Ivo Frank

Frank moved to Graz, Republic of German-Austria in 1919^[5] where he became a prominent figure among Croatian political émigrés, largely consisting of former Austro-Hungarian Army officers. He chaired the Croatian Committee, established in 1919, which operated in Budapest, Vienna, and Graz to promote Croatian independence.^[1] Historian Jozo Tomasevich described Frank as the only person of significant standing in Croatian political emigration in the aftermath of World War I.^[6] After Frank left the country, the government revoked his licence to practice law in May 1920 and the University of Zagreb cancelled Frank's doctoral degree two months later.^[7]

Frank sought support from Gabriele D'Annunzio who had seized the city of Rijeka (Fiume) in the immediate aftermath of World War I and established the Italian Regency of Carnaro. He also contacted Italian fascists regarding potential alliances.^[8] Cooperation with D'Annunzio was first formalised on 5 July 1920, when Frank and his associate Emanuel Gagliardi met with D'Annunzio's representatives, Giovanni Host-Venturi and Giovanni Giuriati, in Venice and signed two agreements. The first agreement promised D'Annunzio's support of Croatian, as well as Albanian and Montenegrin, émigrés in the form of supplying money and arms for the struggle against the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The second agreement dealt with the borders of the future Croatian republic, which was envisioned as generally corresponding to the former Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. The agreement defined Italian territorial gains around Rijeka and some Adriatic islands.^[9] Main Dalmatian cities were to become politically autonomous free ports.^[9] Namely, Zadar, Šibenik, Trogir, Split, and Dubrovnik were to form an independent, loose federation or a "maritime alliance".^[10] The rest of Dalmatia would be organised as a separate republic. The Dalmatian republic was to decide on joining the Croatian republic in a plebiscite. Some sources claim that D'Annunzio was acting on behalf of Italy.^[9] When D'Annunzio organised a meeting in Rijeka in 1920 aimed at establishing an alternative League of Nations for politically oppressed peoples, Frank attended and signed an alliance agreement with D'Annunzio.^[11]

The Treaty of Rapallo ended Frank's efforts to forge a political alliance with the Kingdom of Italy against the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. After this, the Croatian Committee became divided, with Frank leading its Budapest-based faction, and permanently moving to Budapest. Frank and his faction then started advocating for a revision of the Treaty of Trianon, which partitioned Hungary after the war. He promoted the return of the southern Baranya, Bačka, and Banat regions to Hungary, which would in return accept the transfer of Međimurje to Croatia (which had not been under Hungarian control since the 1918 occupation of the region). In this respect, Frank cooperated with the Hungarian Revisionist League Party of György Lukács.^[12] Frank advocated for the linking of the Croatian struggle for independence with Hungarian demands for revision of the Treaty of Trianon. He further proposed a political partnership between Hungary, Croatia, and other states to resist Pan-Slavism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Pan-Germanism. Frank presented these ideas in a 1933 lecture and accompanying brochure called "A revízió és a Horvátság".^[13]

After Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy, Frank sent him a letter seeking Italian support for Croatian independence while promising Croatia would be within an Italian sphere of influence and accept Italian "political and military domination" on the Adriatic Sea.^[14] The letter, authored jointly with Ante Pavelić in 1927,^[15] also promised to cede to Italy the Bay of Kotor and parts of Dalmatia that were of strategic importance to Italy.^[16] Frank and Pavelić met in Budapest in 1927. They both sent copies of the memorandum to Mussolini. Frank handed his copy to the Italian ambassador to Hungary, while Pavelić passed his to Roberto Forges Davanzati when he visited Rome that year.^[17] The influence Frank had among the Croatian political émigrés was eclipsed by the rise of the Pavelić-led fascist Ustaše in 1929. Subsequently, in the early 1930s, Frank endorsed Ustaše. In 1934, he appeared to distance himself from them, cautioning his nephew and later Ustaše General-Lieutenant Dido Kvaternik to abandon fascism.^[18] Historian Bogdan Krizman claims that the change came about because Pavelić involved Kvaternik in planning the assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in Marseille that year, which Frank resented.^[19]

Frank left politics and worked as a gardener and a florist in Budapest, where he died in 1939.^[1] In 2007, his remains were moved from Budapest to Zagreb's Mirogoj Cemetery.^[20]

• "Frank, Ivo (Ivan, Ivica)". Židovski biografski leksikon (in Croatian). Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
• Banac, Ivo (1984). The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-1675-2.
• Matković, Stjepan (2008). "Prilozi za politički životopis Ive Franka i evoluciju pravaštva" [Contributions for a Political Biography of Ivo Frank and Evolution of the Party of Right's Ideology]. Časopis za suvremenu povijest (in Croatian). 40 (3). Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest: 1067–1086. ISSN 0590-9597.
• Tomas, Domagoj; Njari, Denis (2022). "Ivo Frank i revizija Trianonskoga ugovora" [Ivo Frank and the Revision of the Treaty of Trianon]. Časopis za suvremenu povijest (in Croatian). 54 (2). Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest: 421–444. doi:10.22586/csp.v54i2.21227. ISSN 0590-9597.
• Tomasevich, Jozo (2002). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-0857-9.