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Political Ideas of the fin de siècle Croatian Youth Movement

The crisis of liberal politics which in the 1890s caused turmoil in the Austrian half of the Monarchy affected the political and social situation in Croatia as well. The leading political parties were unable to cope with the now well established regime led by Count Khuen Héderváry. In 1895, the student protest which culminated in the burning of the Hungarian flag manifested first signs of the need for political change. The youth demanded action and chastised the old oppositional forces for their passivity. Their political ideas, however, were still largely undeveloped. The unexpected effect of the repression after the student protest was the creation of émigré youth political centres, most notably in Prague. There they developed their political ideas under the influence of diverse political ideologies and movements. The aim of this paper is to explore these political ideas, primarily focusing on their relationship to mainstream politics in Civil Croatia and Slavonia. Did these ideas constitute a clear break with the past, a revolution in political thinking of sorts, or did they, despite their antihistoricist charge, represent a continuity with the established oppositional ideas of the Croatian political elites? Was the rebellion of the youth against their „fathers“, under the influence of the new and „modern“ European trends, so relentless that there was no room for compromise or was it a symptom of the much needed generational change which inevitably adapted the political practice according to the current needs and political situation? In this paper I will focus on political ideas and conceptions elaborated by Croatian students in Prague mostly in their periodical The Croatian Thought (Hrvatska misao) which had been published in 1897, as well as those written by student activists at the University of Zagreb and published also in 1897 under the title The National Thought (Narodna misao). Special attention will be paid to their similarities and differences that may point to pertinent conclusions as to the aforementioned questions, especially dealing with the problem of continuity and discontinuity with the established political thought and practice in Civil Croatia and Slavonia.

Youth Movement ; modernism ; fin de siecle ; generational change

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