Klaic, Vjekoslav

Born July 28,1849, in the village of Garein, near Slavonski Brod; died July 1, 1928, in Zagreb. Croatian historian. Professor at the University of Zagreb from 1893 to 1922. In 1922 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Prague. He graduated from the University of Vienna in 1873.

Klaič’s works are devoted to the medieval history and historical geography of Croatia, the medieval history of Bosnia, and the history of Croatian music. His main work was a multivolume history of Croatia to 1608. Klaiö explained the rise of the Croatian state by the arrival of seven or eight tribes of Croatian conquerors who subjugated the Slavs and formed a special privileged stratum of the population, from which the ruling class of Croatian society was formed. This theory has been criticized by contemporary Yugoslav historians, among them B. Grafenauer.