Jelena Gruba

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Jelena Gruba ( Cyrillic  Јелена Груба ; * around 1345; † after March 18, 1399) was Queen of Bosnia from 1391 to 1398 . First as king consort until 1395, then as titular queen . She was the only female head of state in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina to date . She was a member of the aristocratic Nikolić family, who ruled part of Zahumlje . She was the wife, widow and elected successor of Stjepan Dabiša , a member of the Kotromanić house .

Surname

Jelena's first name is the cognate of Helena . She also had the nickname "Gruba" , which can be translated as "uncouth", "ugly", or "the ugly".

Life

King consort

Stjepan Dabiša's document, through which he left a village to his and Jelena's daughter, in which he decided that it should be passed on to his granddaughter and her heirs.

Jelena first became Queen of Bosnia as the wife of King Stjepan Dabiša. In 1391 he inherited his relative, King Stjepan Tvrtko of Bosnia. Dabiša was a Catholic , but Jelena's religious affiliation is unclear. Their only surviving child was a girl named Stana, who is mentioned in a document in which Dabiša gave her an area in Zachlumia to rule. This document, published on April 26, 1395, also states that Juraj Radivojević , the husband of Stana's daughter Vladawa and grandson-in-law of King Dabiša and Queen Jelena, should inherit the area. Vladawa and her husband already had at least two children at the time the charter was released. Since her granddaughter Vladawa was already of childbearing age , Jelena must have been over fifty years old when she inherited her husband.

Titular queen

When Dabiša died in September 1395, Jelena became titular queen. Her husband actually chose King Sigismund of Hungary , the husband of his cousin, Queen Maria , to be his successor. However, Maria died in the same year before Dabiša. The Bosnian nobility rejected Sigismund as king because only his status as the husband of Mary could have authorized him to do so. Instead, the nobility installed Jelena as her husband's successor. Therefore, during their rule, the Bosnian nobility became more powerful and independent from the crown. The nobility included magnates and dukes such as Sandalj Hranić, Hrvoje Vukčić and Pavle Radenović, who all ruled over their own territories independently of the queen. The queen's territory was a small territory in central Bosnia. They lost direct control of the territories in Banat Usora in the valley of the Sava River . During Jelena's reign, trade with the Republic of Ragusa was expanded.

She spent the end of her reign in West Zachlumia, at the court of her son-in-law.

Queen widow

In 1398 she was replaced by Stjepan Ostoja, the son of Tvrtko I. The reason for this is unclear. Perhaps it was because her brothers gained too much wealth and influence at the expense of other nobles during their reign. Nineteenth-century historians tried to identify her as Kujava Radinović, the woman Ostoja married in 1399. This theory was refuted by the Bosnian-Croatian historian Dominik Mandić, who stated that it was unlikely that a newly elected and childless king would marry a woman over 55 who is also said to have been the mother of his son, who was born in 1401. This marriage would also have required a papal dispensation because Jelena was his sister-in-law or aunt, and that was never applied for.

At first it was assumed that Jelena left Bosnia and went into exile in Dubrovnik . However, it was later learned that she continued to live at the Bosnian court as a queen widow and was treated with honor. Some of the leading nobles of the Nikolić family, including their brothers and nephews, were forced to flee to Dubrovnik, but returned to Bosnia in 1403. Some sources described Jelena after her dethronement as "the most illustrious and powerful lady Gruba" .

It was last mentioned in a document dated March 18, 1399.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Fine, John Van Antwerp (1994). The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08260-4 . Pages 458-459.
  2. ^ Medieval Lands Project: Kotromanić Family .
  3. ↑ Mandić, Svetislaw (1981). Črte i reze: Fragmenti starog imenika . Page 116.
  4. ↑ Milenko S. Filipović (1982). Among the people, native Yugoslav ethnography . Michigan Slavic Publications, Dept. of Slavic Languages ​​and Literatures. Page 61.
  5. ^ Vlahović, Vlaho S. (1940). Manual: Slavonic Personalities (past and present) . Page 38.
  6. ^ Zlatar, Zdenko (2007). The poetics of Slavdom: The mythopoeic foundations of Yugoslavia . Page 556. ISBN 9780820481357 .
  7. ^ Western Balkans - Bosnian Rulers Regnal Chronologies.
  8. ↑ Saltaga, Fuad (1999). Bosna i Bošnjaci u hrvatskoj nacionalnoj ideologiji. Page 398.
  9. ^ Draganović, Krunoslav (1942). Povijest hrvatskih zemalja Bosne i Hercegovine od najstarijih vremena do godine 1463 . Hrvatsko kulturno društvo "Napredak". ISBN 9958840006 .
  10. ↑ a b c Mandić, Dominik (1960). Bosna i Hercegovina: Državna i vjerska pripadnost sredovječne Bosne i Hercegovine.
  11. ↑ a b Mandić, Dominik (1978) [1960]. Sabrana djela Dr. O. Dominika Mandića: Bosna i Hercegovina: Povjesno kritička istraživanja. Pages 301, 302, 307, 308.
  12. ↑ Krunoslav Draganović: Poviest hrvatskih zemalja of Bosnia and Herzegovina . Ed .: Hrvatsko kulturno društvo "Napredak". 1942.
personal data
SURNAME Jelena Gruba
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Јелена Груба (Cyrillic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Queen of Bosnia
DATE OF BIRTH around 1345
DATE OF DEATH after March 18, 1399