My husband! My husband! My husband! Dry, you see, are my eyes, yet I do not wish to hide my love.

Begging you, forgive me: never again, moved with feeling, on your return from battle shall I be able to embrace you.

I am ready for death/ nor do I fear it when the executioner swings his sword, I shall hold myself with pride, as a nobleman and a Croat.

Grieve not at all/ Let me be a woman, let me wail, let me moan, let me tear my own heart apart.

Mate Marčinko

The wedding of Ana Katarina Frankopan and Petar Zrinski took place in Karlovac, with the celebration held in Ozalj on 27 October 1641. It united the most powerful Croatian noble families, the Zrinski and the Frankopan. They had four children: Jelena, Judita Petronila, Ivan Antun Baltazar and Aurora Veronika.

Katarina married Petar at the age of 16, and from then on lived with her husband in Ozalj, occasionally also visiting Čakovec, to which she would move with her husband after the tragic death of his brother, the Croatian ban Nikola Zrinski. She also stayed from time to time at other Zrinski and Frankopan estates – in Vrbovec, on Grobnik, in Kraljevica and in Novi Bribir. All these estates were not merely working farms but also centres of public and cultural life, where Croatian was spoken, in the Kajkavian, Čakavian and Štokavian dialects alike, where people wrote and debated world and national affairs, and where literature, art and culture were cultivated.

We present the marital, family and patriotic story of Petar and Katarina Zrinski, and his farewell letter to his beloved wife before his execution.

"Everyone talked animatedly around the table, and this pleased the ban. He too was joking that evening, cheerful among his children. Katarina was kind to everyone, but it happened more than once that she fell into thought: when she looked at Petar and the children, she would not, at first, hear what someone had said to her. She was happy with her children, yet it was precisely this great happiness that troubled her peace, for she would think that things might have been otherwise…Out of the same happiness springs unhappiness. Whoever loves does not live at peace. Such were the thoughts that swarmed through the mother’s mind.

And her Petar?...There he is, so healthy and robust, good and dear, smiling at the children and at her…She alone could guess his thoughts, she alone noticed how, several times, his joyful laughter dissolved into wistfulness…Now they sat down on the couch, and talked for a long time about the mission to Constantinople, about their homeland and about their children. Little by little every anxiety and agitation passed, and a bright hope sprouted in their hearts and lit up their faces. They found all their strength in their love too: they honoured, loved and adored one another, as though they had stepped over the flower of lovage (the flower of happiness) on the eve of their wedding."

Ana Katarina Frankopan was born in Bosiljevo around 1625 — died in Graz on 16 November 1673. She was exceptionally gifted as a writer and is remembered as the greatest female name in seventeenth-century Croatian literature. She had the reputation of a brilliant diplomat who spoke German, Hungarian and Italian, and who wrote not only in Croatian but also in Latin. Ana Katarina Frankopan, the wife of Petar Zrinski, who was one of the most educated women of her time, devoted great care to the family and to the upbringing of their four children. Regardless of her maternal duties, as the rich correspondence testifies, Katarina was a true administrator – she looked after the economic development of the family estates, encouraged many activities and undertakings, determined the rights and duties of the serfs and commoners, influenced the way they lived, and sought to advise and instruct them. She took an active part in the Zrinski-Frankopan conspiracy, at times inspiring and directing it, influencing decisions taken and undertaking diplomatic activities herself. As the ban’s wife, she watched over order, cleanliness and good conduct in the land.

Petar Zrinski was born on 6 July 1621 in Vrbovec, and died in Wiener Neustadt on 30 June 1671; he is remembered as Croatian ban, military commander and poet, a member of the noble Zrinski family. He became Croatian ban in 1665, after the death of his brother Nikola. How brilliant a warrior and how great a hero he was is best shown by the fact that the king called Petar "the shield of Christendom and the terror of the Turks". "As a knight and an excellent soldier, he was adorned by many other virtues too, and from his youth he staked his life a hundred times over, fighting against the enemy."

Kumičić: "At Ozalj a strange stillness settled in. Petar was at peace for about two months, and wished to enjoy his family’s happiness to the full, though he often thought that a storm might soon break. For hours at a time he would walk in the woods, return weary to the manor, sit in the library, sunk in thought, of which there was much. Suddenly a great longing would seize him to caress his children, to gaze his fill at Zora and Ivan, and he would call them to him, and was overjoyed, holding them on his knees, listening to their joyful jokes, their cheerful chatter. The children always fussed over him, wound their arms around his neck and kissed him. Katarina rejoiced at this, for she knew that in this way he was resting, that his spirit would grow stronger still. With her Petar was extraordinarily tender: he would gaze into her eyes and her face, she seemed beautiful and dear to him, she seemed young to him, he had always loved and adored her immeasurably, and now he thought it was not enough. He would look at her for a long time, altogether blissful, and press her hand, as one presses the hand of a girl to whom one wishes to say that one loves her, and then Katarina would smile at him…In her smile he saw all her happiness and his own, all the joyful days they had lived through together in love. He would blush as she did, and everything he could not put into words, he told her with a sacred kiss, drawing her to his breast."

To the nobles and members of the family gathered around the table in Čakovec, he spoke thus: " Honourable, noble, respected lords, my faithful ones! I raise this cup to your good health, and I wish, from the depths of my heart, that within a year the holy feast of Christmas may dawn upon us in a free Croatia. All our thoughts will be all the more truly our own the more we devote them to the service of our homeland, to which we shall sacrifice, should it be necessary, our own bodies as readily as if they belonged to another. None of us will know any other celebration than the fulfilment of our duty. Whoever wishes to shed his blood for the fatherland, how can he be ashamed to ask of it his grave? We shall sacrifice everything except honour. Honour is more precious than blood, for blood is sacrificed for the fatherland, but honour never for anything. And let this too be borne in mind: so that a people does not lose its own right, it must sometimes also defend the right of others. I judge that the new year will be one of the most important, one of the most decisive in the history of our kingdom. It could happen that the sun rises upon us, or that an even greater darkness destroys us, yet I am firmly convinced that God will not allow His chosen Croatian people to perish. Yes: a chosen people, for God gave our people this land, that it might stand against the assaults on His holy faith. This land had to be settled by a brave people, for only such a people could halt the Asian flood that sought to overwhelm even Rome itself! God is the supreme leader of every people. He brought the Croatian people into this beautiful land. In His omniscience He assigned to our people a great and glorious task: to defend Christendom from its most terrible enemy. A people cannot be destroyed if it can show, through its own history, that it has done something for humanity! They can take everything from us, but they cannot take our history. No one can take it from us! Its glory shines forth mightily, and that age-old splendour cannot be dimmed. Our history is written in martyrs’ blood, interwoven with the faith of Jesus, and just as that faith is eternal, so too is the glory of the Croatian heroes who fell for it eternal. Sooner or later our people will tear apart its heavy chains, sooner or later this land, which God Himself gave us, will belong to it alone!"

It was Katarina who prepared her husband and brother for the journey to Vienna, to captivity and a martyr’s death. None of those present even suspected the tragedy of that parting. Katarina did not shed a single tear for her loved ones; she returned to her room and burned the letters which she judged it unwise to let fall into imperial hands. Petar says: "In a word, I did what I could to fend off the misfortunes gathering over my head; and although I could easily have done wrong, I did not do so, but always put it off, so that my sin had no consequences." He ended with the words: "May the name of the Lord nonetheless be blessed through all of this!"

Katarina was kneeling before the image of the Blessed Virgin, her hands clasped. When Petar entered the bedchamber, she rose from her kneeler, held out her right hand to him, looked at him tenderly and sadly, suddenly turned pale, let her head sink onto his shoulder, but quickly lifted her face again and looked into his eyes. Both hers and his were dry. Neither could utter a word. Looking at her with unspeakable sadness, he trembled, embraced her and kissed her, then pressed her right hand to his heart, and from the depths of his soul these three words broke from him: "God keep you! - And you too! - Go with God!" Katarina answered him, in pain and stifled emotion.

After her husband and brother left for Vienna, Katarina was driven out of the plundered house in Čakovec and confined in a convent in Graz.

Katarina writes to Prince Lobkowitz, asking for help: "I no longer know what to do in my misery. I cannot regain my health at all, and I am dying while still alive. Alas, I have no means of livelihood for myself, nor any support in my weakness. For although I have lost everything, I nevertheless demand that I — as far as my wretched person is concerned — be regarded as an honest woman, and that I not be disgraced along with my innocent little daughter, who is with me in this misery. Behold, it is now the ninth month that I have had no word at all of my beloved husband and my only son. My ten-year-old little daughter and I find ourselves here in Graz in so harsh a confinement that no one is allowed near us except the priest who celebrates Holy Mass. So, you see, I cannot speak with anyone to reveal the great sorrows that I, a poor and sick woman, must endure. May Your Majesty permit that my only daughter, Zora Veronika — as the staff of my grief-stricken old age, as the comfort of an abandoned widow, and as the guardian of my illness — not be separated from me. She will be raised in diligence and virtue, in noble customs and in handiwork." Yet her daughter Zora was separated from her mother and placed in a convent in Klagenfurt.

Katarina, worn out by illness and by tragedy, died in the Dominican convent in Graz at the age of 48.

In the best years of her life she followed the tradition of her family and encouraged the printing of books intended for a wider circle of readers. These were mostly prayer books, the most popular and often the only reading matter of the few literate Croats, and especially of the Croatian women of her time. She was aware that too few books were printed in Croatian; she was not satisfied with this and wanted to change it. She points to this as the motive for her writing in Putni tovaruš: "of almost all the languages in the world, it is Croatian that today has the fewest printed books". In this brief statement of purpose, Katarina quite clearly reveals her fundamental philosophical and political views, and shows herself, to put it in modern terms, a gender-conscious person who addresses herself not to men and women separately but to people of both sexes, without dividing them by rank or merit. She addresses herself in particular to travellers and pilgrims, pointing out that her prayer book takes up little space and requires little care or expense: "it asks nothing else but that a person look into it as into a spiritual mirror, and pray to God, call upon the saints, and win the soul’s salvation for himself and his neighbour".

With this prayer book she wished to offer comfort to all who suffered because of the wars with the Turks, illness and epidemics, frequent famine, the crude tyranny and mercilessness of the imperial army, because of the reality that shaped the everyday life of the Croatian, Hungarian and, in part, Slovenian population in the area between Ozalj and Čakovec:

"For no other purpose in this world

was man created by God’s hands,

than that, when to his noble soul

He gave a place amid the earthly paradise,

he should walk here in such a way,

should so live and journey,

that in death he be found righteous

and reign in heaven.

For God made many paths,

many roads and many ways,

that by them people might make their way

to the heavenly homeland.

Turn back, O man,

turn back, for you have already

strayed enough, faithless one,

because of your careless living;

abandon now the crooked paths,

ah, for the sake of your salvation,

set out now, yourself, at last,

away from everlasting perdition."

The prayer book Putni Tovaruš is the fruit of Katarina’s sincere love for God and for her neighbour. This devotion to God and the Catholic Church has been alive in the Frankopan family from the very moment the Frankopans first stepped onto the Croatian historical stage, building and endowing churches and monasteries. Without accusing others, she showed, even in the hardest moments of her life, great maternal care for her children and for Petar, taking upon herself, on every occasion, responsibility for everything of which he was accused. 

Together with his brother-in-law Fran Krsto Frankopan, Petar Zrinski continued the struggle for Croatia’s rights begun by his brother Nikola, and thus allied himself with the leading Hungarian nobles, launching the famous Zrinski-Frankopan conspiracy, which ended on 30 April 1671 in Wiener Neustadt with the execution of Petar Zrinski and Fran Krsto Frankopan. 

Before his execution, he wrote a letter to his beloved, remembered ever since for its opening words, "Moje drago Serce" (My dear heart). The letter was never delivered to her. Her husband sends her his last farewell and begs her forgiveness. Petar is a broken and humiliated man, from whom everything that could be taken has been taken. His only hope is almighty God, before whose throne the two of them will one day be reunited together »in everlasting glory«. He sends her and their daughter Aurora Veronika God’s blessing.

My dear heart

To my dearest lady, companion of my house,

For now, a widow,

Countess Ana Katarina Zrinski

My dear heart. Do not grieve or be troubled because of this letter. By God’s decree, tomorrow at ten o’clock they will cut off my head and your brother’s. Today we bade each other a heartfelt farewell. And so today, with this letter, I too wish to take my leave of you, and I beg your forgiveness if I have ever troubled you in anything or wronged you in anything. Thank God, I am ready for death and do not fear it. I trust in almighty God, who has humbled me in this world, that He will have mercy on me, and I shall pray to Him (I believe, indeed, that tomorrow, when I come to Him) that the two of us may meet before His holy throne in everlasting glory. I no longer know what else to write to you. I have left everything to God’s will. Do not grieve, for it had to be so.

In Wiener Neustadt (Austria), on the last day of my life, 29 April at seven in the evening, in the year 1671. May the Lord God bless you together with my daughter Aurora Veronika.

Count Petar Zrinski

Dražen Budiša prepared the edition Moje drago srce. Pismo Petra Zrinskoga Katarini Zrinski u suvremenim prijevodima (My Dear Heart. Petar Zrinski’s Letter to Katarina Zrinski in Modern Translations), in which the letter is translated into several languages. For him it is "one of the most moving texts ever written in the Croatian language. It is the last page of a man who calls his wife a widow, who has made peace with his fate, who no longer has any hope of pardon, but who calmly and manfully awaits his execution. It is a document that 'carries the breath of eternity', and for as long as ordinary human feeling exists, it will always be equally moving and poignant. This letter has an additional meaning for us — it is a testimony to the tragedy of one family, through whose fate the fate of a people is refracted." When Petar, on the scaffold, noticed that the people were watching him with a certain fear, he said to his confessor these brave and telling words: "These poor souls are more afraid of my death than I am."

This is a letter from the perspective of a man facing death; these are his final thoughts. In the letter, an image is created of the relationship between the two spouses of the noble Zrinski family. It is Petar’s self-representation, above all, as husband, father, Christian and patriot. Although a short letter, it highlights the fundamental values of the Zrinski family: family, homeland and faith. Although he is in a position where he needs enormous moral support, he finds the strength to console the other person through an unshakeable Christian and personal ethic. He is portrayed as a brave leader of resistance who bears the injustice of two-faced men.

By addressing his wife as "my dear heart", he shows his tenderness and affection for her. The letter opens with a plea: do not grieve because of this letter of mine, nor be troubled. He shows concern for those closest to him; he does not want her to be sad because of the news she will learn, and in this way prepares her for the painful moment of truth. He is ready to end his life, and the only thing he still has to do is take leave of his dearest ones, his wife and children, which he can do only by letter. He builds an image of himself as a man unafraid of the terrible death by the executioner’s blade. Yet forgiveness is not the letter’s only purpose. He wishes to take his leave, but he also wishes to be forgiven: for this I now take from you, by this letter, one everlasting farewell; I beg you, if I have troubled you in anything or offended you in anything (which I well know), forgive me. In the parenthesis he reveals that he has, after all, done some wrong, or hurt Katarina, which torments him, and he seeks his wife’s forgiveness. For, the one thing a good Christian must do before death is confess, which he does through this very letter. He honours the sacraments of Christianity, seeking grace and the forgiveness of sins. He then turns to the one comfort left to him, namely God, that is, faith: God be praised, I am well prepared for death, and I do not fear it… I have left everything to God’s will. As a Christian, Petar does not fear death, because eternal life in heavenly paradise awaits him, for which he has prepared his whole life. He believes that God determines fate, and so he has left everything to His will. Precisely because of his faith, he bears and accepts with ease the situation in which he finds himself, and believes that it must be so.

Kumičić: "He thought of Ozalj, of those halls where he had spent his youth with his Katarina…And of those green lawns where he had played with his children, when they were small!...Oh, how blissful he had been, hearing their joyful shouts every time he returned from battle!...Where is his Katarina now!...His Katarina!...When she was a girl, he had stood with her before a little church on the slope of Ivančica. The sun was setting, they held hands and, in silence, gazed at the beautiful countryside, the green valley among the wooded hills. The young girl, slender and of enchanting bearing, was so dear with her dark eyes, her red lips, with that wistful, gentle smile of hers…Oh, how dear his Katarina had been!...And today, too, the sun has already set…Where is his Katarina now?...Where are his children now?...The sun will rise for him only once more, only once, in a foreign land!..."

Kumičić: "Ban Petar, so as to fall asleep more quickly, listened to the sound of the wind and rain, after kneeling in prayer before the image of the Blessed Virgin. That image hung on the wall in a beautiful frame. He listened to that sound, but could not fall asleep: he thought of his wife, of his children…Good God alone knows whether he will meet them again in this life!...Now Katarina’s face stood before his mind’s eye, now the face of one child, then of another, and then it seemed to him that he saw them all at once, and he longed to make out each of their features as clearly as possible, so that they might feel closer to him…Anguish grips his heart: a terrible image rises before his mind — the image of a Croatia torn apart."

In Vienna they pleaded for mercy, but for a year they were imprisoned in Wiener Neustadt, despite the fact that Petar Zrinski had written to the king, in ornate Latin, a letter in which he justified his actions and appealed to the king’s promise that nothing would happen to him if he surrendered. He listed the great merits of his brother Nikola and of his ancestors, and on this basis sought pardon. All of this was done in vain — after a year and a month of imprisonment, an Austrian judge unconstitutionally sentenced him and his brother-in-law to death.

Petar was informed that he was permitted a meeting and a farewell with his brother-in-law Krsto. Frankopan spoke first, telling him that he had come to see him once more before his death, that he begged his forgiveness for everything with which he had offended him, that he thanked him for having taught him, back in his youth, not to fear death, and that he hoped that now, too, as teacher and son-in-law, he would show him this by good example. He went on to declare that he would gladly die if it could save Zrinski’s life, adding: "Go with God; I hope that tomorrow we shall embrace one another in the other world, with greater comfort and peace than here."

Zrinski thanked Frankopan quite simply and very calmly for coming to visit him. He declared that he did not fear death, having seen it so many times in earlier skirmishes and having long been familiar with it, but that he was sorry that Frankopan, too, had to die. He forgave him everything and asked that he, too, forgive him…Then they embraced, kissed one another, and wished each other a final "Go with God!" "Well then, courage alone; tomorrow at this hour, we shall embrace one another in the other world."

"Reverend and good father, pray to God for my homeland. Oh, if only you knew how it has been trampled! Pray for it! I forgive… Zrinski trembled, handed the crucifix to the confessor, took off his coat, took a silk kerchief from his pocket, beautifully embroidered in gold, looked at it, kissed it, and sighed with the greatest pain: "Oh, my Katarina!...

Zrinski knelt, looked at the sun, kissed that silk kerchief, gave it to the servant and asked him: "Jure, bind my eyes with this kerchief. Farewell, my good Jure. My Katarina gave me this kerchief three years ago, on the feast of St Peter. Her hands embroidered it so beautifully…Should you ever meet my Katarina, my maiden — give them this kerchief. Jure, do not tell them how much I suffered…"

Petar Zrinski died as a hero, without fear, a martyr’s death; his life was violently taken from him before he had — in the words of the poet Nikola Zrinski — "brought his glorious work to its end". The Croatian people regard him as their own hero and gave him a worthy burial in Zagreb Cathedral, after his remains were returned from Wiener Neustadt in 1919.

With the collapse of the conspiracy, Katarina fell into disfavour at the Viennese court; she was arrested and taken to Bruck an der Mur (Bruck on the Mur, not far from Graz). In July 1670, together with her daughter Aurora, she was interned in the Dominican convent in Graz, where she too died in 1673.