Karla Kovačević
Karla Kovačević, also
Dragutin Kovačević and
Karlo Kovačević (25 October 1870 – 6 July 1942) was a
Croatian and
Yugoslavian politician and a leading member of the
Croatian People's Peasant Party (HSS) from 1905 until 1920s. He was elected a member of the
Croatian Sabor in the
1910 Croatian parliamentary election in the constituency of
Novska. In 1918, Kovačević was appointed a member of the
National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs—a body working towards political unification of the
South Slavs in the processes of
dissolution of Austria-Hungary and
establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Together with party leader
Stjepan Radić, he was appointed a member of the
Temporary National Representation, the provisional legislative body of the newly established
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia). Kovačević was elected to the Constitutional Assembly in the
1920 election, as well as in
1923 and
1925 elections in
Požega County and in
1927 election in
Virovitica County. Following the introduction of the
6 January Dictatorship in Yugoslavia, Kovačević supported the dictatorship of
king Alexander. In turn, Kovačević was promoted by the dictatorial regime as the leader of the peasantry in the country in the 1930s. In that period, Kovačević publicly criticised the HSS (led by
Vladko Maček after assassination of Radić) as well as Croatian emigre
fascist and
ultranationalist organisation
Ustaše. Kovačević joined the
Yugoslav Radical Peasants' Democracy (subsequently renamed the Yugoslav National Party, JNS) and became its vice-president in 1933. As a JNS candidate, Kovačević was elected in the
1931 Yugoslavian parliamentary election and the deputy president of the
Assembly of Yugoslavia. Following an electoral defeat in the
1935 election, he left politics. After the
World War II Axis powers Invasion of Yugoslavia and establishment of the Axis
puppet state of
Independent State of Croatia in 1941, Kovačević was imprisoned—initially in Novska and
Zagreb. He was then moved to the
Jasenovac concentration camp and finally to the
Stara Gradiška concentration camp where he was killed.
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