Editing Milan Šufflay

{{Short description|Croatian historian and politician}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2019}}
{{Infobox person
| image              = Milan Shuflaj.jpg
| image_size         = 
| name               = Milan Šufflay
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1879|11|08|df=yes}}
| birth_place        = [[Lepoglava]], [[Croatia-Slavonia]], [[Austria-Hungary]]<br>{{small|(now [[Croatia]])}}
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1931|02|19|1879|11|08|df=yes}}
| death_place        = [[Zagreb]], [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia]]<br>{{small|(now Croatia)}}
| alma_mater         = [[University of Zagreb]]
| relations          = 
| occupation         = 
| yearsactive        = 
| nationality        = [[Croats|Croat]]
}}

'''Milan Šufflay''' (8 November 1879 – 19 February 1931) was a Croatian [[historian]] and [[politician]]. He was one of the founders of [[Albanology]] and the author of the first Croatian [[science fiction]] novel. As a [[Croatian nationalist]], he was persecuted in the [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia]], and his murder subsequently caused an internationally publicized affair.

==Early life==
Šufflay was born into a lower{{sfn|Horvat|1965|p=173}} noble family (hence ''pl.'', ''plemeniti'', "noble", equivalent of ''von'') in [[Lepoglava]], in the [[Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia]] to Augustin Šufflay (1847–190?), a teacher, and Franciska Welle von Vorstern (1847–1910), a [[Germans of Hungary|German Hungarian]] from [[Osijek]].{{sfn|Horvat|1965|p=174}} The family coat of arms was included in ''Der Adel von Kroatien und Slavonien'' (1899) as "Sufflay de Otrussevcz".<ref name="Siebmacher1986">{{cite book|author=Johann Siebmacher|title=Der Adel von Kroatien und Slavonien|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0FVmAAAAMAAJ|year=1986|publisher=Bauer & Raspe|isbn=978-3-87947-035-8}}</ref> Their original surname was Sufflei or Schufflei, and their estate was [[Otruševec]].

He attended a comprehensive high school in [[Zagreb]] and studied [[history]] at the [[University of Zagreb]]. He received a [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] in 1901 from the same university with the thesis ''Croatia and the Last Endeavor of the [[Byzantine Empire|Eastern Empire]] Under the Scepter of Three [[Komnenos]] (1075–1180)''.<ref>[http://digitalna.nsk.hr/?object=info&id=10589 Digitalne zbirke Nacionalne i sveučilišne knjižnice u Zagrebu]. Digitalna.nsk.hr. Retrieved on 11 January 2019.</ref> He was a brilliant student both in high school and at the university. Already during his studies, he spoke French, German, Italian, English, all the Slavic languages, as well as Latin, old Greek, and middle Greek. Later in life, he learned modern Greek, Albanian, Hebrew, and Sanskrit. [[Tadija Smičiklas]] considered Šufflay his most gifted student and took him as his assistant when editing ''Codex Diplomaticus'' of the [[Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts|Yugoslavian Academy of Sciences and Arts]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20131102023837/http://seminarskirad.biz/seminarski/milan%20shufflay-izabrani_politicki_spisi.pdf Milan Šufflay. Selected Political Writings], [[Matica hrvatska]], Zagreb, 2000., ed. Dubravko Jelčić, Miljan Šufflay's Chronicle, p. 26.-29., retrieved 17 January 2018</ref>

Šufflay became a historian of the [[Balkans]] and was convinced that the history of the [[Croats]] can only be researched properly from that perspective.{{citation needed|date=July 2024}} This conviction clashed with the prevailing opinion of Croatian historians that the Croats were representatives of the West, as opposed to the Balkans. Ignoring the proposal of the university senate, [[Ban (title)|Ban]] [[Pavao Rauch]] appointed him a university professor in Zagreb in 1908. However, when [[Nikola Tomašić]], his distant cousin and enemy, became a Ban in 1910, Šufflay had to leave the university. No longer exempt from military duty as a university professor, he was drafted in early 1915 but was soon released because of illness. He wrote his most important works during this period.

==Politics==
[[File:Milan Šufflay 2013 stamp of Albania.jpg|thumb|Šufflay on a 2013 stamp of Albania|270x270px]]
In the new state, the [[Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes]], he was arrested for high treason and charged with spying for a foreign power (through links with the [[Croatian Committee]]) together with [[Ivo Pilar]], another Croatian historian. Their defense lawyer was [[Ante Pavelić]], at the time a leader of the [[Party of Rights (1861-1929)|Party of Rights]] and an associate of Šufflay.<ref name="Matković-1962">{{cite journal | url = http://www.historiografija.hr/hz/1962/HZ_15_3_MATKOVIC.pdf | language = hr | first = Hrvoje | last = Matković | title = Veze između frankovaca i radikala od 1922–1925 | journal = Historical Journal | publisher = Croatian Historical Society | issn = 0351-2193 | pages = 41–59 | year = 1962 | number = 15 | volume = 3 | access-date = 13 September 2012 | archive-date = 20 January 2020 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200120210847/http://www.historiografija.hr/hz/1962/HZ_15_3_MATKOVIC.pdf | url-status = dead }}</ref> Šufflay was sentenced to three years and six months in prison. The reaction to the sentence was stronger abroad than in Croatia, as scientific colleagues from numerous countries tried to obtain his release but without success. He did his time in the [[Sremska Mitrovica prison]]. After serving over half of his sentence, he was released from prison in 1922 and he returned to his scientific work.

In 1924, Šufflay wrote his first science fiction novel, ''On the Pacific in 2255'', which is considered the first [[science fiction in Croatia|Croatian science fiction]] novel.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://crosf.nosf.net/about/science-fiction-in-croatia/ |author=Aleksandar Žiljak |author-link=Aleksandar Žiljak |title=Science Fiction in Croatia – The Beginnings |work=crosf.nosf.net |access-date=13 September 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724201627/http://crosf.nosf.net/about/science-fiction-in-croatia/ |archive-date=24 July 2011}}</ref>{{sfn|Nemec|1998}} In that same year Šufflay became a member of the leadership of the [[Pure Party of Rights]], a rightwing Croatian political party inspired by the work of [[Josip Frank]], a fervent nationalist.  One of the most important characteristics of the Frank's followers was their [[Anti-Serb sentiment|anti-Serb]] position.<ref name="Kann1980">{{cite book |author=Robert A. Kann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cG570mijBF4C&pg=PA447 |title=A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526-1918 |publisher=University of California Press |year=1980 |isbn=978-0-520-04206-3 |page=447 |quote=... in the case of Frank's followers... strongly anti-Serb |access-date=30 August 2013}}</ref> The party had reportedly not managed to win more than a few seats in the 300-strong legislative.

In 1928, when [[Stjepan Radić]] was assassinated in the Yugoslav parliament, a year before king [[Alexander I of Yugoslavia|Alexander I]] would establish his dictatorship, Šufflay wrote ''Hrvatska u svijetlu svjetske historije i politike'' (Croatia in the Light of World History and Politics). He wrote that the Croatian people was suffering under the Yugoslav dictatorship and that it had to free itself. He claimed that the border between Western and the Eastern Civilisations lay on the [[Drina]] river, the "destined borderline on the Drina river on which the mighty Roman Empire snapped into two... a border both spiritual and cultural". Šufflay's idea about the delineation on the Drina river would later influence [[Greater Croatia]]n irredentism.[[File:Milan Šufflay.jpg|thumb|Sufflay|left]]{{Blockquote|text=The Croatian people have passed through the Roman-Western retort, while the Serbian people passed through the Byzantine-Turkish. Therefore the psyche of the two peoples is essentially different, even if the languages are similar. Unification of the two peoples would mean neutralization and careful constraining. To centralize here would mean to make Croatia a guinea pig for vivisection experiments. It is my thesis that the Croatian nation, as a citizen of the great empire of the western civilization, has the right to raise its voice against any oppression.

Those who know history know that the Yugoslav idea has no dynamics. It is nothing compared to the mighty Croatian idea. In Croatia, the Yugoslav idea is a shallow wreckage under which the Croatian national volcano boils; only a subtle push is necessary to make it erupt.

To me personally, as a philosopher and an open-minded Croat, it is the same whether I sit shackled at the court or a penitentiary, or whether I get out into the false freedom hiding the larger dungeon in which – thank God, only temporarily! – the Croatian nation is suffering!|style=width: 700px;
font-style: italic;|author=Milan Sufflay}}
In 1928, he was appointed a professor at the [[University of Budapest]], but he could not take the job because he did not hold a passport.<ref name="Švab-1999">{{cite journal | url = http://www.matica.hr/MH_Periodika/vijenac/1999/149/html/esej/12.htm | title = Milan pl. Šufflay, 120. godišnjica rođenja – Djelo dostojno pozornosti | author = Mladen Švab | journal = [[Vijenac]] | issue = 149 | year = 1999 | publisher = [[Matica hrvatska]] | language = hr | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120323014305/http://www.matica.hr/MH_Periodika/vijenac/1999/149/html/esej/12.htm | archive-date = 23 March 2012 | url-status = dead }}</ref>
[[File:Stjepan Radic, Mirogoj Cemetery, Zagreb.jpg|thumb|The shared grave of Stjepan Radic, Milan Sufflay, and their fellow leaders of the Peasant Party in the Mirogoj Cemetery in Zagreb]]
On the request of the [[Albania]]n government and the Academy of Sciences in [[Vienna]], he continued the work of Jireček and Thalloczy, editing the 3rd book of ''Codex albanicus'', an archival collection. In 1931, he finally obtained a passport and travelled to Albania to sign a contract to work on ''Acta Albaniae''.<ref name="Švab-1999"/>

==Murder==

Members of the regime organisation, Young Yugoslavia, under royal protection, ambushed him at his doorstep in Zagreb and broke his skull with an iron rod, killing him. Then, they broke into his apartment and took the manuscript of the third book of ''Codex albanicus''. There was never any investigation about the criminals. The authorities denied any knowledge of the assailants and banned activities related to Šufflay's funeral.<ref name="EinsteinCroatiaNyTimes">
{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1931/05/06/archives/einstein-accuses-yugoslavian-rulers-in-savants-murder-charges-the.html|title=Einstein accuses Yugoslavian rulers in savant's murder|date=6 May 1931|newspaper=New York Times}} [https://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/nyt.html mirror]
</ref>

[[Albert Einstein]] and [[Heinrich Mann]] sent a letter to the [[International League for Human Rights]] in [[Paris]] appealing to the global cultural public to protest against the murder of Milan Šufflay appealing for protection of Croatian people from the oppression of Yugoslavian regime.
The appeal was addressed to the Paris-based ''[[Ligue des droits de l'homme]]''<ref>[http://francecroatie.free.fr/Histoire/1934.pdf Realite sur l'attentat de Marseille contre le roi Alexandre] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326055101/http://francecroatie.free.fr/Histoire/1934.pdf |date=26 March 2009 }}</ref> (Human Rights League) and made the front page of the ''[[New York Times]]'' on 6 May 1931.
It accused the king of complicity in the crime.<ref name="EinsteinCroatiaNyTimes"/><ref name = RaditchTimes>{{cite news | url = http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10A17F63C591B728DDDAA0A94D0405B818FF1D3&scp=4&sq=Sufflay&st=cse | title = Raditch left tale of Yugoslav plot | newspaper = New York Times | date = 23 August 1931 | access-date =6 December 2008 | page = N2 }} [http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/raditch.pdf mirror]</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nevadalabor.com/bulletins06a.html |title=Nevada Labor. Yesterday, today and tomorrow |publisher=Nevadalabor.com |access-date=3 September 2012}}</ref><ref>Philip J. Cohen, David Riesman. ''Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History''. Texas A&M University Press, 1996, pp. 10–11.</ref>

In June 1940, in the [[Banovina of Croatia]], a trial was organized for Šufflay's murder.<ref name="Matković-1962"/>

The murderers were the police agents Belošević and Zwerger, who fled to [[Belgrade]]. All later attempts of the Banovina of Croatia to have them extradited were fruitless.

==Works==

* ''Hrvatska i zadnja pregnuća istočne imperije pod žezlom triju Komnena'' (Croatia and the Last Efforts of the Eastern Empire under Three [[Comnenus]]es, 1901)
* ''Die Dalmatinische Privaturkunde'' ([[Dalmatia]]n Private Deeds, 1904)
* {{Cite book|editor-last1=Thallóczy|editor-first1=Ludovicus|editor-link1=Lajos Thallóczy|editor-last2=Jireček|editor-first2=Constantinus|editor-link2=Konstantin Jireček|editor-last3=Sufflay|editor-first3=Emilianus|editor-link3=Milan Šufflay|title=Acta et diplomata res Albaniae mediae aetatis illustrantia|year=1913|volume=1|location=Vindobonae|publisher=Typis Adolphi Holzhausen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RPI7AAAAMAAJ}}
* {{Cite book|editor-last1=Thallóczy|editor-first1=Ludovicus|editor-link1=Lajos Thallóczy|editor-last2=Jireček|editor-first2=Constantinus|editor-link2=Konstantin Jireček|editor-last3=Sufflay|editor-first3=Emilianus|editor-link3=Milan Šufflay|title=Acta et diplomata res Albaniae mediae aetatis illustrantia|year=1918|volume=2|location=Vindobonae|publisher=Typis Adolphi Holzhausen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pM9KAQAAMAAJ}}
* ''Kostadin Balšić (1392–1401): historijski roman u 3 dijela'' (Kostadin Balšić: A Historical Novel in Three Parts, 1920)
* ''Srbi i Arbanasi'' (Serbs and Albanians, 1925)
* ''Na Pacifiku god. 2255.: metagenetički roman u četiri knjige'' (On the Pacific in 2255: A Metagenetic Novel in Four Books, first printed as a book in 1998)
* ''Hrvatska u svijetlu svjetske historije i politike : dvanaest eseja'' (Croatia in the Light of World History and Politics: Twelve Essays, 1928, reprinted in 1999)
* ''Hrvati u sredovječnom svjetskom viru'' (Croats in the Global Medieval Upheaval, 1931)
* ''Izabrani eseji, prikazi i članci'' (Selected Essays, Criticisms and Articles, 1999)
* ''Izabrani eseji, rasprave, prikazi, članci i korespondencija'' (Selected Essays, Discussions, Criticisms, Articles and Correspondence, 1999)
* ''Izabrani politički spisi'' (Selected Political Works, published by ''Stoljeća hrvatske književnosti'', 2000)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
*{{cite book|last=Horvat|first=Josip |title=Hrvatski panoptikum|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0N4BAAAAMAAJ|year=1965|publisher=Stvarnost|pages=173–174}}
*{{cite journal|url=https://hrcak.srce.hr/214741|title=Prvi hrvatski science-fiction|journal=Croatica|volume=27|issue=45–46|year=1998|last=Nemec|first=Krešimir|pages=337–346|language=hr|format=PDF|access-date=22 November 2020}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Milan Šufflay}}
* [http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/nyt.html New York Times article about the death of Šufflay]
* [http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/einste.html Einstein/Mann appeal]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Szufflay, Milan}}
[[Category:1879 births]]
[[Category:1931 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Lepoglava]]
[[Category:Anti-Serbian sentiment]]
[[Category:Catholicism and far-right politics]]
[[Category:People from the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia]]
[[Category:20th-century Croatian historians]]
[[Category:Croatian people of German descent]]
[[Category:Croatian people of Hungarian descent]]
[[Category:Croatian science fiction writers]]
[[Category:Croatian albanologists]]
[[Category:Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb alumni]]
[[Category:Croatian prisoners and detainees]]
[[Category:Persecution of Eastern Orthodox Christians]]
[[Category:People murdered in Croatia]]
[[Category:Assassinated Croatian politicians]]
[[Category:People murdered in Yugoslavia]]
[[Category:People convicted of treason against Yugoslavia]]
[[Category:Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery]]
[[Category:Assassinated Yugoslav people]]
[[Category:Politicians assassinated in the 1930s]]