Koprivnica
Encyclopedia
Koprivnica is a city in northern Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

. It is the capital of the Koprivnica-Križevci county
Koprivnica-Križevci County
Koprivnica-Križevci County is a county in northern Croatia. Its hyphenated name comes from two entities: the two of its largest cities, Koprivnica and Križevci....

. In 2011 the city administrative area had a total population of 30,872, with 23,896 in the city itself.

Population

The list of settlements in the Koprivnica municipality is:
  • Bakovčica, population 322
  • Draganovec, population 506
  • Herešin
    Herešin
    Herešin is a village in Croatia. It is connected by the D2 highway....

    , population 724
  • Jagnjedovec, population 340
  • Koprivnica, population 23,896
  • Kunovec Breg
    Kunovec Breg
    Kunovec Breg is a village in Croatia. It is connected by the D2 highway....

    , population 639
  • Reka
    Reka
    is a village in Frýdek-Místek District, Moravian-Silesian Region, Czech Republic. It has a population of 466 , 21.5% of the population are the Poles. Village lies near the Moravian-Silesian Beskids mountains, and Ropičanka River flows through it. It lies in the historical region of Cieszyn...

    , population 1,519
  • Starigrad
    Starigrad
    Starigrad is a municipality in Croatia in the Zadar County. The total population is 1,875 . According to the 2001 census, 95% of the population are Croats.The list of settlements in the municipality is:* Seline, population 454...

    , population 2,392
  • Štaglinec
    Štaglinec
    Štaglinec is a village in Croatia. It is connected by the D2 highway....

    , population 473


Geography

Koprivnica (German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

: Kopreinitz, Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

: Kapronca) is situated at a strategic location – on the slopes of Bilogora and Kalnik
Kalnik
Kalnik is a municipality in the Koprivnica-Križevci County in Croatia. According to the 2011 census, there are 1,361 inhabitants in the area.-References:...

 from the south and river Drava from the north. Its position enabled it to develop numerous functions for the wider area such as trade, crafts and administration and in the 13th century
Century
A century is one hundred consecutive years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages .-Start and end in the Gregorian Calendar:...

, Koprivnica became a town settlement. Koprivnica was named after the brook with the same name, which was first mentioned at the beginning of the 13th century during the Hungarian Kingdom.

History

Koprivnica has a history similar to nearby Varaždin
Varaždin
Varaždin is a city in north Croatia, north of Zagreb on the highway A4. The total population is 47,055, with 38,746 on of the city settlement itself . The centre of Varaždin county is located near the Drava river, at...

: it was first mentioned in 1272 in a document by prince László IV and declared a free royal town by king Lajos I in 1356, and flourished as a trading place and a military fortress since.

In the 14th century, the town settlement further developed due to increased trade under the influence of Varaždin. During the construction of Renaissance fortification in the second half of the 16th century Koprivnica was the centre of Slavonian military border. Koprivnica had in its troops musketeers, German soldiers, hussars and infantry. At that time the Renaissance square emerges together with the Town hall which emphasized the renaissance identity, so Koprivnica is today legitimately considered a renaissance town.

The military aspect set it back some when it was included in the Military Frontier
Military Frontier
The Military Frontier was a borderland of Habsburg Austria and later the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which acted as the cordon sanitaire against incursions from the Ottoman Empire...

 in the 16th century during the wars with the Ottoman Turks
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı , from the house of Osman I The Ottoman...

, but after Maria Theresia's decree of 1765 it resumed life as a peaceful little merchant town that it really was.

Its position on the border of Habsburg Empire and Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 influenced the environment, economic, social and demographic changes, as well as everyday life. Koprivnica is therefore considered a border town. In the second half of the 17th century Koprivnica was among the most developed royal towns in Croatian-Slavonian Kingdom and its economic growth was in the first place based on strong trade activity. The fact that three most significant churches (St. Nicholas, St. Anthony
Anthony of Padua
Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, O.F.M., was a Portuguese Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order. Though he died in Padua, Italy, he was born to a wealthy family in Lisbon, Portugal, which is where he was raised...

 of Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

 with Franciscan monastery and Assumption of Virgin Mary in Mocile further proves economic power of the town in the 17th century. Economic activity was moved outside the town fortifications and this resulted with the wide and spacious baroque square – today’s Zrinski square and Jelačić square. At the same time the oldest streets were formed and they established the development base for the town till the present days.

In the 19th century, old Renaissance and Baroque housing and trade objects were replaced with historicistical architecture and the new town centre obtained its present appearance. In 1863, the main part of the future town park was planted, and removal of the old fortification together with the construction of the railway determined the regional development of the town. Railway connections enabled development of industry and further established Koprivnica as a leading centre of Podravina region.

Koprivnica developed significantly in the 20th century with the advent of the Podravka
Podravka
Podravka is a food company based in Koprivnica, Croatia. It produces the rather well-known product Vegeta, amongst thousands of other products in its diverse catalogue.Podravka brands:*Vegeta and Warzywko - original condiment...

food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...

 industry
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...

, known worldwide for its Vegeta
Vegeta (food)
Vegeta is a condiment which is a mixture of spices and various vegetables invented in 1959 by a Bosnian Croat scientist Zlata Bartl, and has become a product sold worldwide....

 spice. They even have a museum of Podravka.

Worth mentioning is the annual "motif
Motif (art)
In art, a motif is an element of a pattern, an image or part of one, or a theme. A motif may be repeated in a design or composition, often many times, or may just occur once in a work. A motif may be an element in the iconography of a particular subject or type of subject that is seen in other...

s of Podravina" event when the whole town becomes a gallery of naïve art
Naïve art
Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. While many naïve artists appear, from their works, to have little or no formal art training, this is often not true...

. Many of the Croatian greatest naïve artists come from the villages along the Drava
Drava
Drava or Drave is a river in southern Central Europe, a tributary of the Danube. It sources in Toblach/Dobbiaco, Italy, and flows east through East Tirol and Carinthia in Austria, into Slovenia , and then southeast, passing through Croatia and forming most of the border between Croatia and...

 in this county, notably Ivan Generalić
Ivan Generalic
Ivan Generalić was a Croatian naïve art painter.Generalić was born in Hlebine near Koprivnica. In elementary school, painting lessons were his greatest joy and as a child he used to earn money...

.

Notable people

  • Vanna
    Vanna (singer)
    Ivana Ranilović-Vrdoljak is a pop singer from Croatia. She is also known with her artist name Vanna.-Biography:...

  • Zlata Bartl
    Zlata Bartl
    Zlata Bartl , was a Bosnian Croat scientist and is the creator of Vegeta....

  • Stjepan Brodarić
    Stjepan Brodaric
    Stjepan Brodarić was a Croatian bishop and writer.Early records show that Brodarić was dean of Zagreb church in 1498. He studied in Padua around the years 1501 to 1506, receiving his doctorate in canonical law...

  • Ivan Golac
    Ivan Golac
    Ivan Golac is a former Yugoslav football player and manager.A Yugoslav international right back, he is best known as a player and manager of FK Partizan, of Belgrade...

  • Žarko Dolinar
    Žarko Dolinar
    Žarko Dolinar , Ph.D., a native of Koprivnica, Yugoslavia was a biologist by vocation and university academic who earned eight medals in the World Table Tennis Championships....

  • Baltazar Dvorničić Napuly
    Baltazar Dvornicic Napuly
    Baltazar Dvorničić Napuly was a Croatian Catholic cleric and lawyer.A native of Koprivnica, he was a student at the University of Bologna from at least 1581. Some have claimed that he had previously studied in Graz and Vienna, but clear evidence is lacking. In Bologna he had earned his degrees in...

  • Josip Friščić
    Josip Frišcic
    Josip Friščić is a Croatian politician and current leader of the Croatian Peasant Party .Friščić joined the party in 1992 and subsequently established many local branches.-References:...

  • Ivan Generalić
    Ivan Generalic
    Ivan Generalić was a Croatian naïve art painter.Generalić was born in Hlebine near Koprivnica. In elementary school, painting lessons were his greatest joy and as a child he used to earn money...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK