Portal:Croatia/Selected biography

Count Josip Jelačić of Bužim (October 16, 1801 - May 20, 1859) was Ban of Croatia, as well as a noted army general remembered for his largely successful military campaigns during the Revolutions of 1848.

Josip Jelačić was born in the town of Petrovaradin, at the time part of the Slavonian Military Frontier, in the noble House of Jelačić to Croatian father Baron Franjo Jelačić and Austrian mother Anna Portner von Höflein. Jelačić gained his versatile education in Theresian Military Academy in Vienna. After graduation he entered army with the rank of lieutenant, and was eventually promoted to the Lieutenant Field Marshal.

On October 17, 1835, Jelačić successfully led a military campaign against Bosnian Ottoman troops in Velika Kladuša. On March 23, 1848 Croatian parliament elected him to the position of the Ban of Croatia. His policy was unity of Croatian provinces and equality of people in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When Hungarian nationalist politicians refused to recognize Croats as a political people and continued to discriminate them, Jelačić, with a great support of Austria to do that "without any delay", decided to invade Hungary. In his campaign, that eventually ended with a truce, he managed to return occupied Međimurje to Croatia. In 1849, Jelačić and Prince Alfred I managed to suppress Wienies revolution, and later that year Hungarian revolution. Emperor Franz Joseph appointed Jelačić as a governor of Rijeka and Dalmatia, so Croatia was after a long time formally united.

As Ban, Jelačić abolished serfdom, helped with the establish of the Archdiocese of Zagreb, unification of city of Zagreb as well as with opening of the Croatian National Theater, constantly encouraging economic, scientific and cultural activities.

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