Milan Šufflay

Milan pl. Šufflay (9 November 1879 – 19 February 1931) was a Croatian historian and politician. He was one of the founders of Albanology and the author of the first Croatian science fiction novel. As a Croatian nationalist, he was persecuted in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and his murder subsequently caused an internationally publicized affair.

Šufflay was born into a lower noble family (hence pl., plemeniti, "noble", equivalent of von) in Lepoglava, in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia of Austria-Hungary. His father was Augustin (1847–190?), a teacher, and his mother was Franciska Welle von Vorstern (1847–1910), a German from Hungary. The family coat of arms was included in Der Adel von Kroatien und Slavonien (1899) as "Sufflay de Otrussevcz". Their original surname was Sufflei or Schufflei, and their estate was Otruševec.

He attended a comprehensive high school in Zagreb and studied at the University of Zagreb, where he got a Ph.D. in history. He was a brilliant student both in high school and at the university. Already during his studies, he spoke French, German, Italian, English, all the Slavic languages, as well as Latin, old Greek and middle Greek. Later in life he learned modern Greek, Albanian, Hebrew and Sanskrit. Tadija Smičiklas considered Šufflay his most gifted student and took him as his assistant when editing Codex diplomaticus of the Academy.

Šufflay became a historian of the Balkans and was convinced that the history of the Croats can be properly researched only from that perspective. His conviction clashed with the prevailing opinion of Croatian historians that the Croats were representatives of the West, as opposed to the Balkans.

He researched the and the history of Albania, for which he would gain international renown. The Hungarian historian Thalloczy, recognizing Šufflay as a great talent that should be on the Hungarian side, brought him to Budapest, where Šufflay worked in the National Museum for a small salary.

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