| Antun Knežević | |
| Birth Date: | 9 January 1834 |
| Birth Place: | Varcar Vakuf, Bosnia Eyalet, Ottoman Empire |
| Death Place: | Kotor Varoš, Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austro-Hungarian Empire |
| Resting Place: | Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Occupation: | Friar |
| Language: | Serbo-Croatian |
| Citizenship: | Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian |
| Genre: | Social science, poetry |
| Subject: | History, culture |
| Movement: | Illyrian |
| Notableworks: | "Rieč popa Gojka Miroševića svojem Bošnjakom i Hercegovcem" "Rieč Hodže bosanskog Hadži Muje Mejovića" "Suze bošnjaka nad grobnicom kralja svoga u Jajcu" "Krvava knjiga" "Opet o grobu bosanskom" "Kratka povjest kralja bosanski" "Pad Bosne" "Varica" |
Fra Antun Knežević (9 January 1834 – 22 September 1889) was a Bosnian Franciscan friar, historian and writer from Varcar Vakuf [Now Mrkonjić Grad], Bosnia and Herzegovina.[1] He was a proponent of Bosnian national identity, while being an active member of the Illyrian Movement.[2]
Born in Varcar Vakuf (today Mrkonjić Grad) in 1834, his father Anto came from the town of Uskoplje, and his mother was Agata Stipić (née Ivekić) from Varcar Vakuf. His father died early, and he was raised by his uncle from his father's side, Fra Grgo Knežević, who was buried in Ivanjska village.
Fra Antun Knežević studied in Fojnica, Rome, and Siena and became friar on 26 April 1851. His first Mass was on 21 September 1856.
Antun Knežević was one of the main proponents of Bosnian nationhood, and he fiercely advocated against imminent Croatization of Bosnian Catholics on one side, as well as imminent Serbianization of Bosnian Orthodox people on the other, as he called them Catholic Bosnians and Orthodox Bosnians in his work. His position and doctrine was that all Bosnians are one people of three faiths and that up to the late 19th century, no Croats and Serbs lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina.[3] Although Fra Antun Knežević was not a unique phenomenon in this sense, he was certainly among the most articulate, having a strong impact along with Fra Ivan Franjo Jukić from whom he took the idea, and who was his teacher and mentor earlier in his life. Since the 17th century, many other members of the Franciscan order in Bosnia accepted the idea of a Bosnian identity, nurturing it within the brotherhood and carrying it over into the 18th and 19th centuries.[4] [5] [6] But it was these two, Fra Knežević and his mentor, Fra Jukič, who left the deepest mark on Bosnian culture and history, while championing the notion that Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims are one nation, and Bosnia and Herzegovina a country with deep cultural and historical roots.[7] [8] [9] Like Jukić before him, Knežević too articulately expressed his feeling of national belonging, which he always and primarily defined as Bosnian in such a way as to include all three religious groups inhabiting Bosnia and Herzegovina. The only other cultural identity he recognized was Illyrian, as a cultural supra-identity of all South Slavs, on which all his interest and activity as a member of the Illyrian movement was based. He was a great opponent of any foreign occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which during his lifetime meant occupation by the Ottomans and transition of it authority and jurisdictions to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1878.
Fra Antun Knezević, in 1877, started the construction of the Franciscan monastery in Jajce (without permission).[10] He also opened the first public school in Bosnia in his own house.
Knežević died on 22 September 1889 in Kotor Varoš while celebrating a folk Mass. His bones were transferred to Jajce in 1955. Later friars of Jajce monastery moved the bones of Fra Antun Knežević to the nearby, new church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Jajce.