A conciliator between the monarchy and the national liberation movement
In the November 1944 Belgrade talks, he accepted a coalition government and regency while leaving the monarchy for a postwar decision.
Ivan Šubašić was a Croat Yugoslav politician and lawyer who became the first head of the autonomous Banovina of Croatia before the war. As the balance shifted between the royal government-in-exile and Tito’s national liberation movement, he became the principal non-Communist intermediary between them. In 1944 he negotiated with Tito, accepted the authority of AVNOJ, and helped design a coalition government and regency while leaving the monarchy’s fate to a postwar decision.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1918–1921Served with Yugoslav volunteers, then studied law
- 1920년대Opened a law practice in Vrbovsko
- 1938Elected to the Yugoslav National Assembly for the Croatian Peasant Party
- 1939–1941First Ban of the Banovina of Croatia
- 1944.06–11Prime Minister of the royal Yugoslav government-in-exile
- 1944.06Negotiated the Vis Agreement with Tito
- 1944.11Initialled the Belgrade Agreement, outlining a coalition government and regency
- 1945Foreign Minister in Tito’s government
Related historical events
Postwar political role and withdrawal, 1945–1947
When the provisional government was formed in Belgrade in March 1945, Šubašić stepped down as prime minister under the terms he had negotiated with Tito and took the foreign affairs portfolio. Dissatisfied as the agreements went unfulfilled, he resigned from the cabinet in October 1945 and left the government.
He argued for unifying the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) with the newly founded pro-Communist Croatian Republican Peasant Party (HRSS) and for joint participation in elections within the People's Front. To that end he convened a conference of the party leadership at Zagreb's Esplanade Hotel in September 1945, but the majority in the party rejected his compromise line. Before the November 1946 elections to the Constituent Assembly of the People's Republic of Croatia, he accepted Branko Magovac's proposal and asked the Communist authorities to allow individual HSS figures to stand, so as to achieve national unity and economic reconstruction; this proposal too was turned down. After withdrawing from politics in 1947 he lived quietly in Zagreb.
In this period he remained under surveillance. Drawing on reports of the Department for People's Protection (OZNA) held in the Croatian State Archives, Zdenko Radelić showed that OZNA monitored and shadowed Šubašić and Juraj Šutej, leaders of the Croatian Peasant Party.