Prominent guests on the Fortress
Distinguished Guests and Visitors to the Fortress
Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, often stayed in Petrovaradin, where he signed an agreement with the Republic of Venice in 1463. There he decided to declare war on Turkey in 1475. King Vladislaus II stayed in Petrovaradin for three weeks in 1494. He gave various concessions to attract as many workers as possible (primarily Serbs) for the purpose of repairing the towers and ramparts of the fortress that existed before the present one.
The Petrovaradin Fortress was visited by three Austrian emperors during the 18th and 19th centuries – Joseph II, five times (1768, 1770, 1783, 1786, and 1788), Francis I, twice (1796 and 1818), and Franz Joseph.
There are testimonies that the Turkish Sultan Suleyman was present in the final phase of the siege of the Petrovaradin Fortress from July 13 to 27, 1526, when it was conquered, although he did not participate in the battle.
Vojvoda (Duke) Marko Miljanov, a famous Montenegrin hero and writer, visited the Fortress in 1893 and a military parade was organized in his honour. Between the two world wars, the Fortress was visited by Major Douglas MacArthur, then the American military attaché in Belgrade, later the commander of American troops in the Far East and victorious over Japan in World War II.
It was noted in a chronicle of the Fortress that one guard, while being drunken, killed the last Prince Bolkonsky, a Russian-Yugoslavian officer, whose ancestor Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy described in his novel War and Peace.
Regent Aleksandar Karađorđević and General Franche d'Epere, the famous French military commander from the First World War and honorary Vojvoda (Duke) of the Serbian Army, visited the Fortress in 1919.
The heads of state or government of 26 countries, participants of the First Summit Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade in 1961, stayed at the Fortress as guests of President Josip Broz Tito.
Images
Source: Politics September 6, 1961.
