A Contribution to the Political Agency of Priests Members of Party of Rights. Juraj ？erjavi？ as Member of Croatian Parliament (1897-1902)

Sa？etak From the beginning of the 1880s, a distinguished place among more and more numerous members of the Party of Right belonged to Catholic priests. Among parish priests which became members of the Party of Right, Juraj ？erjavi？, parish priest in Marija Bistrica, distinguished himself. He played also an important role in the Party from the early 1890s. Even though stronger connection between Juraj ？erjavi？ and the Party of Right was discussed in historiography on the basis of extant sources as starting from the mid-1880s, his first contacts with the Party, that is with Eugen Kvaternik, may be moved as early as 1867, when he was a student of theology in Rome and corresponded with Kvaternik. After the division of the Party of Right in 1895, ？erjavi？ remained with the core of the Party, which became to be called as “Patriots” (domovina？i). Even though ？erjavi？ was discussed in previous scholarship, this article concentrates on explaining his agency in the Croatian Parliament, on the basis of Stenographic minutes; it will also present agency of the Patriots in the Parliament. In the article, it is first presented electoral agency of United opposition, whose member was ？erjavi？ via the Patriots, and its announcement to the electors. Then, Parliamentary elections of 1897, in which was ？erjavi？ elected in the electoral district of Krapina, are analysed on the basis of periodicals. In the centre of research is agency of priests, their dispersion among different political options and different aspects of their activity before and during the elections. The results of the elections are clear indicator of continuity of trend, started in the 1880s, that priests provide support to political and legal ideas of the Party of Right and to radical criticism of the regime. Namely, among 44 candidates of the United opposition were 14 priests, which amount to 31% in the professional structure of the candidates. Great support of the clergy for the United opposition is visible, besides the fact that in the 1897 elections was elected seven priests on its list, from the confirmations of oppositional press, who applauded clergy after the elections and stressed that United opposition had good electoral result, based on the support of Catholic clergy. The main part of the article refers to ？erjavi？’s parliamentary agency, which was to the greatest extent dedicated to political themes. During his parliamentary mandate, he was constant in advocating the view that cause for economic and all other problems of Croatian people laid in the political position of Croatia as defined in