Famous persons
People from history, from the region onwards, associated with the Kupa areaa
Nikola Šubić Zrinski (1508. – 1566.), «stup i štit hrvatski, grada sigetskog glavar i prvi strah turski vijeka svoga».
Friderica Slavomira Olga Raškaj
SLAVA RAŠKAJ
Slava Raškaj (whose full name was Friderica Slavomira Olga Raškaj) was born on 2nd of January 1877 in Ozalj. She attended elementary and secondary school in Vienna, in the institute for deaf and mute children, from 1883 to 1892. Her watercolours are considered among the best of Croatian art of the late 19th and early 20th century. She emphasised the atmosphere of the specific moment in a unique and fresh manner
In the Ozalj museum, as a part of the permanent collection, you can find numerous drawings, watercolours and pastels from the brush of this wonderful princess of Croatian watercolours.
NIKOLA ŠUBIĆ ZRINSKI
Nikola Šubić Zrinski (1508 – 1566) was the pillar and shield of Croatia, leader of the town of Szigeth and the person whom Turks feared. Even German authors write about this hero of Szigeth and Hungarians consider him their national hero as well. He was a warrior since early youth; he stood out in defending Vienna when he was 21 (1529) and in 1542, he saved Pest from certain doom, alongside 400 Croats. The entire Europe admired his heroism and he was dubbed the new Leonidas.
ANA KATARINA FRANKOPAN ZRINSKI
(1625. -1673.)
She was known as an educated woman and a great patron of Croatian culture. As the first woman in Croatia under a count rule, she was engaged in translation and writing her own literary texts. She stood resolutely alongside her husband Petar and helped him in his political matters. The recently uncovered poems written by the talented Katarina have been published under the name Raj duše (A Heaven for the Soul). She knew German, Hungarian, Latin and Italian. At home in Ozalj in 1660, she wrote the prayer book called Putni tovaruš (Travelling Companion), which is one of the most famous literary works of the Croatian baroque because of its linguistic and style characteristics.
IVAN BELOSTENAC
(1594. -1675.)
He was a member of the Ozalj literary and language circle, Croatian lexicographer and linguist and the first prior of the Pauline monastery in Svetice. His life’s work is the large encyclopaedic Illyrian – Latin and Latin – Illyrian trilingual dictionary Gazophylacium. With the dedication of a scientist and the inspiration of a poet, Ivan Belostenec gathered the riches of Croatian language differences and stored them in his treasury for decades. He gathered around 40,000 words on 2,000 pages.
(1643. -1671.)
FRAN KRSTO FRANKOPAN
Nobleman, poet, translator and Senj captain Fran Krsto Frankopan (1643 – 1671) was the most famous and the most intellectually developed of the Frankopans. A hero at times of war and a dignified poet at times of peace, he wrote the lost and found later in the 19th century Gartlic za čas kratiti (Garden of repose).
Fran Krsto Frankopan, half-brother of Katarina Zrinski, the youngest son of the Karlovac general Vuk Frankopan, was schooled in Zagreb, where he developed a taste for books and writing. In order to continue with his education, he went to Italy, where he studied Italian poetry and met a famous Roman patrician woman called Juliana de Naro, whom he later married. When he returned to his homeland, he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a captain in Ogulin. He was one of the main organisers of the historical Zrinsko-Frankopan conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow foreign influences over Hungary and Croatia. Because of his participation in the conspiracy, he was executed in Wiener Neustadt on 30th of April 1671.
JURAJ KRIŽANIĆ
Juraj Jurko Križanić was born in 1618 to father Gašpar, Zrinski’s officer, and mother Suzana in the castle Obrh near Ribnik in the parish church of Saint Elijah under Lipnik, where he was baptised. The castle was located on a hill over the left bank of the creek Obrh and the foundations are still discernible today. Juraj Križanić had a versatile education and was a very talented person. He was successful at theology, language, philosophy, economy and politics. He was universally aimed, a dreamer, a modest, hard-working and persistent sufferer and martyr with terrible ups and downs. He is often regarded as the earliest recorded pan-Slavist. People say that he worked for the glory of God and the wellbeing of our homeland, from which his devotion to God and patriotism stem.
JOHN MALKOVICH
John Gavin Malkovich was born in Christopher in the state of Illinois in the family of Croatian immigrants from Ozalj on his father’s side and German and Scottish immigrants from his mother’s side. He is famous for a number of recognised roles in films, which have won many awards.
GEORGE MIKAN
George Lawrence Mikan Jr. (18th June 1924 – 1st June 2005), nicknamed “Mr. Basketball”, was an American professional basketball player for the Chicago American Gears of the National Basketball League (NBL) and the Minneapolis Lakers of the NBL, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). Invariably playing with thick, round spectacles, with his 208 centimetres and 111 kilograms, Mikan is seen as one of the biggest basketball players of all time and one of the pioneers of professional basketball. Mikan was born in Joliet, Illinois, to a Croatian father, Joseph, and a Lithuanian mother, Minnie, along with brothers Joe and Ed and sister Marie. His grandfather, Juraj (George) Mikan was born in Vivodina, Croatia, which had then been a part of Austria-Hungary.
EMIL LASZOWSKI
In Kamanje or rather in the near Brlog Grad above the river Kupa, Emilij Laszowski, the founder of the Croatian State Archives and the founder of Brethren of the Croatian Dragon, was born.
TADIJA SMIČIKLAS
In the village Reštovo near Kamanje, Tadija Smičiklas, a Croatian politician and historian, was born.
Kurilovac 1, 47280 Ozalj, HR Hrvatska,
OIB: 58156185970, MB: 5210003,
IBAN: HR5724020061100957635