagreb and Hungary and took degree in law in Zagreb in 1838.
He wrote his first published verses in Hungarian language. Enthusiastic with the ideas of Illyric movement, he answers in 1834 to the call of Ljudevit Gaj to start publishing Novine Horvatzke (Croatian Newspaper) and its literary supplement Danitza. In the year 1844 his additions to chapters 14 and 15 of Osman by Gundulić were published as well as his own masterpiece, the poem Smrt Smail-age Čengića “The Death of Smail–aga Čengić” in the almanac Iskra.
Ivan Mažuranić wrote the announcement by which the viceroy Josip Jelačić abolished serfdom in 1848. From 1861 to 1865 Mažuranić was court chancellor in Vienna and from 1871 to 1873 president of the Croatian Parliament and from 1873 to 1880 Croatian viceroy. During his viceroy service he introduced general compulsory education, opened the University of Zagreb and founded Country's Cultural and Health Council, proclaimed law on the freedom of the press and gathering, law on the freedom of choice, separated political management from judiciary and abolished forced labour. Thus, he organised Croatia according to the model of modern European states.
Mažuranić died in Zagreb, and was buried in arcades of the Zagreb Cemetery Mirogoj with other noteworthy Illyrians.
Numerous streets, squares and schools throughout Croatia are named after him and his portrait is also on the Croatian 100 kuna banknote and from today also on the postage stamp, but also on the medals by K. A. Radovani, V. Herljević and Ž. Janeš. A part of his legacy is stored in the memorial Library and Collection Mažuranić-Brlić-Ružić in Rijeka, while the other is kept in the Croatian History Museum in Zagreb, in National Museum and Gallery in Novi Vinodolski, in the City Museum of Karlovac and a part in Zagreb, with the author of this text.


Teodoro Darko Mažuranić
Great-grandson of the viceroy Mažuranić