Kurija (in Latin ‘curia’ means court of justice, courtroom) is one among the oldest and the best known buildings in the town of Kikinda. It is a one-story building built in late baroque style. In the past, political and administrative history of Kikinda and the region had been diffracting through its space, but nowadays, cultural history dwells in.
A need to build a magistrate, to situate district administration and prisoners, aroused back in 1790. However, the construction of it started only in 1836 and ended in 1839. Until 1876 Kuria was a Greater-Kikinda District’s, headquarter and later it was the District Court.
Dramatic events of commencing national uprising in 1848 took place in front of Kuria and inside its walls. On January 9, 1942 occupying German armed forces shot down thirty innocent hostages in the Kuria’s court yard, and many prominent people and politicians from this region were held captive in the cells of its dungeon. Receptions for Austro-Hungarian tsar Franz Josef (1872) and Yugoslavian King, regent Aleksandar (1919) were organized in its Ceremonial hall.
