Josip Frank
| Josip Frank | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Joshua Frank 16 April 1844 Osijek, Kingdom of Slavonia, Austrian Empire |
| Died | 17 December 1911 (aged 67) Zagreb, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary |
| Occupation | Lawyer, politician |
| Political party | Party of Rights |
Josip Frank (16 April 1844 – 17 December 1911) was a Croatian lawyer and politician, a noted representative of the Party of Rights in the Croatian Parliament, and a vocal advocate of Croatian national independence in Austria-Hungary.
Frank was born into a Croatian Jewish family but converted to Catholicism at the age of 18 and he attended the gymnasium in Osijek. After having finished his law studies at the Vienna University in 1872, he moved to Zagreb and worked as an attorney at law.
Frank's initial political involvement included a critique of the People's Party (of Josip Juraj Strossmayer), joining the opinion of ban Levin Rauch. When Ivan Mažuranić became Croatian ban in 1873, Frank criticized him because of his relations with the Magyars and the Serbs. In 1877, he founded the newspapers Agramer Presse and Kroatische Post, which were soon banned by the Austro-Hungarian authorities.
In 1880, Frank published a brochure titled Die Quote Kroatiens, in which he tried to prove that Croatia bore a disproportionately high financial burden since the 1868 Nagodba (Compromise), a legal arrangement that regulated the constitutional position of Croatia within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1880, Frank was elected to the Zagreb City council, where he would serve until 1894.
In 1880, the Croatian poet August Šenoa characterised Frank in the following manner: "The infamous Zagreb attorney ... degrades and befouls all that is Croatian, first to the benefit of the Magyars, now of the Austrians ... Frank is a political louse, who served Rauch, then the Swabian Generalkommando ... he offered himself to the Orthodox voter in Pakrac, bragging about ... protecting Serbian interests."
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Wikipedia