Catherine of Bosnia (princess)

Catherine of Bosnia (Serbo-Croatian: Katarina Tomašević Kotromanić/Катарина Томашевић Котроманић; born in 1453) was a member of the House of Kotromanić and the last Bosnian princess. She was the only daughter of King Thomas and Queen Catherine, who also had a son named Sigismund. When Thomas died, in July 1461, the Bosnian crown devolved upon her older half-brother, Stephen Tomašević. Catherine and Sigismund are popularly said to have moved at that time with their mother to the castle of Kozograd above Fojnica. It is likely, however, that they remained at the royal court in Jajce, being their half-brother's closest heirs. In 1463, the Ottomans led by Mehmed the Conqueror invaded Bosnia. The royal family apparently decided to split and flee towards Croatia proper and the coast in different directions to confuse and mislead the invaders. Sigismund and Catherine, separated from their mother, were nevertheless captured in the town of Zvečaj, close to Jajce. Their half-brother the King was deceived into surrendering in Ključ, and was executed shortly afterwards. Queen Catherine succeeded in escaping and eventually settled in Rome.

The fate of Sigismund following the fall of Bosnia is relatively well-known – he embraced Islam, becoming known as Ishak Bey the King's Son, and built a career as a high-ranking Ottoman statesman. Very little is known about Catherine, however, besides the fact that she too became Muslim. The siblings' conversion, as well as Ottoman education, may have been instigated by their uncle, Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha, a half-brother of their mother who had also converted and attained highest-ranking posts in the Ottoman Empire. According to a hypothesis of the Serbian historian Gligorije Elezović, the guardianship of the princess was entrusted to Isa-Beg Isaković, the sanjakbey of Skopje who may have been her maternal granduncle, in whose household she converted.

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