Stephen Tomašević of Bosnia
King of Bosnia
Stephen Tomašević or Stephen II (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian: Stjepan/Stefan Tomašević; c. 1438 – 25 May 1463) was the last sovereign from the Bosnian Kotromanić dynasty, reigning as Despot of Serbia briefly in 1459 and as King of Bosnia from 1461 until 1463.
Stephen's father, King Thomas, had great ambitions for him. An attempt to expand into Croatia by marrying Stephen to a wealthy noblewoman failed, and negotiations for a marital alliance with the Sforzas of Milan were abandoned when a more prestigious opportunity presented itself: marriage to the heiress Maria of Serbia. Celebrated in April 1459, it made Stephen the ruler of the remnants of the neighbouring country. The intent was to unite the Kingdom of Bosnia and the Serbian Despotate under Stephen to combat the expanding Ottoman Empire. However, Stephen's Catholicism made him unpopular in Orthodox Serbia. After ruling it for merely two months, he surrendered it to the encroaching Ottoman forces and fled back to his father's court, which earned him the contempt of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus and other Christian rulers in Europe.
Stephen succeeded his father on the throne following the latter's death on 10 July 1461 and became the first Bosnian king to receive a crown from the Holy See. The kingdom's existence, however, was increasingly threatened by the Ottomans. King Stephen had the unanimous support of his noblemen in resistance to the Ottomans, but not of the common people.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Stephen Tomašević of Bosnia” as king of Bosnia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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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.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q518086. VIAF identifies the subject as 30344789. The Library of Congress control number is no2015131579. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1438, 1463, 1459 and 1461.
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This entry incorporates text from “Stephen Tomašević 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.