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Zrinski in 1566 and ICJ (HAGUE) Gen. Gotovina offer striking parallels

Croatian statesmen Petar Zrinsk (1621-1671) and Fran Krsto Frankapan (1643-1671) Petar Zrinsk and Fran Krsto Frankapan both outstanding as statesmen and writers, are among the most beloved figures in the history of Croatia. They had a great successes in liberating the areas occupied by the Turks. However, the Viennese Military council, instead of supporting them to free the rest of the Hungarian and Croatian lands, signed a shameful peace treaty with Turkey, by which the liberated territories had to be handed back to the Turks. The result of the rebellion against Vienna was a cruel public decapitation of Zrinski and Frankapan in Wiener Neustadt near Vienna in 1671. The remains of these two Croatian martyrs were buried in the Cathedral of Zagreb in 1919.

The letter sent by Petar Zrinski to his wife Katarina (in Croatian) just a day before his death is one of the most deeply moving texts ever written in the Croatian language. It was very soon translated and published in English.

My dear soul!

I most humbly beg of you, that you would not grieve your self to excess, at the sight of this Letter. To morrow, Ah Madam, I must tell it you, Alas! To morrow about ten of the clock in the morning, we must lose our Heads, I, and your brother. To day we have taken our last farewell each of other; and now I come also to take leave of you, my dear Soul, for ever; entreating you that you will please to pardon me all things, whereby in all my life time, I have ever offended you. God who hat created me, will have pity on me, whom I will also beseech, for I hope I shall to morrow be in his presence, that we may see each other in eternal glory before his Throne. As to any thing else, I can write nothing, neither concerning my Son, nor any disposal of what I have in the World, having resigned all to the will of God. Afflict not your self beyond measure, for God will have it so. Newstadt, the last day of my life: Being the 29th. of April, at 7 a clock at night, in the year 1671. God preserve you and bless you, and my Daughter Aurora Veronica. Amen.

Peter Count of Zerin

His wife Katarina, also an outstanding poetess, was imprisoned by general Spankau in a monastery in Graz, where she went insane and died in extreme poverty. Even the son of Peter and Katarina - Ivan Antun, the last of the Zrinski's, was imprisoned in Graz, solely because he belonged to this outstanding noble family. He died after 20 years of prison in Schlossberg in Graz out of pneumonia.