Croatian Studies Review, Vol. 7 No. 1, 2011.
Original scientific paper
Historical Facts Regarding the Croatian King Dmitar Zvonimir in Vladimir Nazor’s Poetry
Marko Dragić
orcid.org/0000-0001-5362-6814
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Split
Abstract
Vladimir Nazor started writing poems about Croatian kings in
1903 in Zadar and he completed them by the year 1930. The poems
were based on historical sources and traditions. This article deals with
the story about King Dmitar Zvonimir. After the death of King Petar
Krešimir IV, Croatia was in state of chaos. In 1074, the unsatisfied chose
Slavac for their king, who was captured by the Norman commander
in November of 1075. Croatia was left without a king. In mid 1075
Dmitar Zvonimir was almost unanimously elected the king of Dalmatia
and Croatia. In 1065 he married Jelena, the daughter of the Hungarian
King Bela I. During the reign of Zvonimir, the Croatian people lived
in prosperity and they remembered him as a ‘good king’. He was a
loyal ally of Pope Gregory VII. His son Radovan died while Zvonimir
was still alive. According to The Chronicle of Priest Dukljanin (12th
century), the Hungarian-Polish chronicles from the 13th and 14
centuries and The Chronicle of Croatian Franciscan Ivan Tomasic from
the 16th century, the king was killed in 1089 by his associates during a
parliament assembly at the site of the Five Churches in Kosovo polje
near Knin, where he had gathered the associates to read them a letter
from the Pope, who wanted Zvonimir to send troops to liberate the
tomb of Christ.
In 1886, Ferdo Šišić wrote down the legend of the violent murder
of the king. There is a story in the tradition of Croats about the curse of
Zvonimir, who, while dying, cursed his people by saying that a foreign
language would rule over them for a thousand years. The story about
Croatian King Dmitar Zvonimir in the poetry of Vladimir Nazor is in
complete harmony with the historical sources.
Keywords
Croatian King Dmitar Zvonimir; Croats; violent murder; King Zvonimir’s curse
Hrčak ID:
86383
URI
Publication date:
15.10.2011.
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