Ljudevit Vukotinović

A painting of Ljudevit Vukotinović with a signature.

Ljudevit Farkaš Vukotinović (January 13, 1813 – March 17, 1893) was a Croatian politician, writer and naturalist.

He was born in Zagreb. He studied philosophy in Szombathely, and law in Zagreb and Bratislava, where he graduated. In 1836 he was an trainee at Tabula Banalis, and after passing the bar exam in 1836 he was appointed as a sub-notary of the Križevci County, and in 1840 as the Great Judge in Moslavina Kotar. As a representative of the Croatian Parliament, he participated in its work since 1847 where he was responsible, along with Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski, for the declaration of Croatian language as the official language in 1847.

During the 1848-1849 revolution he served as the supreme commander of the armies in Križevci County, securing the defense on the river of Drava and in Međimurje, and publishing reports from the front lines in Slavenski jug. In 1849-1854 he served as the president of the Regional Court in Križevci, until his forced retirement due to his opposition to the introduction of German language as the official language. After the fall of Bach's absolutism, in 1860 he served in Ban's Conference, and in 1861-1867 as the Great Župan of the Križevci County. Although he was appointed as a representative in the Croatian Parliament as a member of the People's Party in 1871, he soon turned unionist, and has not entered the civil service ever since.

As a political writer Vukotinović made appearance with Ilirizam i kroatizam ("Illyrism and Croatim", 1842), an essay in which the debated on the cultural and linguistic unity of South Slavs based on their ethnic unity, and the struggle for an independent position of Croatia within the Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy. In a debate Regni Slavoniae erga Hungarium legalis correlatio ("The legal relationship between the Kingdom of Slavonia to Hungary", 1845) he opposed the Hungarian encroachments of three Slavonian counties (Virovitica, Syrmia and Požega counties), stressing the state unity of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia. During the 1848-1849 revolution he published a brochure Nekoja glavna pitanja našeg vremena ("Some major issues of our time"), in which he pointed out the contemporary political issues in Croatia, while in the brochure Godina 1850. u Hrvatskoj ("The year 1850 in Croatia", 1851) he opposed the centralization and Germanization.

Vukotinović's literary work began in Danica, where in 1835 he published the first Illyrian patriotic poem Pesma Horvatov vu Glogovi leto 1813, known by verse Nek se hrusti šaka mala. He published collections Pjesme i pripovjetke ("Poems and short stories", 1838), Ruže i trnje ("Roses and thorns", 1842), Pesme ("Poems", 1847) and Trnule (1867), and a collection of historical short stories Pošasnost ugarsko-hrvatska (1844).

In 1842, together with Stanko Vraz and Dragutin Rakovac, he founded literary magazine Kolo, and in 1859-1861 he founded and edited the almanac Leptir. With Dragutin Rakovac he edited in 1842 the first Croatian anthology of patriotic poetry Pesmarica. Sbirka 1. Pesmice domorodne. He also authored theater plays (Golub, 1832).

As a naturalist, Vukotinović was engaged in botany, exploring the Croatian flora and co-authoring with Josip Schlosser a number of important floristic works: Syllabus florae Croaticae ("An overview of Croatian flora", 1843), Bilinar (1873) and a seminal work Flora Croatica ("Croatian flora", 1869). His herbarium is now a part of the collection Croaticum Herbarium in the Department of Botany, Faculty of Science in Zagreb. He also studied petrography, mineralogy and geology, and was one of the founders of the National Museum, Zagreb. He served as a secretary of the Economic Society (1854) and edited Gospodarski list (1855-1857). In 1867 he was appointed as a full member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts.

He died in Zagreb.