Ban of Croatia (Croatian: Hrvatski ban) was the title of local rulers or office holders and after 1102, viceroys of Croatia. From the earliest periods of the Croatian state, some provinces were ruled by bans as a ruler's representative (viceroy) and supreme military commander. In the 18th century, Croatian bans eventually became the chief government officials in Croatia.
They were at the head of the Ban's Government, effectively the first prime ministers of Croatia. The institution of ban persisted until the first half of the 20th century, when it was officially superseded in function by that of a parliamentary prime minister.
South Slavic ban (Croatian pronunciation:[bâːn], with a long [a]), is directly attested in 10th-century Constantine Porphyrogenitus' book De Administrando Imperio as βο(ε)άνος, in a chapter dedicated to Croats and the organization of their state, describing how their ban "has under his rule Krbava, Lika and Gacka."[1]
Bans during the Trpimirović dynasty
References from the earliest periods are scarce, but history recalls that the first known Croatian ban is Pribina from the 10th century. In the early Middle Ages, the ban was the royal district governor of Lika, Gacka and Krbava. Later, the meaning of the title was elevated to that of provincial governor in the Kingdom of Croatia. King Demetrius Zvonimir was originally a ban serving under King Peter Krešimir IV.
The first historically attested Ban of Croatia. Pribina deposed of King Miroslav during a civil war in the Croatian Kingdom, and replaced him with Michael Krešimir. He ruled over the Gacka, Krbava and Lika counties, according to De Administrando Imperio. He is also possibly referred to in a charter as potens banus, meaning "powerful ban".[2]
Also called Godimir. He is mentioned to have served kings Michael Krešimir and Stephen Držislav[3] in a charter of King Peter Krešimir IV the Great from 1068.[4]
According to the chronicle of Archdeacon Goricensis John, he was named as ban by King Stephen I around 1035 (after his military expeditions to the east), thus succeeding Božeteh as Croatian ban.[5][6][7] He eventually attained a Byzantine imperial title of protospatharios somewhere between 1035 and 1042, which governed his influence over the Dalmatian theme.
During the reign of Peter Krešimir IV (Zvonimir's relative), Demetrius Zvonimir possibly initially ruled in Slavonia, but had the title of ban only in Croatia.[9] Croatian charters at the time were issued in the names of both King Peter Krešimir and Ban Zvonimir.[10] In 1074, Normans from southern Italy invaded Croatia and captured a certain Croatian ruler whose name is not known, certainly King Peter Krešimir, who died soon after and was succeeded by Demetrius Zvonimir.[11]
After the Croats elected King Coloman of Hungary as King of Croatia 1102, the title of ban acquired the meaning of viceroy. Bans were appointed by the Hungarian king as his representatives in Kingdom of Croatia, heads of the parliament (sabor) and also as supreme commander of Croatian Army.
Croatia was governed by the viceregal ban as a whole from 1102 until 1225, when it was split into two separate regions of Slavonia and Croatia. Two different bans were occasionally appointed until 1476, when the institution of a single ban was resumed. Most bans were native nobles but some were also of Hungarian ancestry.
In 1105 commanded the Hungarian fleet that successfully attacked the island of Rab and others in the Gulf of Kvarner,[13][14][15] and remained for a year on the island of Krk as comes alongside another Slavic ban.[13] In historiography by ancestry is considered to be a Hungarian,[12] or Croatian nobleman.[16]
From 1225 to 1476, there were parallel Bans of Croatia and Dalmatia and of "Whole Slavonia". The following is the list of the former, the latter are listed at the article Ban of Slavonia. During the period of separate titles of ban, several persons held both titles, which is indicated in the notes.
During this time, Sigismund appointed Nicholas II Garai (who was also count palatine) the Ban of Croatia and Dalmatia in 1392, Butko Kurjaković in 1394, and then again Garai in the period from 1394 to 1397. Nicholas II Garai was also at the time the Ban of Slavonia, succeeded by Ladislav Grđevački (1402–1404), Paul Besenyő (1404), Pavao Peć (1404–1406), Hermann II of Celje (1406–1408).
Ladislaus in turn appointed his own bans. In 1409, this dynastic struggle was resolved when Ladislaus sold his rights over Dalmatia to the Republic of Venice.
From 1476 onwards, the titles of Ban of Dalmatia and Croatia, and Ban of "Whole Slavonia" are again united in the single title of Ban of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia.
The title of ban persisted in Croatia after 1527 when the country became part of the Habsburg monarchy, and continued all the way until 1918.
Among the most distinguished bans in Croatian history were the three members of Zrinski familyNikola Šubić Zrinski and his great-grandsons Nikola Zrinski and Petar Zrinski. Also there are two notable Erdődys: Toma Erdődy, great warrior and statesman, and Ivan Erdődy, to whom Croatia owes much for protecting her rights against the Hungarian nobility, his most widely known saying in Latin is Regnum regno non praescribit leges (A kingdom may not proscribe laws to another kingdom.)
In the 18th century, Croatian bans eventually became chief government officials in Croatia. They were at the head of Ban's Government, effectively the first prime ministers of Croatia. The most known bans of that era were Josip Jelačić, Ivan Mažuranić and Josip Šokčević.
Croatia was returned to Hungarian control in 1867 when the Habsburg Empire was reconstituted as the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Between then and 1918 the following bans were appointed:
Member of the Unionist Party that advocated for more integration of Croatia into Hungary. Notable for securing victory of the Unionist Party through changing the election law and terrorising those who were able to vote.[18]
Bedeković was the leader of the Unionist Party and fought against Croatia's autonomy from Hungary. Dissatisfaction with the obstruction of parliament led to the Rakovica Revolt. Early elections were subsequently called for in 1872. The failure of Bedeković to convene the previous parliament resulted in him being removed from the post of ban and replaced with the first non-noble ban, Ivan Mažuranić.
Mažuranić was the first Croatian ban not to hail from old nobility, as he was born a commoner. He was a member of the People's Party. He accomplished the transition of Croatian lands from a semi-feudal legal and economic system to a modern civil society similar to those emerging in other countries in Central Europe.
As the reincorporation of the Military Frontier into the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia was proclaimed on 15 July 1881, Pejačević was given the task to follow it through. On 1 August 1881, he took over the administration of the former Frontier. On 24 August 1883, he quit after the Council of Ministers in Vienna concluded that bilingual Hungarian official emblems, installed by Hungarian officials in Croatia-Slavonia, were not allowed to be removed from the official buildings and were to stay along the Croatian ones.
Khuen's reign was marked by strong Magyarization. After a series of riots broke out against him in 1903, Khuen was relieved of his duty and appointed prime minister of Hungary.
At the beginning of the 20th century, he was faced with a new direction of Croatian policy marked by political alliance between Croats and Serbs in Austria-Hungary for mutual benefit. A Croat-Serb Coalition was formed in 1905, and it governed the Croatian lands from 1906 until the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy in 1918. As Pejačević supported the ruling Coalition in its resistance towards the Hungarian request in 1907 to make the Hungarian language an official language on railways in Croatia, he was forced to resign.
From the very beginning of Rauch's rule, the Croato-Serbian Coalition announced that it would refuse to co-operate in any manner with the new unionist ban.[19] After the Croatian Parliament had been disbanded on 12 March 1908, because of its refusal to co-operate and the insults it directed at the ban, Pavao Rauch ruled through decrees and civil servants. Despite all opposition predictions, Rauch remained in power for two years. On 5 February 1910, he received the king's letter of dismissal.
He was appointed in January 1912, when anti-Habsburg sentiments were on the rise in Croatia, often manifesting in sympathies for Serbia and calls for creation of a Yugoslav state. Cuvaj tried to curb those trends by series of decrees directed at curbing the freedom of the press, limiting rights of assembly and local autonomy. This created a backlash in the form of strikes and demonstrations. Some young radicals even engaged in terrorism. Cuvaj himself was target of two assassination attempts in 1912.
Skerlecz managed to reconvene the Croatian Parliament in Zagreb by 1915. The Croats made further demands for local authority, as well as unification of Croatia-Slavonia with Dalmatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Ban was also the title of the governor of each province (banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. The weight of the title was far less than that of a medieval ban's feudal office. Most of Croatian territory was divided between the Sava and Littoral Banovina, but also some parts were outside this provinces.
In 1939 Banovina of Croatia was created with Cvetković-Maček agreement as a unit of limited autonomy. It consisted of the Sava and Littoral Banovinas along with smaller parts of Vrbas, Zeta, Drina and Danube Banovina's. Ivan Šubašić was appointed for the Ban of Banovina of Croatia until the collapse of Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. Šubašić was also the last person who held the position of Croatian Ban.
Bans within the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
In 1939, the Banovina of Croatia was created with Cvetković-Maček agreement as a unit of limited autonomy within Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It consisted of the Sava and Littoral Banovinas along with smaller parts of Vrbas, Zeta, Drina and Danube Banovinas.
^Comperimus namque in gestis proaui nosti Cresimiri maioris... Stipišić, J. i M. Šamšalović, ur. Codex Diplomaticus Regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, sv. 1. Zagreb: Izdavački zavod JAZU, 1967., pp. 105.
^Comperimus namque in gestis proaui nosti Cresimiri maioris... Stipišić, J. i M. Šamšalović, ur. Codex Diplomaticus Regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, sv. 1. Zagreb: Izdavački zavod JAZU, 1967, pp. 105.
^ abStephenson, Paul (2000). Byzantium's Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204. Cambridge University Press. pp. 199–201. ISBN978-0-521-02756-4.
^Bárány, Attila (2019). "The Politics of Piroska's Marriage: Byzantium, Hungary and the Normans in the Early Twelfth Century". Piroska and the Pantokrator: Dynastic Memory, Healing and Salvation in Komnenian Constantinople. CEU Department of Medieval Studies and Central European University Press. p. 79. ISBN9789633862957.
^Klaić, Nada (1975). Povijest Hrvata u ranom srednjem vijeku [History of the Croats in the Early Middle Ages]. p. 14, 528.
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