Kessler, Wolfgang: Jan Pětr Jordan and Croatia-Slavonia 1840–1848
Lětopis Abstract 2018 1: Kessler, Wolfgang: 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 “Slavonic Diaries” Jordan condemned the Magyarisation of the Slavs in Hungary,
the politics of the Hungarian estates and their “linguistic battle” in Croatia-Slavonia. But the hoped-for 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 traveled 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.
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