Franjo Tudjman

Franjo Tudjman (1922-1999), President of Croatia (1990-1999), and leader of Croatia’s war of independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Tudjman was born in Veliko Trgovišće in the Croatian Zagorje region. In 1941 he joined the Communist-led Partisans, a group of resistance fighters opposed to Axis occupation of Yugoslavia during part of World War II. After the war, Tudjman held staff positions in the Yugoslav army and was promoted to general in 1960. He left active service in 1961 to become a full-time military historian, and later political historian, as the Director of the Zagreb Institute of the History of the Worker’s Movement and professor of political science at Zagreb University, where he received his doctorate in 1965.

Tudjman was expelled from the ruling Communist party in 1967 because of his controversial writings, which were condemned as being anti-Marxist and supportive of Croatian nationalism. In 1972 Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito suppressed the Croatian national movement, and Tudjman was among those arrested. Tudjman served nine months of a two-year sentence. He was tried again in 1981 for nationalist activities and given a three-year sentence.

In 1989, as Communist control began to disintegrate in Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia moved towards multi-party elections, Tudjman founded and became president of the Croatian Democratic Union. The party won a plurality of votes and a solid parliamentary majority in Croatia’s first multi-party elections in spring 1990. In May 1990 the new parliament elected Tudjman as president of Croatia. Under his leadership, Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991. Serbs, both in Croatia and in neighbouring Serbia, objected to Croatia’s secession, and war broke out. Croatia lost one-third of its territory to the Serbs. In January 1992 Croatia won international recognition of its independence. In elections held under its new constitution, Tudjman was re-elected as Croatia’s president in November 1992.

Tudjman continued to lead Croat opposition to the Serbs during the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian War, though he also supported some Croatian separatists inside Bosnia, and in 1994 concluded an accord with Serbia. After years on the defensive, Tudjman allied with Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 1995, leading to increasingly successful combined operations. In August 1995 Croatian regular troops retook the Krajina region seized by Serbia in 1991, prompting an exodus of some 150,000 Serbs. Tudjman took full credit for the victory, promoting aggressive Croatian nationalism. In December 1995 he signed the Dayton peace agreement ending the war, having made a separate agreement for the eventual reintegration of Eastern Slavonia (the last important lost Croatian territory). He normalized relations with the rump Yugoslav republic in August 1996. Authorities’ attempts to close an opposition radio station in November 1995 led to mass demonstrations and a government climbdown, leading to speculation that Tudjman’s grip was weakening. However, Tudjman was re-elected in the June 1997 presidential elections, despite failing health; outside observers complained of numerous poll irregularities. In February 1998 Tudjman was unanimously re-elected as President of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union. In November 1999 the Constitutional Court declared Tudjman, whose poor health had him confined to hospital, 'temporarily incapacitated' and interim presidential power was transferred to the speaker of Parliament, Vlatko Pavletic. Tudjman died one month later. He was succeeded by Stjepan Mesić in February 2000.