Mato Gracić
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Mato Gracić (Serbian Cyrillic: Мато Грацић; Prožura, then Austria-Hungary, 18 December 1865 - Dubrovnik, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 12 April 1944) was a Serb by nationality and a Catholic by religion. He was a doctor of science, lawyer, shipowner, owner of a hotel and nine residential buildings in Dubrovnik, owner of two thirds land on Lapad, bank auditor, owner of the Serbian Dubrovnik Printing House, chief financier of Matica Srpska in Dubrovnik, Cooperative of Serb Businessmen in Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik Serbian Singing Society, publisher of the magazines "Dubrovnik" and "Srdj", founder and head of the Sokol Association "Dušan Silni" in Dubrovnik, founder of the Dubrovnik tram, owner of the Signal factory in Belgrade, great benefactor and protector of all associations of Serb Roman Catholics in the city under Srđ and great financier of Serbian political parties in Croatia, from the late 19th and early 20th century.[1]
Life and career[edit]
A memorial plaque in Prožur, erected in the birthplace of Mato Gracić by grateful fellow citizens for his charities in 1933.
He was born on 18 December 1865 in the village of Prožura on the island of Mljet to father Mato Gracić and mother Marija, née Brzica. In the area of the islands of Mljet and Dubrovnik, his family was one of the largest landowners until the beginning of the First World War.[2]
After the end of the First World War, most of the Gracić family's land was taken away during the agrarian reform. They were paid compensation in cash for the confiscated property, and the peasants, who were in colonial relations, were given one type of lease free of charge.
After the Sarajevo assassination and the pogrom of Serbs and everything that was Serbian in Dubrovnik, Dr. Mato Gracic was arrested, abused and imprisoned in the then hotel in [Gruz]], near the train station, owned by Serb Catholic Vicko Kisić, that was converted into a prison. As one of the hostages, Mato was forced to follow sea and rail transport, and thus guaranteed the safety of Austro-Hungarian transports and convoys with his life.
After his arrest and hostage-taking, he divorced his wife Luisa in 1914 and moved in with his sister Mara, married to Ucović, to a house today at 18 Od Puča Street in Dubrovnik, where he lived occasionally and occasionally in Belgrade for the rest of his life.
After the end of the First World War and the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Gracić found himself in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, where he had often stayed with his son Srdjan since 1920, who was the director of the Signal factory (majority owned by Mato Gracić). owned a lot of real estate - houses in Belgrade.
As he inherited large estates on Mljet in the meantime, and other property from his uncle, the shipowner in Trieste, Mato Gracic, although he was a lawyer, did not need to continue working in the office, because he was a landowner (rentier). He had a large estate in Lapad (two thirds of Lapad) and at least nine residential buildings, including a castle on the Road of St. Mihajla and Batali.
Together with other Dubrovnik Catholics, Mato Gracić found himself in disfavor with the new authorities in 1939, after the annexation of Dubrovnik to Croatia. As he was exposed to constant political blows and persecution by the leaders of the newly created Croatian Banovina, in order to protect himself from further persecution, Mato lived in Belgrade for a long time, where he registered his residence and law office.
The beginning of the Second World War found him in Dubrovnik, where the persecution and suffering of Serbs soon followed by the Ustashi of the Independent State of Croatia. As a Serb, Mato was imprisoned and tortured. After one of those tortures, he died on 12 April 1944 in Dubrovnik.
Work[edit]
Dr. Mato Gracić was a man of modern ideas, the realization of which increased his existing wealth. After earning his doctorate in law in Vienna, he devoted himself to business and is constantly increasing his existing wealth. He invested in new technologies at that time - the construction of trams in Dubrovnik, products in the electronic and radio industry and real estate, which was extremely important for that historical period.
In addition to business, Dr. Mato Gracić dedicated almost his entire life to strengthening the Serbian Catholic movement in Dubrovnik, at that time a respectable cultural and political direction with recognizable national, cultural foundations and exceptional intellectual strength.
He expressed his charity as a financier of Matica Srpska in Dubrovnik, the Cooperative of Serb Businessmen in Dubrovnik, the Dubrovnik Serbian Singing Society, the publisher of the magazines "Dubrovnik" and "Srdj", the founder and head of the Sokol Association "Dusan Silni" in Dubrovnik and the protector of all associations of Serb Roman Catholics in the town under Srđ, but also a great financier of Serbian political parties in Croatia.
Opposing views[edit]
Despite the great merits for the Serbian people, many Croatian historians, both those who are in favor of communist ideas and those on the right, have tried to challenge the character and work of Dr. Mate Gracic. Among them were some ignorant Serbs who thought that Catholic Serbs could not possibly be Serbs because they are not of the Eastern Orthodox faith!
At the same time, they forgot that the Serbs who lived in the area of Dubrovnik and the Dubrovnik hinterland and the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina were autochthonous, part of the Orthodox faith, which due to the aggressive Catholic campaign, were forced to change their religion. In Dubrovnik, the majority of the inhabitants are exclusively of the Roman Catholic faith.[3]
After the end of the Second World War, the family of this prominent humanitarian, fighter for freedom and preservation of Serbian tradition, was continuously tormented even by Josip Broz Tito's Communist regime. In 1947, according to the decision of the First District Court for Belgrade, all property (belonging to Mato Gacić) was confiscated, and Mato Gacić was declared a war criminal without any criminal proceedings ... "because he" gathered Chetnik leaders "in the hotel" Post "in Dubrovnik. and acted as an enemy of the people.[4]
This injustice was corrected by the High Court in Belgrade, which in its verdict of 23 November 2015, rehabilitated Dr. Mato Gracić, "as the leader and main financier of the Roman Catholic Serb movement and their sports, cultural, artistic and political organizations in the last century."[5]
References[edit]
- Translated from Serbian Wikipedia: https://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE_%D0%93%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%9B
- ↑ name="Савић" >cite web |last=Савић |first=Предраг |title=Приче са камена: Мато Грацић – Госпар који је бранио српство |url=http://www.bileca.rs/mato-gracic-gospar-koji-je-branio-srpstvo/ |publisher=Билећа рс. 22.4.2019. |accessdate=22 November 2019
- ↑ name="Саша" >Саша Недељковић, Петар Спасић „Госпар Мато Грацић – Настанак и нестанак Срба римокатолика у Дубровнику“. Народна просвета, 2019.
- ↑ cite web | title = The life of Serb Roman Catholics in Dubrovnik in the book about Mato Gracić | Srba-rimokatolika-u-Dubrovniku-u-knjizi-o-Matu-Gracicu | publisher = Politika online, 21.8.2019. | accessdate = 23 November 2019
- ↑ name = "Sasha"
- ↑ name = "Sasha"
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