Review article
750 Years of Koprivnica – The First Mention of Koprivnica in 1272 and What Happened Before and Afterwards
Ranko Pavleš
; Koprivnica, Croatia
Abstract
Although the central theme of the paper is a document from 1272, the events that led to the formation of the population in these areas, the people who will subsequently found Koprivnica, are presented first. It is based on the thesis that in 536 there was a major volcanic eruption that resulted in two consecutive years without a harvest and major demographic and social changes throughout the world. Societies on the Mediterranean were weakened, and in Central Asia the migration of the Avars started, which very quickly ended in Europe, and this nation, taking with it several Slavic tribes, occupied the Pannonian Plain, the regions north of it and the Balkans. The year 568, when the Avars and Slavs entered western Pannonia, can be considered the year of immigration of the Croats. The Avars ruled here for 200 years, and when they were defeated and disappeared, a hundred-year period of rule by Slavic princes followed. They were replaced by Hungarians who remain here, exerting a considerable influence on the societies in the confluence of the Sava and Drava rivers. When Hungarian society opened up to the west, we begin to discover the first facts about Podravina. Graves from the 11th century were discovered in the narrower area of Koprivnica, as well as one church that can be dated to the 12th century. At the beginning of the 13th century we obtain the first detailed information about Podravina, and from 1272 there is a document in which a building, more precisely a fortress named Koprivnica, is mentioned for the first time. In the aforementioned year, prince Ladislav was imprisoned in the fortress, the city was besieged, but the siege was interrupted due to the death of Ladislav’s father. It remains unclear who kidnapped the king, who freed him and took him to the coronation, and what was the role of the castellan Bahaler. The doubt about where the aforementioned Koprivnica fortress was located is also unresolved. Shortly after the aforementioned events, the Franciscans arrived to Koprivnica, where they were given the use of the former parish church, and in the first half of the 14th century they build a new church on the same site whose foundations were discovered by recent archaeological research. In 1308, the settlement of Koprivnica itself was mentioned for the first time, which very quickly progressed from an ordinary manor market to the status of a free royal city.
Keywords
750th anniversary; Koprivnica; Middle Ages; Podravina; the first record
Hrčak ID:
289263
URI
Publication date:
11.12.2022.
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