1573: Matija Gubec, peasant revolt leader
February 15th, 2009 Headsman
On February 15, 1573, the brief but scintillating career of insurrectionary Matija Gubec came to a brutal end when he was publicly tortured to death in Zagreb.
You know what they say about the size of a man’s feet: Matija Gubec about to be crowned with a red-hot iron ringlet and quartered.
Gubec emerged from (to us, at least) obscurity to leadership of a short-lived peasant uprising in Croatia against Franjo Tahi (Croatian Wikipedia link), your basic feudal tyrant.
Although put down inside of two weeks, this revolt and its personification in Gubec have endured as potent national symbols in Croatia.
In the revolutionary 20th century, both left and right claimed Gubec’s standard as their own: a multiethnic company of Yugoslav volunteers fought under his name in the Spanish Civil War, as did multiple partisan units during World War II who took inspiration in his peasant class uprising. By contrast, the Ustasha conceived Gubec as
one man, who was not the exponent of any class, but … a reflection of an entire nation’s beliefs.*
Fascist and communist alike can jam to the rock opera Gubec Beg.**
* See Pavlakovic, Vjeran (2004) ‘Matija Gubec Goes to Spain: Symbols and Ideology in Croatia, 1936-1939’, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 17:4, 727 — 755.
** According to Pavlakovic, Gubec’s real given name is unknown and birth records suggest it might have been “Ambroz”. He was known as “Gubec called Beg,” using the Turkish term for a lord.
On this day..
- 1946: Maliq Bushati, Lef Nosi, and Anton Harapi, of Balli Kombëtar - 2020
- 706: Leontios and Apsimar - 2019
- 1673: Kaelkompte and Keketamape, Albany milestones - 2018
- 2014: A.R. and N.J., a double hanging caught on video - 2017
- 1926: Josef Jakubowski, Weimar Germany wrongful execution - 2016
- 904: Pope Leo V and Antipope Christopher, at the dawn of the Pornocracy - 2015
- 1947: Ernst Kundt, Sudeten German - 2014
- 1864: The Kinston hangings - 2013
- 1907: Gen. Antonio Paredes, Venezuelan rebel - 2012
- 1688: Philip Standsfield - 2011
- 1979: Four Generals of the Shah - 2010
- 1839: Five Patriotes Canadiens, leaders of the Lower Canada Rebellion - 2008
Entry Filed under: 16th Century,Arts and Literature,Austria,Capital Punishment,Croatia,Cycle of Violence,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Famous,Guerrillas,Habsburg Realm,History,Martyrs,Occupation and Colonialism,Popular Culture,Power,Public Executions,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,Revolutionaries,Soldiers,Torture,Treason,Yugoslavia
Tags: 1570s, 1573, communism, fascism, february 15, franjo tahi, gubec beg, matija gubec, nationalism, opera, peasant uprising, peasantry, spanish civil war, ustasha, world war ii, zagreb
