It was founded in 1861 by Ante Starčević and Eugen Kvaternik, two influential nationalist politicians who advocated for the Croatian state right, a greater Croatian autonomy and later for the independence of the Croatian state. Moderate and hardline nationalist factions existed during the period and after Starčević's death, the party would embrace anti-Serb, anti-Yugoslav and Republicanist leadership. In 1929, the party was dissolved after the proclamation of the 6 January Dictatorship and soon after, some members joined the underground organization Ustaše which was led by Ante Pavelić. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, numerous Croatian and Bosnian Croat political parties claim the lineage from the party itself.
David Starčević, Ante Starčević and Mile Starčević
The Party of Rights was founded on 26 June 1861 when Ante Starčević and Eugen Kvaternik first presented the policies of the "Party of Rights" to the Croatian Parliament. They called for greater Croatian autonomy and self-rule at a time when Croatia was divided into several crownlands within the Habsburg Monarchy.
In early October 1871, Kvaternik and several other party members disavowed the official party position, which advocated a political solution, and instead launched the Rakovica revolt. The rebels declared the following aims:
freedom of the Croatian people from Austrian and Magyar (Hungarian) oppression
proclamation of an independent Croatia
equality under law
municipal self-government
abolition of the Military Frontier and introduction of free counties
respect for both religions in love and unity
The rebels also sought to encourage participation of Orthodox Serbs in the revolt, and some of them did, but the uprising was soon crushed by the authorities. Most of the rebels were killed, including Kvaternik.
In the 1897 Croatian parliamentary election, both parties ran. In 1902, the two Parties reconciled; however, in 1905 the leadership of the party, led by Frano Supilo, merged into the Croat-Serb Coalition, and the Pure Party of Rights was formed once again. Starčević's Party of Rights participated in the 1908 Croatian parliamentary election. The next year, in 1909, the Pure Party of Rights itself splintered, as Mile Starčević, Ante Pavelić and others accused Frank of consorting with Pavao Rauch. The dissidents[who?] formed Starčević's Party of Rights. Both the Starčević and the Frank Party of Rights participated in the 1910 Croatian parliamentary election, and the Frank faction merged with a smaller party called the Christian Social Party of Rights (Kršćansko-socijalna stranka prava). In 1911, Frank died, and the two factions merged into the latter. In 1913, the Pure Party of Rights was formed by old supporters of Frank, this time led by Aleksandar Horvat [hr]. Both Parties participated in the 1913 Croatian parliamentary election.[citation needed]
The supporters of the Pure Party of Rights were known as the Frankists.
Kingdom of Dalmatia
The Party of Rights also operated in Dalmatia, which was separated from Croatia and Slavonia at the time. They participated in the Dalmatian elections in 1895, 1901 and 1908.[citation needed]
After World War I
Aleksandar Horvat, President of the Party of Rights
The Croatian Party of Rights welcomed the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in the wake of World War I as a means toward achieving Croatian independence.[7] In October 1918, the Party of Rights announced their dismissal. However, just one month later, the party's activity was renewed when the Business Committee of the Party held a session on 28 November 1918, announcing the renewal of party's activity and their goal to save national and state individuality. When the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs proclaimed its unification with Kingdom of Serbia on 1 December 1918, the Party of Rights protested.[8] On 1 March 1919, the same day the Temporary National Representation met without them present, the Party of Rights changed its name to Croatian Party of Rights.[citation needed]
In their program from March 1919, members of the party made a plea for Croatian independence based on the right to self-determination of all peoples.[8] In this program, the Party of Rights emphasized their republicanism as opposed to the monarchism of House of Karađorđević, whose rule was accepted by all Croatian politicians, except Stjepan Radić's Croatian Peasant Party. Their main goal were the ideas of Ante Starčević for an independent Croatian state, and the Croatian state right was their main argument for achieving this goal. According to the concept, they expressed a need for unification of all Croat lands, including Bosnia and Herzegovina. The program was signed by President of the Party of Rights, dr. Vladimir Prebeg and Secretary of the Party, Ante Pavelić.[9]
Between 1919 and 1920, a revolutionary organization called the Croatian Committee gathered the Frankists.
The Party of Rights alone was unable to influence the majority of Croats, as their main supporters were a small number of middle class citizens, the majority of whom lived in Zagreb, while Stjepan Radić dominated among Croats elsewhere. Within this bloc, Party of Rights opposed Serbian nationalist hegemony and centralism. Sometimes they objected to Radić's readiness to come to an understanding with the Serbian side. The main vehicle of the Party of Rights was the concept of the Croatian Right (Hrvatsko pravo), which made the idea of Yugoslavism unsustainable, assessing it as misconception and the main obstacle to Croatian independence.[9]
Nevertheless, the leaders of the Party of Rights had established contacts with the People's Radical Party in Belgrade and occasionally fought for their own particular interests. In 1924–25, this controversial relationship became public, particularly as the party's then-vice-president Mirko Košutić publicly accused the rest of the party leadership of colluding with the government of Nikola Pašić against the interests of the Croatian Bloc.[10]
In 1929, the king of Yugoslavia instituted the January 6th Dictatorship. He banned all political parties, and the militant wing of the Party of Rights went underground to organize the Ustaše movement, led by former party secretary Ante Pavelić, whose wing of the party was the most staunchly anti-Serb.[11]
Legacy
The eponymous Croatian Party of Rights, founded in 1990, claims lineage from the original Party of Rights. Since 1990, several splinter parties have been founded that claim the same:
^Stojarová, Věra. "Historical Legacies of the Balkan Far Right." In The Far Right in the Balkans, 20-33. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1mf7124.8.
^Stephen Richards Graubard (1999). A New Europe for the Old?. Transaction Publishers. p. 59. ISBN978-1-4128-1617-5. Retrieved 30 August 2013. Under Josip Frank, who carried the rightists into a new era, the party became obsessively anti-Serbian.
