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Stjepan Radić (May 11, 1871 – August 8, 1928) was a Croatian politician and the founder of the Croatian Peasant Party (CPP, Hrvatska Seljačka Stranka) in 1905. Although he is generally viewed as an obstructionist politician for his party's frequent boycotts of parliament, Radić is credited with galvanizing the Croatian peasantry into a viable political force for the first time.
After World War I he rose to political prominence among Croats for his opposition to merging Croatia with the Kingdom of Serbia without guarantees for Croatian autonomy. On November 24, 1918 he famously urged delegates attending a session that would decide the country's political future not to "rush like geese into fog" — he feared that Croatia would become at best a minor partner within a Serb-dominated state.
However, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was established and the CPP became an opposition party. The party's popularity in Croatia translated into significant electoral support but only among ethnic Croats. Radić still held on to the idea of an independent Croatia, and kept the party out of parliament in protest. This in effect afforded Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić the opportunity to consolidate power and strengthen his Serb-dominated government. Returning from a trip to the Soviet Union in 1923, Radić was arrested for associating with Soviet Communists and was released two years later to become minister of education.
Radić resigned his ministeral post in 1926 and returned to the opposition. This time the environment in parliament had become increasingly unstable and contentious. During a heated argument in the parliament chamber in June 1928, Radić said:
- "Our Serbian friends are always reminding us of the price they paid in the war. I would like to invite them to tabulate the costs, so we may square accounts and be on our way."
After that, Puniša Račić, a radical ethnic-Serb MP from Montenegro, shot and mortally wounded Radić and several other CPP delegates.
Following the ethnic tensions triggered by the shooting, in January 1929 King Aleksandar Karađorđević abolished the constitution, dissolved parliament, and declared a royal dictatorship.
The picture of Stjepan Radić appears on the 200 kuna banknote.
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