Family, Political and Spiritual Profile of Queen Katarina Kosača-Kotromanić in the Historical Context of Her Time

Rarely has a historical figure and personality from the territory of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina had such a rich, multifaceted, and almost supranational and supra-confessional prehistory, history, and post history as Queen Katarina Kosača Kotromanić did. Through her great-grandmother and great-grandfather, she traced her roots from the Nemanjić, Hrebljanović, Lazarević and Balšić families; through her grandparents, from the Balšić and Thopia families; through her father and mother, she came from the Kosača and Balšić families, and after she married, she became Queen Katarina Kosača-Ostojić-Kotromanić. In terms of social standing, Katarina was a princess, queen, queen mother, queen dowager, refugee, and a mother who was neither able nor allowed to see or ransom her two children who had been taken into Ottoman captivity. Her spiritual and religious identity was shaped by the unique Orthodox-Catholic and "Bosnian-Christian" context of fifteenth-century Zeta, Bosnia and Hum. In her final years, Queen Katarina was elevated and enriched spiritually by the Franciscan Order, through which she historically gained the Church's recognition as a Blessed One. The author will attempt to offer, always within the limits of his abilities, perceptions, knowledge, and understanding, a more complete profile of Queen Katarina within the historical context in which she was born, lived, ruled, suffered, and died. However, to achieve this, we need to re-examine three facets of Queen Katarina's profile: her family, political involvement, and spirituality. The spiritual profile will encompass, alongside her religious conviction, her intellectual abilities and perspectives, multiple skills such as ars existendi, regendi et patiendi, as well as empathy for all that was good, beautiful, humane, philanthropic, and God-loving among Bosnian Christians, Catholics and the Orthodox in fifteenth-century medieval Bosnia and Hum. Keywords: Queen Katarina; origin; familial, political and spiritual profile