Franjo Tudman (14 May 1922-10 December 1999) was President of Croatia from 30 May 1990 to 10 December 1999, succeeding Ivo Latin and preceding Stjepan Mesic.
Biography[]
Franjo Tudman was born in Veliko Trgovisce, Croatia, Yugoslavia in 1922, and he fought alongside the Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. After the war, he rose in the ranks of the Yugoslav People's Army, becoming a Major-General in 1960. In 1963, he became a political science professor at the University of Zagreb, and he worked as a historian until he came into conflict with the regime during the 1970s, when he became a Croat nationalist. He was imprisoned for his activities in 1972, and he lived anonymously until the end of communist one-party rule. In 1989, he founded the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, and he was elected President of SR Croatia in 1990. On 25 June 1991, Tudman oversaw Croatia's declaration of independence, as he was the arch-rival of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who sought to centralize power in Yugoslavia and wrest autonomy from Croatia. The Croatian War of Independence broke out, and the violence spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 in the "Bosnian War". From 1992 to 1994, Tudman backed the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia against Bosnia, but he re-allied with Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic in 1994 and resumed the war against the Serbs. In August 1995, the Croats cleared their country of the forces of Serbia and the forces of Serbian Krajina, and he signed the Dayton Agreement that same year. He was re-elected as President in 1997, and he died in office in 1999.
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