CROATIAN VOLUNTEERS IN MEXICO

The other American theme is the civil war in Mexico, where young Slovene men were sent to battle for the Mexican emperor, Ferdinand Maximilian, brother of Austrian emperor Franz Josef (Josip Jurcic: Bozidar Tirte1j, 1867; and his epigone Anton Koder: V gorskem zakotju, 1882, 1905, 1911).

Between 1864 and 1866 volunteers were recruited also in Slovenia to travel with emperor Maximilian to Mexico. They were nicknamed "meksikajnarji" and in the periodicals of that time a great deal was written about them. In 1868 a book about them by Jakob Alegovec appeared in Ljubljana: Cesar Maks in Mehika.

Slovene Studies, 1985