The July victims () were members of the Croatian People's Party who fell victim to a crackdown by the

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n Imperial Army on July 29, 1845. In 1845, there were local elections for the government of

Zagreb County Zagreb County () is a county in Northern Croatia. It surrounds, but does not contain, the nation's capital Zagreb, which is a separate territorial unit. For that reason, the county is often nicknamed "Zagreb ring" (). According to the 2021 censu ...

, the county containing the capital of

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

. The Croatian-Hungarian Party candidate won by

voter fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...

. Upon the announcement of election results, members of the People's Party took to St. Mark's Square to protest the result and accused the winners of vote fraud. The Croatian ban, the ethnic Hungarian Franz Haller called on the Austrian Army to empty the square. When the army moved in to empty the square, one of the protesters, Mirko Bogović, attacked an army officer with a sabre. The army officer was defended by a soldier who fired at Bogović. That led to other soldiers believing an order to fire was issued. The army emptied their bullets into the crowd. In the end, thirteen of the People's Party's protesters were killed and 27 were injured. Six of the injured later succumbed to their wounds. Ten victims of the shooting were buried at the St. George Cemetery (today the July Victims Park), and their funeral grew into large-scale political protests. Due in large part to this incident, Ban Haller left his post and bishop Juraj Haulik took his place soon after. In 1855, the July victims' grave was adorned with a sculpture of a sleeping lion. In 1895, their remains July victims were interred in Zagreb's new cemetery,

Mirogoj The Mirogoj City Cemetery (, ), also known as Mirogoj Cemetery (), is a cemetery park that is considered to be among the more noteworthy landmarks in the city of Zagreb. The cemetery inters members of all religious groups: Catholic, Orthodox, M ...

. The incident showed the tension developed between Croats who supported the

Illyrian movement The Illyrian movement (; ) was a pan-South-Slavic cultural and political campaign with roots in the early modern period, and revived by a group of young Croatian intellectuals during the first half of the 19th century, around the years of 1835 t ...

and the restoration of a unified Croatian Kingdom, and Hungarian-Croatians (Magyars) and the minority of Croats who supported closer relations with Hungary (represented by the Croatian-Hungarian Party). In the following years, Croatia gained some concessions, as Croatian replaced

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

as the nation's official language.

References

1845 in Croatia Military history of Zagreb July 1845 19th-century military history of Croatia {{Croatia-hist-stub