| General Description : |
Koprivnica Koprivnica entered the written history being first mentioned in 1272 in a document, a typical medieval deed of gift by which the Croatian-Hungarian King Ladislas The Cuman presented to the duke, knight and governor of the Castrum Kopurnicha (the Koprivnica fort) called Bakaler an estate as the reward for the protection he had offered him while he was imprisoned in the Koprivnica jail. The name of the settlement is derived from the name of the rivulet Koprivnica, fluvium Quopurniche, whose first mention reaches back to the beginning of the 13th century found in several documents of King Andrew II of the Árpád dynasty. The social and economic development of Koprivnica in the course of several decades of the 14th century, on the basis of legal benefits, brought the town to the status of free royal town granted by Louis I Angevin on November 4, 1356. According the provisions of the charter the citizens of Koprivnica had the obligation of paying the king every new year, through their deputation to Visegrad, 40 marks or 8,000 denars (the quantity of 8 kilos of silver), which speaks for the economic strength of the town. The charter was drawn up according to the model of the benefits of Gradec in Zagreb contained in the Golden Bull from the year 1242; its provisions became an excellent basis for an independent social and economic development of the town through centuries to come. In the course of the 15th century the town of Koprivnica was ruled by King Sigismund of the House of Luxembourg, the Zagreb bishop Ivan Alben, the Counts of Celje, King Matthias Corvinus and the bans Ernušt. The reputation and significance of the town of Koprivnica at the beginning of the 16th century can be proved by the data that on September 23, 1526, less than a month after the Battle of Mohacz between the Croatian-Hungarian armies and the Ottomans, there was an assembly convened at the Ernušt court. It was the assembly of the Croatian-Slavonian Kingdom where the ban Krsto Frankopan of Brinje was elected “guardian and defender” of the Kingdom. In 1532 the town of Koprivnica was faced by the Ottomans for the first time. After the second unsuccessful attempt of the siege of Vienna and the defeat of Nikola Jurišić at Kiseg the Ottomans were returning in the direction of Slavonia under the leadership of Sultan Suleyman I the Magnificent, the Lawgiver. It was his first and only passage though the Croatian lands. The town had undergone several hardships caused by the Ottoman troops that set fire to and plundered the town’s suburbs, most particularly the suburb Miklinovec, for the first time in 1557 and then again in the years 1574, 1575 and 1578. In order to secure the defence against the Ottomans, the Croatian assembly, sabor, at its meeting in Zagreb in 1567 passed the decision on the restoration and modernizing of the fortification of Koprivnica, turning it into a Renaissance lowland earth-work fortification. It was built according to the then valid perceptions and solutions of the North-Italian and Dutch military architecture that specially appreciated the use of guns in military operations. The town of Koprivnica had then become a captaincy in the system of the Slavonian Military Border with the headquarters of the general staff in Varaždin. Until the year 1670, the fortification of Koprivnica was the most modern and best equipped fortification between the rivers Drava and Sava, having the task of defending “the reliquiae reliquiarum of the Croatian Kingdom”. Up to the peace agreement signed in Karlowitz (Srijemski Karlovci) in 1699, Koprivnica continued to live and put up with the permanent danger of the Ottomans and the dualism of the present Military-border oligarchy and the town magistrate that defended the citizens’ rights given them by the status of the free and royal town. Despite the Ottoman danger, the thirties of the 17th century were the times of the beginning of the economic and demographic revival of Koprivnica. Owing to the king’s decisions coming from Vienna, three fairs a year were allowed; three craft guilds were active till the end of the century – the combined guild of blacksmiths, locksmiths, sword makers, harness-makers, saddlers and goldsmiths, and there were also the bootmakers’ and butchers’ guilds; they all supplied with their handicraft products the military crew and the civilian population of the town and its surroundings. In the course of the 18th century the baroque revival of the town took place. In the fortification a number of buildings were erected (the town hall – nowadays the town museum and armory), and there was also new construction in the part of the town under the fortified place, both on the northern and north-western edge of the fortification (the present Zrinski Square, Ban Jelačić Square and the Antun Nemčić Street). Following the decision of the Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa from the year 1765, the headquarters of the general staff was moved from Koprivnica to Bjelovar, which thus separated the town from the Slavonian Military Border and joined it to the civilian Croatia. This, naturally, meant an additional stimulus for the social and economic development of the town. In 1787, as part of the overall modernization, the postal service was introduced and the first post office building was probably located on the Florian Square. From the time of the Croatian National Revival all through to the end of the century, in the social and public life – through the activities of the theatre, library, political parties, town newspapers – the ideas of the actively engaged citizens were realized. Thus we find mentioned a theatre association in the year 1837, the first theatre performance in the mother tongue, Croatian, was performed in 1847 in the overfilled municipal town theatre. The reading room (casino) was established in 1846. Based on the project of the town gardener Dragutin Ruhl who attained the horticultural education and training practicing in the then Austrian-Hungarian town of Graz, from 1891 to 1893 the entire town park was planted in the English and French landscape gardening design. The wooden music pavilion was erected to the order of the town authorities and located in the park’s centre after the end of the millennium exhibition in Budapest in 1896. The dynamic economic development of the town started in 1870 when within the framework of the imperial Austrian-Hungarian traffic policy the railway line Budapest – Zakany – Koprivnica – Zagreb was opened for traffic and the continuation of the line to Rijeka was soon built. At the beginning of the 20th century, in the mandate of the mayor Josip Vargović (1906 – 1913), there begins the time of industrialization, starting with the construction of the factory of chemical products Danica d.d. that employed five hundred workers. Data about the business running in several financial institutions illustrate the dynamic of the economy in the town up to the First World War, namely the town’s Savings Bank, The People’s Bank, the Croatian Savings Bank and the Koprivnica Bank. The business of Danica with the later constructed screw factory and the strong crafts organization marked and strongly influenced the structure of the economy of Koprivnica and the social development of the town all through to the Second World War. In the course of the second half of the 20th century the dynamic of the construction of the town, economy and social life was determined and in greatest measure directed by Podravka – the food-processing factory, nowadays the food-processing world-wide oriented industry Podravka d.d. There is also the wood industry Bilokalnik, Renotex, Rapid, Sloga and the commercial enterprise Izvor. At the referendum of the year 1991, out of the 93% of the voters who went to the polls in the Koprivnica municipality, 96% declared themselves for the proposition of Croatia becoming a sovereign European state. Numerous citizens of Koprivnica and the Podravina basin region defended this decision participating in various military units in the Homeland War from 1991 to 1995. There is also an interesting data on the coincidence of the shelling of the Koprivnica barracks on the same day and at the same time on October 7, 1991, when the seat of the Croatian government, Banski dvori in Zagreb, was also shelled. In 1993 the Town Council reached the decision by which November 4 was proclaimed the Day of the town of Koprivnica. |
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