Location: Jajce, Central Bosnia Canton Map
Constructed: 14th century by Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić
The entire old town in Jajce is surrounded by a fortress wall.
The city rises up a steep pyramidal hill, which is crowned with a
citadel. From the southwest, Jajce is protected by the Pliva River,
from the southeast by the Vrbas River, and from the other sides by
sheer cliffs.
According to archaeological research, already
in the 13th century there was a fortification with three towers on
the top of the hill. It was one of a chain of forts built along the
caravan route that ran along the Vrbas River and then turned towards
Split. The names of the rest of the fortresses (Vesela Strazha,
Vinats, Bochats, Greben, Zvechay) and modest remains of towers and
walls have been preserved, and a different fate awaited the fort
over the junction of Pliva and Vrbas.
The Duke of Hrvoe
Vukcic Hrvatinich liked this place, and he decided to build a large
beautiful fortress. As a model, he took a fortress near Naples
called Uovo, which means “egg” in translation. The first mention of
the fortress dates back to 1396, initially without a name. A few
years later, the fortress has already received a name, and this name
is Yaytse.
At the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, Hrvoe
Vukcic turned a small fort into a monumental structure with powerful
towers and thick walls ending in crowns. Outside the fortress walls,
the church of St. Mary, and next to her the Duke of Hrvoe began to
build an underground church-tomb, later called the Catacombs.
In 1416, Hrvoe Khrvatinich died, before having lost interest in
both the Egg and the tomb - it remained unfinished. But the city
continues to grow and develop. Toward the middle of the 15th
century, it becomes the city of the Bosnian kings and acquires a
splendor corresponding to its status.
The walls descend to
natural barriers - sheer cliffs and river banks, a powerful Bear
Tower is being built. Inside the new city perimeter, a monastery of
the Franciscan order, the church of St. Catherine, and on the top of
the hill, in the citadel, the royal chambers, the church of St. Mary
is rebuilt in the Gothic style, and a bell tower appears next to it,
where the influence of the Renaissance is already noticeable.
In 1461, the coronation of Stepan Tomashevich Kotromanich takes
place in Jajce, and two years later the Kingdom of Bosnia ceases to
exist, and this happens in Jajce, where the last king signs the
order to surrender all the fortresses to the Ottomans.
True,
the Ottomans did not hold Yajce for long, six months later they were
driven out of this part of Bosnia by the Hungarians. Several decades
passed before the final conquest of the territories of Bosnia and
Herzegovina by the Ottomans.
Since 1527, the Ottoman
conquerors settled densely in Yajtse and began to rebuild the
fortress and the city to their liking. The towers were converted
into bastions. Later, mounds were made inside the walls of the
citadel for the installation of large cannons. In the center of the
citadel was built a squat tower - a powder store - and a mesjid, a
small mosque for the garrison.
The old town of Jaice has the shape of an irregular quadrangle, it is
surrounded by a fortress wall on three sides, a wall is not needed from
the Vrbas side - the coast there is high and sloppy, it is a reliable
defense in itself.
There are three bastions and one tower on the
northern side, the Bear Tower protects the southwestern corner, and
getting close from the western side is not an easy task, there is a
sheer cliff that turns into a high wall of the citadel.
In the
old days, one could enter the city through one of the three gates:
Travnichsky, Banyaluchsky or Gloomy. A tower still towers above the
Travniči Gate, a tower stands nearby near the Banialuči Gate, and the
Gloomy Gate was demolished back in the 19th century, now there is just a
hole in the wall.
The upper part of the hill is occupied by the citadel, the fortress
from which the city of Jajce began. You can enter the citadel through a
narrow gate in the southwestern wall. Once upon a time, instead of these
small gates, the fortress was entered through a spectacular Gothic
portal, more in line with the royal status of the city. But it was
necessary to make the wall thicker, and the portal was walled up. The
coat of arms of the royal dynasty of the Kotromanichs, for some unknown
reason, is mirrored, reminiscent of its former greatness.
The
walls of the citadel are thicker than those of the city, the outer wall
is about six meters thick. There is another gate in this wall,
previously intended for a surprise attack, but now they are not used.
Towers were built on the northwest and southeast corners in the 15th
century, and later the Ottomans turned them into bastions.
Not
far from the entrance to the fortress, a well is still preserved,
however, it needs to be cleaned. Closer to the eastern wall is a squat
turret. This is a gunpowder store built by the Ottomans. The thickness
of its walls is two meters, and the ceiling is vaulted: reasonable
precautions in case of an explosion of gunpowder.
Next door is
another building of a somewhat less archaic appearance. This is a water
tower built by the Austrians at the end of the 19th century. It is still
functioning.
From the walls of the citadel there is a
breathtaking view of the Pliva valley, the Vrbas canyon, and from the
eastern wall of the entire old town.
Relics from the Bronze and Iron Ages were found in the town area. A
first permanent settlement of the area is revealed by the oldest
existing monument, a temple of the god Mithras from the 4th century AD.
Jajce was founded in 1396 by Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić, Duke of
Bosnia. At that time, the duke from Split had a fortress built at the
confluence of the Pliva and Vrbas and named it Jajce. In the 15th
century a town developed below the fortress. The Bosnian King Tvrtko II
(1421-1444) made Jajce his royal seat. It gained not only political but
also economic importance as the center of the Bosnian state and can be
considered the "first capital of Bosnia". However, this heyday ended in
1463. Stjepan Tomašević was crowned as the last Bosnian king in November
1461 by papal legate Nikola of Modruš, a Dalmatian humanist[1], in Jajce
before he was captured and executed by the Ottomans in 1463. In the same
year they took the city for the first time, but were repelled by the
Hungarians. Their king Matthias Corvinus established the "Banat Jajce"
in 1464.
Ivaniš Berislavić, a Croatian nobleman, was a banus of
Jajce from 1504 to 1514. His task was to protect the borders of Croatia,
which was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, from Ottoman attacks. After
the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the city came under the Ottoman Empire.
From July 29, 1878, Austro-Hungarian troops occupied Bosnia and
Herzegovina in accordance with the decisions of the Berlin Congress.
Jajce itself was cast on August 7th. Earlier there had been fighting in
the vicinity of the city.
During World War II, Jajce was the
scene of important political events due to its location in unoccupied
territory. From November 21 to 29, 1943, the 2nd assembly of the
Antifascist People's Liberation Council (AVNOJ) met in the building of
the former Sokol gymnastics club, at which historical resolutions were
passed and the federal concept for socialist Yugoslavia was developed
(AVNOJ resolutions). Therefore, Jajce is considered the founding place
of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
About 45,000
people lived in Jajce before the Bosnian War; today the municipality has
around 30,000 inhabitants, mostly Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks. Tensions
repeatedly arose when war refugees returned, and one person died in
1997. During the war, the western districts of the municipality of Jajce
split off and today form the municipality of Jezero in the Republic of
Srpska.