Frankists (Croatia)

Frankists (Frankovci) were followers of a political ideology that bases positions and lines around the thought of Josip Frank, a Croatian nationalist leader at the end of the 19th century who broke away from the Party of Rights to create his own movement.

In the early 1890s, a faction of the Party of Rights was led by Josip Frank. In 1895, they split and founded the Pure Party of Rights, who became known by the term "Frankovci". Frank's program proposed, among other things, a firm cooperation with the Court of Vienna, in order to defend Croatian national interests within the framework of the Habsburg Monarchy, in opposition to the Hungarian ones. The Frankists identified the Serbs as enemies of the Croatian nation, promoting an ideological campaign among the Croats against the Kingdom of Serbia and the Yugoslavists, denouncing any cooperation and feeling of unity between the Croatian and Serb parties at that time. Fundamentally, the Frankists deny that Serbs, as a people, can exist outside of Serbia. The Frankists clashed heavily with the Croat-Serb Coalition, which in the period between 1906 and 1918 was the majority force in the Parliament of Croatia-Slavonia. The Frankists' influence grew following the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and outbreak of World War I as they spoke out against Serbia in the parliament and began to organize anti-Serb protests in Croatian towns and cities.

After the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the renewed Party of Rights protested against the unification as illegitimate and insisted on the independence of the Croatian state. In contrast to the old Party of Rights which was a member of the Coalition and played an important role in the creation of the Kingdom, these new rightists began to adopt the Frankist ideology and thought. That party ceased to function after the establishment of the 6 January Dictatorship and its activity was not subsequently renewed.

Ante Pavelić, a leading Frankist would go on to form the ultranationalist Ustaše movement in 1929 and the Ustaše would claim the Frankist heritage.

Over time, the term "Frankists" came to be used synonymously to refer to all radical Croatian nationalists, including members and supporters of the Ustaše movement. These parties identified as Frankists coincided in the search for an independent Croatia and in hostility towards the Serbs, in contrast to the moderate nationalists who mostly accept the concepts of the Croatian Peasant Party, willing to compromise and reach peaceful agreements, both with Serbs on the territory of Croatia as with the Serb state.