KRIZANIĆ, JURAJ (CRISANEO). – Croatian missionary and man of letters, born at Obrh in 1618. Enthused by the idea of bringing all the schismatic Slavs together around Catholicism, he first studied theology in Bologna and Rome, then went, entirely alone, to Russia, where, after some initial success, he ended up being exiled to Siberia: there he wrote his most important works, in which he advocated not only the religious unity of the Slavs, but also their linguistic and political unity;
The few tranquil and serene moments of his life belong to the period of his stay in Bologna and Rome. His formula may be summarized as follows: the Slavs with Moscow, Moscow and the Slavs with Rome; thus, let all the Slavs be one with Muscovy, but let them have Rome as their sole religious center. This is the position of an ardent Catholic and a fervent pan-Slavist. In the Turks and the Germans he saw the enemies of the Slavic race. He deplored the Russian-Polish political discord with arguments that curiously anticipated ideas and tendencies of the nineteenth century. The schism appeared to him as the exclusive work of the Greeks, who had risen up against Rome out of pride: the still naïve Slavic peoples, he believed, had been deceived by the Greeks. In any event, the Slavs were not conscious schismatics. Given the particular structure of Russia, K. held that the Tsar must be won over to the Catholic cause, and made to understand that among the Slavs he was the greatest, and that it fell to him to liberate Europe from the imminent threat of the Crescent. K.’s Christian and pan-Slavic ideal produced no practical results, but the nineteenth century reworked several of his ideas. In Russia, Vladimir Solov'ev (Solovjov) may, in a certain sense, be regarded as his spiritual heir. Among K.’s writings, mention should be made of the treatise Politika and the grammar Granatično izkazanje ob ruskom jeziku.