Professor Kekez Publishes Scientific Monograph on the Battle of Krbava Field in 1493

A scientific monograph by Prof. Dr. Sc. Hrvoje Kekez on the Battle of Krbava Field in 1493, titled The Battle of Krbava Field in 1493. Context, Course, Consequences, and Perception, has recently been published. The book was published by the Institute of History of the Research Centre for the Humanities of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest as part of the prestigious series Mohács 1526-2026. Reconstruction and Remembrance, and it is the result of work on the projects "The Battle of Krbava Field in 1493 – Context, Course, Consequences, and Perception," carried out at the Catholic University of Croatia, and "The 'Battle of the Croats' Project – Archaeological Investigations of the Battle of Krbava Field in 1493," carried out at the Croatian Conservation Institute with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia.

On September 9, 1493, a major battle took place on the Krbava Field below Udbina, in the area of present-day central Croatia. There, Ottoman forces under the command of the Bosnian Sanjak-bey Hadim Yakup Bey clashed with a Christian army composed predominantly of units from Croatia, Slavonia, and Hungary, under the leadership of Ban Emerik Derenčin. The conflict ended in a catastrophic defeat for the Christian army. Numerous Croatian and Slavonian nobles were killed, and the defeat accelerated the emigration of the local population toward safer areas to the northwest and south. For this reason, the Battle of Krbava occupies one of the central places in Croatian historiography, intellectual discourse, and collective memory as one of the most significant episodes of the wars with the Ottoman Empire on the Croatian historical borderland.
 

This monograph represents the first attempt at a comprehensive study of not only the battle itself, but also the events that preceded it, its immediate and long-term consequences, and the way it was remembered and interpreted during the following centuries. Special attention is paid to the Ottoman threat to the areas of Lika and Krbava in the second half of the 15th century, the political and military circumstances that led to the battle, the location of the battlefield, the composition of the opposing forces, the course of the conflict, its consequences, the question of responsibility for the defeat, and the place of the Battle of Krbava in modern nation-building processes, collective memory, and myth-history.