STARČEVIĆ, ANTE. - Croatian politician, b. 23 May 1823 at Žitnik (Lika), d. at Zagreb on 28 February 1896.
From 1845 to 1848 he studied theology at Budapest, where he took his degree in philosophy. Having left the Seminary, he became for some time secretary of the provincial Council of Fiume. He was imprisoned several times, as in the year 1871 after the unsuccessful revolt against Austria for the independence of Croatia, led by his principal political collaborator Eugen Kvaternik. From 1861 to 1871 and from 1878 to 1896 he was a deputy in the Croatian Parliament (Sabor).
A man of modest life, endowed with an uncommon culture, S. also gave to his own political activity a purely intellectualistic character, emphasizing in particular its ethical principles. Thus he called his own party (1861) the "party of the right", conferring upon it as its political foundation and principal weapon the historical right of the Croatian State and as its program the personal union with Austria and Hungary in common affairs together with Croatian national and state independence. Drawn to the Napoleonic idea of liberty and of the national principle, S. had a profound influence on Croatian national life, above all through his tenacious defense of the national name against every form of substitution (Illyrian, Yugoslav) that would have compromised the existence and the future of the Croatian people. With regard to religion he was not averse to rationalistic tendencies, but Catholicism always appeared to him as the one true and authentic form of Christianity. An original stylist, various political and literary writings are owed to him.
Bibliography6 works
Ivan Vitezić