House of Zrinski - History

History

The Zrinski, meaning "those of Zrin", are a branch of the Šubić family, which arose when king Louis I the Great needed some of the Šubićs' fortresses for his coming wars against Venice, and the city of Zadar in particular.

In 1347 Louis I took their estates around Bribir in the Hrvatsko Primorje hinterlands (they used to be known as "princes of Bribir" ) and gave them the Zrin estate with Zrin Castle in the Croatian region of Banovina, south of the modern city of Petrinja and west of Hrvatska Kostajnica.

The first Zrinski was George III Šubić of Breber (Juraj III. Šubić Bribirski in Croatian), who took the title George I. Zrinski (Juraj I. Zrinski in Croatian). His cousin, princess Helen Šubić (Jelena in Croatian) was at the same time married to Vladislav Kotromanić. Their first-born child, Tvrtko I, became the Ban of Bosnia and from 1377 the King of Bosnia. Their niece and adopted daughter, Elizabeta Kotromanić (Elisabeth of Bosnia), married Louis I the Great. Elizabeth's and Louis' daughters succeeded their father and became queens in their own right, as Mary of Hungary and Jadwiga of Poland.

The Zrinskis were Croats and played a crucial role in the history of the Croatian state, both before their arrival in Zrin and later. On the other hand, they are also identified as hungarus or natio hungarica, which means "somebody from the Kingdom of Hungary", regardless of the language spoken. They were among many noble families in the Kingdom of Hungary.

Because they lived, worked, and intermarried with nobility from all parts of the multiethnic kingdom, it was natural and expected that they should be fluent in four or five languages. It is certain, that Nikola Zrinski spoke at least Croatian, Hungarian, Italian, Turkish and of course Latin. It is of interest that he was the most prominent Hungarian poet in the 17th century, while his brother Peter is known for his poems in Croatian language.

Already by the end of the twelfth century, the Šubić family, whose fief was Breber, held the title of princes. Later, their power steadily increased, so that they acquired the territory between the rivers Krka and Zrmanja and the sea by the 13th century. At the outset of the 14th century, Paul Šubić of Breber governed Bosnia as far as the Drina. Later on, the town of Zrin, by which they gained the epithet Zrinski, fell into their hands. In the 16th century, Ban Nicholas IV Zrinski gained dominion over Medjimurje in the northernmost part of Croatia with its capital Čakovec.

It is not well known that descendants of the Zrinski family are still alive in Greece under the family name "Sdrinias". The common belief is that the noble families Zrinski and Frankopan perished through execution in Wiener Neustadt on April 30, 1671, owing to their role in the so-called Zrinski-Frankopan Plot (in Hungarian historiography called the Wesselényi Plot) against the Emperor Leopold .

Among the many notable personalities of the family, there were a few women. Catherine Zrinski (1625–1673), a noted poet, was born in the Frankopan family, and, having married Petar Zrinski, became the member of the Zrinskis. Her daughter, Helen (Jelena Zrinska in Croatian), was the wife of Francis I Rákóczi, the prince of Transylvania.