The author pays her attention to Supilo's political and publicistic activities in the decade that preceded World War I. and she displays the heaviness of Croatian position in Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Šupilo headed his political engagement to the affirmation of Croatian right for its state integrity and sovereignty. Eager to present Croats to the world as the nation of elevated culture, he endeavored after joint appearance of Croatian artists, painters and sculptors (among whom Ivan Meštrović), at the World Exhibition aat Rome in 1911 that was organized on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Italian unification. It wasn't possible for him to reach this aim either by Austrian or by Hungarian authorities. The government had planned to divide Croatian artists among several of Austro- Hungarian pavilions, following in the same time the principle of pavilion division in Austrian and in Hungarian ones. According to that, Croatian artists would have been lost between either Austrian and Hungarian ones; Dalmatian artists would have been incorporated in "Austrians" and Croatian artists from northern parts of Croatia in "Hungarians". Rather, it was suggested to Croatian artists not to deal with national and Croatian patriotic themes. Dissatisfied with such a position that denied the expression of their proper nationality, Croatian artists, together with Šupilo, decided to manifest their protest by exposing their works of art in Serbian pavilion. Indeed, with such an action they provoked a disgrace for Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Croatian artists achieved remarkable success (Meštrović alone won two first prizes), but the Serbian officials improved the occasion of having Croatian artists in their pavilion to present them to the press as their own, Serb artists. Supilo's protests to the worldwide journalists had no effects, as well as in vain were his sever objections addressed to Serbian organizers for their disgraceful serbization of Croatian artists.
