Jelaclc Josip

Born Oct. 16, 1801, in Petrovaradin; died May 20, 1859, in Zagreb. Count, Croatian statesman. Graduated from the military academy in Vienna in 1819. Austrian Army colonel (1841) and general (after 1848).

Jelacic sided with the right wing of the Croatian nationalist movement. On Mar. 23, 1848, he was appointed vicegerent by the Austrian government and later the military commander of all forces in Croatia and at the military border with the Ottoman Empire. In April 1848 he ended serfdom, although retaining some of the duties of the serfs, and for-bade legal proceedings by the landowners. Later, however, he crushed a Croatian peasant movement demanding an end to compulsory labor on lands not in their allotment. Taking advantage of the Hungarian government’s refusal to agree to national autonomy for Croatia, he abetted Croatian involvement in a war against revolutionary Hungary. Jelačić took part in the suppression of the Hungarian revolution (1848–49) and the October rebellion in Vienna (1848).