Description of the attraction
The Bobovac Fortress is an interesting monument of pre-Turkish Bosnia, the remnants of the former greatness of the Bosnian kingdom. Today it lies in ruins among the picturesque hills 30 kilometers from Sarajevo. Only the old chapel with the tomb of the four kings of the country has been restored.
In the Middle Ages, this walled city was the residence of the Bosnian kings, played a significant role in the history of the country and its wars. During the Ottoman period, most of the local records were destroyed. The Dubrovniki archive documents are the only written source of information about the medieval Bosnian state. In them, the mention of the Bobovac fortress dates back to 1349. The then Pan Stepan Kotromanich ordered to build a fortress in an inaccessible place - on the top of a hill, surrounded on both sides by rivers, protected by a rocky cliff from the south.
The fortress walls, one meter thick, had 11 watchtowers. Inside there was a royal court, a church with a square in front of it, and a settlement at the north gate. In short, the fortress was practically impregnable - until 1463, when the Ottoman invasion began in the country. According to legends, the Turks besieged the fortress for almost seven years. Like all impregnable fortresses, Bobovac fell due to betrayal. The same legends say that Sultan Mehmed II, deceived the one who betrayed the fortress, and instead of the promised reward, he cut off his head. And the Turks burned and destroyed the pride of the Bosnian kingdom. The fall of Bobovac became a demoralizing factor for other cities that had not yet surrendered to the Turks. Many simply gave up further resistance.
In the middle of the last century, the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina initiated archaeological excavations, during which the burials of Bosnian kings were discovered.
