Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.47960/2712-1844.2025.11.213
When did the Bosnian Kingdom fall? The history of Bosnia from the establishment of Corvinus' anti-Ottoman system to the death of the Queen Katarina (1463-1478)
Krešimir Regan
orcid.org/0000-0002-1457-5126
; Lexicographic Institute Miroslav Krleža, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In historiography, the prevailing opinion is that the medieval Bosnian Kingdom fell in 1463 with the Ottoman occupation led by Sultan Mehmed Ii, who conquered large parts of Bosnia and Hum and executed numerous noblemen, including King Stjepan Tomašević himself. The acceptance of this view is reflected in the saying "Bosnia fell in a whisper."
However, its fall did not occur then but rather six decades later with the fall of the Bosnian capi-tal, Jajce, into Ottoman hands in 1527. During this long period, several rulers governed the Bos-nian Kingdom, sometimes even simultaneously. After the Ottomans largely pushed the Kosača family from their Hum-Drina estates in the autumn of 1463, and Matthias Corvinus, along with Bosnian-Hum allies from western and northern Bosnia, did so in the winter of 1463, there were as many as three Bosnian Kingdoms existing in Bosnia and Hum during the 1460s.
Katarina Kosača ruled its southern parts until her departure to Rome, which was recognized even during her exile in Rome. As a member of the same dynasty but under Ottoman protection, Matija Vojsalić ruled a smaller part of the Bosnian Kingdom along the Bosna River. At the same time, the western and northern parts of Bosnia, including the capital Jajce, were ruled by Matthias Cor-vinus, Lovro Iločki, and later Vladislav II and Louis II Jagiellon until 1527.
Despite the loss of part of the Bosnian Kingdom's territory to the Ottomans, this only resulted in the Kotromanić dynasty being replaced on the Bosnian throne by the Corvinus, Iločki, and Jagiel-lon dynasties. Furthermore, under the leadership of Matthias Corvinus and Lovro Iločki, a strong anti-Ottoman defensive system was established on the southeastern borders of the Hungari-an-Croatian Kingdom, which would completely collapse only in 1527 when the Ottomans, after six decades of long and difficult battles, conquered the Bosnian capital of Jajce.
Keywords
Bosnian Kingdom; Matthias Corvinus; Nicholas of Ilok; Queen Katarina; Corvinus' anti-Ottoman system
Hrčak ID:
335517
URI
Publication date:
1.10.2025.
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