Antun Mihanović was a writer, politician, lawyer, military judge, diplomat, Slavist, and Illyrian (member of pan-South-Slavic Illyrian movement). Although his literary work is modest, we remember him precisely for his written words – the verses for the Croatian national anthem.

As a nineteen-year-old, he publicly expressed his love for the homeland and the Croatian language by publishing the brochure in which he advocated the use of Croatian in public life. To the horror of state structures that communicated in Latin and German.

Besides Croatian, he was also interested in the history of other Slavic peoples, passionately collecting old manuscripts and rare books. His greatest discovery was finding the lost manuscript of Gundulić’s “Osman” in Venice in 1818.

After a career in law, he served for more than 20 years in Austrian diplomacy as a consul in Belgrade, Thessaloniki, Smyrna, Constantinople and Bucharest. Just before his well-deserved retirement, he worked as a ministerial adviser.

The pensioner Mihanović lived in Klanjec in Novi Dvori Cesargradski, probably because he often treated his painful legs in Tuheljske Toplice and visited his sister who lived in the local castle. Unfortunately, he only enjoyed retirement for three years. He was buried in the cemetery in Klanjec.