HDZ PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FRANJO TUDJMAN - BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

Dr Franjo Tudjman - historian and statesman, President of the Republic of Croatia, born on 14 May, 1922, in Veliko Trgovisce (about 30 km north-west of Zagreb). He completed his high school education in Zagreb (1941) and Military Academy in Belgrade (1957). He earned a PhD in history at the University of Zagreb (1965). Wife: Ankica. Children: two sons and daughter. He participated in the antifascist movement in Croatia (1941 - 1945). Between 1945 and 1961 employed with the Defence Ministry, Personnel Department and the Headquarters of the Yugoslav People's Army; director of the Institute for the History of Labour Movement of Croatia in Zagreb (1961 - 1967); associate professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences (1963 - 1967); MP in the Socialist Republic of Croatia (1965 - 1969); editor-in-chief of the Military Encyclopaedia and collaborator and editor of the Encyclopaedia of the Lexicographic Institute; member of Managing Board of Matrix Croatica (Matica Hrvatska, founded in 1842). In political court proceedings held in 1972 he was sentenced to a 2-year prison term and in 1981 to three years in prison and a five-year ban on public activity. In 1989 he founded and became president of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ - the leading Croatian party since the first democratic elections in 1990); in 1990 elected as the President of the Presidency of the Republic of Croatia; in October 1992 elected (in line with the new Constitution) in direct elections as the President of the Republic of Croatia (5-year mandate); He is a member of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences and author of numerous books on history and politics. (hina) rm jn 121736 MET jun 97