Jan Pětr Jordan und Kroatien-Slawonien 1840 – 1848

Abstract

Jan Pětr Jordan and Croatia-Slavonia 1840 – 1848

Jan Pětr Jordan (1818 – 1891) saw in Illyrianism, which Ljudevit Gaj represented in the “Three Kingdoms of Croatia, Slavonia und Dalmatia”, a model of confessional and linguistic unity for the Sorbs of Lusatia. In his journal “Slavonic Diaries” (Slawische Jahrbücher) Jordan condemned the Magyarization of the Slavs in Hungary, the politics of the Hungarian estates and their “linguistic battle” in Croatia-Slavonia. But the expected support from Gaj in his activities as a Slavist clearly did not materialize, even if some attention was given to the Lusatian Sorbs in “Danica”, the cultural-literary supplement to the “Illyrian” newspaper edited by Gaj. Czech journalists mostly provided the material for this. In 1846 Jordan planned to go and live in Croatia or Slavonia and to publish a pro-Slav, German-language newspaper there in Zagreb or Osijek, and to set up a bookshop and printing works. He travelled in the autumn of 1846 to Slavonia and Croatia, to Southern Hungary and Serbia, but his hopes of a new beginning in the Slav South soon proved to be illusory.