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Ostoja of Bosnia

King of Bosnia

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ2578848 ↗
Source-derived summary

Stephen Ostoja (Serbo-Croatian: Stjepan Ostoja / Стјепан Остоја; died September 1418) was King of Bosnia from 1398 to 1404 and from 1409 to 1418.

Family connections

He was a member of the House of Kotromanić, most likely son of Vladislaus and brother of King Tvrtko I. When duke Hrvoje Vukčić in 1416 died, King Ostoja divorced his old wife Kujava from the house of Radinović and married Hrvoje's widow Jelena Nelipčić the next year. Jelena Nelipčić was the sister of Prince Ivan III Nelipić from the Croatian noble Nelipić family. That way Ostoja inherited most of Hrvoje's lands.

Rise to power

Ostoja was crowned King on 10 May 1398 by the forces of Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić, Grand Duke of Bosnia, Knez of Donji Kraji and a Herzog of Split, which deposed Queen Jelena Gruba in 1398. In 1403 he sided with King Ladislaus of Naples in his plights against the Hungarian King Sigismund, Bosnia's liege. King Ostoja led a war against the Republic of Dubrovnik, a Hungarian vassalage that year. In 1404, the Bosnians under Hrvoje Vukčić replaced him by his brother Tvrtko II because of his pro-Hungarian views. He had to flee to Hungary, after a stanak in Mile, Visoko.

In 1408, Hungarian King Sigismund managed to defeat the Bosnian nobility and King Stephen Tvrtko II and restore Ostoja to the throne in 1409.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ostoja of Bosnia” as king of Bosnia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1418, 1398, 1404, 1409—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1378-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Ostoja, Bosnia and King can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as king of Bosnia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2578848. VIAF identifies the subject as 26146522334332390378. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1418, 1398, 1404 and 1409.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ostoja of Bosnia”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ostoja of Bosnia primary sources, Ostoja of Bosnia archive and Ostoja research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ostoja of Bosnia”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ostoja of Bosnia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.