Description:

This monograph is an attempt to reconstruct the biography of Ivan Paližna (? – 1391), the Vrana prior, or head of the Knights of St. John in the territory of the Croatian-Hungarian Kingdom. From unknown beginnings, Paližna built his rise with a sword in his hand and in the service of King Louis of Anjou, and his rise was helped by the chaotic situation within the Knights of St. John, which he skillfully exploited. After Louis's death, he was active in the dynastic turmoil on the Croatian-Hungarian throne, rebelling for unknown reasons against the legitimate authority of Queens Elizabeth Kotromanić and Mary of Anjou, and he later continued his struggle against Mary's fiancé, King Sigismund of Luxembourg. At the peak of his career, in an equally chaotic situation within the Croatian-Hungarian Kingdom, he also obtained the title of ban, and in Dalmatia in the first half of 1387 he behaved like a true lord. But because of all this, Paližna also presented a distorted image of the knightly ideal, one that does not recognize obedience, purity and poverty. With his actions, Paližna did not only leave behind the spirit of the Middle Ages – older Croatian historians, in addition to being impressed by his military skill, were also “stunned” by his cooperation with the Bosnian king Stjepan Tvrtko, a ruler who also knew how to skillfully exploit the dynastic turmoil in the Croatian-Hungarian Kingdom and expand his possessions. Since Paližna collaborated with Tvrtko against the “foreigner” Sigismund, with their romantic view of Paližna’s actions, these Croatian historians, in addition to the Croatian, also built a future “Yugoslav” national identity in the spirit of the idea of ​​South Slavic “brotherhood and unity”, uncritically seeing in Paližna a fighter for South Slavic liberation from foreign rule, but also often overemphasizing his cooperation with Tvrtko without any arguments, outside the methodologies of historical science.