Josip Runjanin

Josip Runjanin (8 December 1821 – 20 January 1878), born Josif Runjanin (), was an Austrian career military officer, politician and composer of Serb origin best known for composing the melody of the Croatian national anthem, Lijepa naša domovino (“Our Beautiful Homeland”), in 1846. Runjanin received his education in Vinkovci and later in Sremski Karlovci. As a young man, he served in the Imperial Austrian Army as a cadet in the town of Glina, along the Military Frontier with the Ottoman Empire. While serving in Glina, Runjanin attained the rank of captain and became proficient in playing the piano. He is known to have composed only a handful of works, most famously the musical accompaniment to Antun Mihanović’s patriotic poem Horvatska domovina (“Croatian Homeland”). The piece, under the title Lijepa naša domovino, was selected by popular acclaim as the anthem of the Croatian people at an economic exhibition in Zagreb in 1891. One of its stanzas was eventually integrated into the national anthem of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the piece later served as the national anthem of several Croatian polities, including that of modern-day Croatia. A veteran of the Second a