History Professors Participated in Conference “Zrin – 730 Years Since the First Recorded Mention”

On Friday, 24 October 2025, a scientific and professional conference with international participation titled “Zrin – 730 Years Since the First Recorded Mention” was held to mark the 730th anniversary of the first historical mention of Zrin. The event brought together numerous distinguished historians, archaeologists, linguists, museum professionals, and cultural workers from Croatia and abroad, as reported by the Media Office of the Diocese of Sisak.

Throughout the day, four thematic sessions were held, featuring 19 presentations that introduced new insights into the history, archaeology, language, architecture, and cultural heritage of Zrin — from its medieval beginnings and the era of the Zrinski family, through the 19th and 20th centuries and the tragic events of World War II, to modern projects focused on heritage preservation and presentation.

Prof. Hrvoje Kekez, Ph.D., from the Department of History at the Catholic University of Croatia, emphasized in his opening address the fruitful collaboration between the Diocese of Sisak, the Croatian Institute of History, and the Catholic University of Croatia, which has already produced numerous scholarly conferences and proceedings on important historical topics. In the first session, he delivered a lecture titled “The Fortress of Zrin as the Possible Original Seat of the Medieval County of Gora” and later moderated the second session, “Zrin in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period.”

In that same session, assistant Matea Jurić Matulić presented her lecture “‘Und ist das Stammhaus derer Grafen von Zerin / And It Is the Ancestral Seat of the Counts of Zrin’ – The Fall of the Fortress of Zrin in 1577 in the Mirror of Early Modern Chroniclers.”

The conference was organized by the Diocese of Sisak, the Croatian Institute of History, the Catholic University of Croatia, and the Local Action Group UNA, with the support of the Sisak-Moslavina County and the Municipality of Dvor. Its goal was to bring together current research on Zrin and to highlight its significance in Croatian history, culture, and identity.

During the breaks, participants and visitors had the opportunity to try minting replicas of Zrinski coins from the Gvozdansko mint, created as part of the project “Zrinski Coins – The Metallurgical Future of Banovina.” The project is carried out by the Cultural and Historical Centre of the Sisak-Moslavina County, in cooperation with the Faculty of Metallurgy in Sisak (University of Zagreb) and the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb.