- Iván Skerlecz
Iván Skerlecz de Lomnicza (often rendered "Ivan Škrlec Lomnički" in Croatian) (
July 20 1873 -January 12 1951 ) was the last Hungarian to be ban (viceroy) of theKingdom of Croatia-Slavonia .Skerlecz was born in
Oroszló ,Hungary in 1873. After Hungarian dictatorship during 1912 under the titular banSlavko Cuvaj , the Hungarian prime ministerIstván Tisza appointed Skerlecz head of theAustro-Hungarian crown land in 1913. During this period, Austria-Hungary was at war as part ofWorld War I .While Croatia-Slavonia was not the site of any battles, Croatian troops, fighting under the Croatian Home Guard took part in the fighting, much of it in neighbouring Serbia. Skerlecz managed to reconvene the Croatian
Sabor (parliament) inZagreb by 1915. The Croats made further demands for local authority, as well as unification of Croatia-Slavonia withDalmatia andBosnia and Herzegovina .Stefan Sarkotić , Austria-Hungary's commander in Bosnia and Herzegovina also sought unification of their provinces. However, Austria-Hungary's outdated political system made any shifts between areas under Hungarian or Austrian spheres of influence difficult. Skerlecz could only support the Croatians in acting autonomously. As the war progressed more Croats found the formation of a South Slav state a potentially beneficial possibility.He resigned from his post on
June 29 1917 after Tisza was ousted from power, leaving the country in no better state than when he had arrived. TheKingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was formed the following year. Skerlecz returned to Hungary where he died inBudapest in 1951.
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