page_title: Trpinja
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Trpinja / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Heroes de Vukovar Goran es el de la Derecha
context_page_description: Trpinja is a village and an eponymous municipality in the Vukovar-Srijem County in eastern Croatia. The village is located on the D55 road between Osijek and Vukovar. The Municipality of Trpinja was established in 1997 by the UNTAES administration as one of new predominantly Serb municipalities in order to ensure access to local self-government to Serb community in the region. The municipality is northernmost one in the Vukovar-Srijem Country and there are in total 7 villages within municipal boundaries. At the time of 2011 census the municipality had a population of 5,572 and the village of Trpinja itself 1,537.
context_section_description: Name of the Trpinja settlement was first mentioned in 1329 in one document issued in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. Document is today kept in Budapest, Hungary. In fact in this period at the place of present Trpinja were settlements Mala Trpinja, Velika Trpinja and Slavenska Trpinja. Villages were owned by the gentry until they were conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1536.  Ottoman authorities settled Serb population in this area, which resulted in decreased percentage of local Hungarians. Area was under Ottoman administration until 1691, when it was conquered by the Habsburg Monarchy. According to the census of 1732, Trpinja had 109 Serb families. Construction of the Serbian Orthodox church began in 1750 and was completed in 1755. The first school in Trpinja was opened in 1776, while in 1859 Trpinja had a factory for spinning silk. In 1882, population of Trpinja numbered about 1,800 people in 400 homes. The inhabitants were Christian Orthodox Serbs, except 2-3 families who were of Roman Catholic faith. Although the period of First World War in the village was marked by disease and poverty, Trpinja residents hosted the population of the village of Jakovo. The villagers participated in the anti-fascist struggle during World War II, and one number of them ended up in concentration camps of Independent State of Croatia. During the war, 452 soldiers from Trpinja fought in the 9th Slavonian Brigade, of which 75 were killed. 170 Romani people from Trpinja were arrested by Ustaše and taken to Jasenovac concentration camp in 1942, no one of them returned. According to the 1981 census, Trpinja had 2,243 inhabitants.
  Between 1991 and 1997, Trpinja was controlled by the Serbs who rebelled against the democratically elected Croatian Government. During that time, the non-Serb population was subjected to unlawful arrests, imprisonment, physical, mental and sexual abuse and killings by the members of local Serb paramilitary formations. Civilians were physically and mentally abused on a daily basis, forced to sing Chetnik songs, threatened with mutilation by cutting off limbs and body parts, men were forced to kneel in the village center and graze the grass, women were threatened with rape, with one being raped and another forced to drink blood that was leaking from the broken nose of an abused man. Ten captives from Trpinja, as well as civilians captured in Borovo and severely wounded civilians from the Borovo Commerce hospital, who had previously been brutally beaten, had been executed in the nearby Bobotski kanal. In 2016, 10 Serbs were convicted for war crimes against prisoners of war and civilians to prison sentences ranging between 5 and 20 years. During the Battle of Vukovar, Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and various paramilitary forces from Serbia tried to break through the Vukovar defense from the direction of Trpinja, namely through Trpinjska cesta, the road that connected Trpinja and Vukovar. However, the Croatian soldiers of the Croatian National Guard (ZNG) and civilian volunteers, led by Major general Blago Zadro, offered strong resistance, during which they destroyed about 30 JNA tanks and armored vehicles which gave road the nickname "tank graveyard". Trpinja was reintegrated into Croatia with the Erdut Agreement.
caption: Blago Zadro (middle) on the Trpinja road during the Battle of Vukovar
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