Vladimir Macek

Born July 20, 1879, in Jastrebarsko; died May 15, 1964, in Washington. Statesman of monarchist Yugoslavia.

Maček graduated from the department of law of the University of Zagreb. He joined the Croatian Peasant Party in 1905 and fought on the Sorbian and Russian fronts during World War I (1914-18) as an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Army. From 1920 to 1928 he was vice-chairman of the Croatian Peasant Party, and after 1928 he was also chairman of the Peasant Democratic Coalition, a political bloc of bourgeois circles of Croatia. From 1925 to 1928 he was vice-chairman of the Skupstina. He was an opponent of the dictatorship of Alexander I Karageorgevich (1929-34), for which he was sentenced in 1933 to three years’ imprisonment. In the 1935 and 1938 elections to the Skuptstina, Maček headed the United Opposition, a coalition of bourgeois parties opposed to the “excesses” of the militarymonarchist dictatorship. On Aug. 26, 1939, he became deputy prime minister of Yugoslavia as a result of an agreement (sporazum) of the Peasant Democratic Coalition with the government of D. Cvetkovic, granting autonomy to Croatia. In March and April 1941 he was one of the two deputy prime ministers in the government of D. Simovic. During the fascist occupation of Yugoslavia, Maček called for collaboration with the occupation forces and the Ustasi. In 1945 he fled to France and then to the USA.