"Serbian Despotate The Serbian Despotate ( / ""Srpska despotovina"") was a medieval Serbian state in the first half of the 15th century. Although the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 is generally considered the end of the medieval Serbia, the Despotate, a successor of the Serbian Empire and Moravian Serbia, survived for another 60 years, experiencing a cultural and political renaissance before it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1459. Before its conquest the Despotate nominally had a suzerain status to the Ottoman Empire, Byzantine Empire and Kingdom of Hungary. After being fully subjugated to the Ottoman Empire in 1459, it"
"city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, and the Turkish victory at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into the rest of Europe. In 1344 Louis I of Hungary, who would rule from 1342–1382 and earn the epithet ""the Great"", invaded Wallachia and Moldavia and established a system of vassalage. Louis and his 80,000 strong army repelled the Serbian Dušan's armies in the duchies of Mačva and principality of Travunia in 1349. When Czar Dušan broke into Bosnian territory he was"
"Roman Empire who ruled most of the Greek-speaking world for over 1100 years, had been fatally weakened since the sacking of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders in 1204. The Ottoman advance into Greece was preceded by a victory over the Serbs to its north. First, the Ottomans won at 1371 on the Maritsa River — where the Serb forces were led by the King Vukašin of Serbia, the father of Prince Marko and the co-ruler of the last emperor from the Serbian Nemanjic dynasty. This was followed by a draw in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo. With no further threat"
"aftermath of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 the Ottomans pushed northwards further into South Eastern Europe, progressively taking control of Serbia, Bosnia, and Dalmatia (although Venice maintained control of key cities) forcing large numbers of Slavic peoples and others into Austrian and Hungarian territories (including the Ban of Croatia which was under Hungarian control). This also coincided with famines in Serbia. There are various accounts of the arrival of variously called Rascians, Serbs, Vlachs etc. (references to be provided). The Ottoman defeat of Croat nobility forces in 1493 at the Battle of Krbava Field in southern Lika caused major"
"the Balkans. It was the first serious defeat of the Ottomans in the Balkans. It was this battle that made Murad consider the possibility of abandoning his Balkan campaign. The Ottoman army next campaigned in Bosnia, fighting Bosnian troops led by Vlatko Vuković and Radič Sanković at Bileća (1388), ending in a decisive Bosnian victory, then in Kosovo, fighting Serbian troops at the Kosovo field (1389), ending inconclusively. Murad had decided to make one more powerful thrust aimed at the heart of the now seemingly revitilised Serbian Empire — Kosovo. Both Lazar and Murad fell in that battle. Battle of"
"25 years, culminating at the siege of Shkodra in 1478–79. It has been argued that Albanian resilience halted the Ottoman advance along the Eastern flank of the Western Civilization, saving the Italian peninsula from Ottoman conquest. Sultan Mehmet II died in 1481, merely two years after the collapse of the Albanian resistance and one year after he launched an Italian campaign. The Ottoman Empire first reached Bosnia in 1388 where they were defeated by Bosnian forces in the Battle of Bileća and then was forced to retreat. After the fall of Serbia in 1389 Battle of Kosovo, where the Bosnians"
"the Serbian Empire. After his sudden death in 1355, he was succeeded by Stephen Uroš V of Serbia who could not keep Serbian Empire together and it was fragmented in many small principalities with Vuk Branković last Serbian and Christian prince that had Skopje under control during medieval period until it fell under Ottoman Control in 1392, for the next 520 years. Rolling back Byzantine rule across much of the Balkans, the Ottoman Turks finally conquered Skopje in 1392 beginning a 520 years period of Ottoman rule. The Ottomans pronounced the town ""Üsküb"" and named it as such. At first"
"the southern Serbian feudal lords (in present-day Macedonia and Greece), Konstantin Dragaš, king Marko, Toma Preljubović and others, to become their vassals, and started to attack the northern Serbian lands ruled by prince Lazar and Vuk. After initial Serbian successes at the battles of Dubravnica (1381), Pločnik (1386) and Bileća (1388), the Ottomans launched a full-scale attack on Serbia aiming at the very heartland of Vuk's realm in central Kosovo. In the epic Battle of Kosovo (1389), which ended with a strategic Serbian defeat, Vuk participated along with his father-in-law Lazar and a contingent of King Tvrtko's army. Unlike Lazar,"
"Habsburg-occupied Serbia (1686–91) Habsburg-occupied Serbia refers to the period between 1686 and 1691 of the Great Turkish War (1683–99), during which the territory of present-day Serbia (which was ""de jure"" Ottoman territory) was occupied by the Habsburg Monarchy. Habsburg conquest of the territory of present-day Serbia started in 1686, with the conquest of north-eastern parts of Bačka. At the time, these territories were contested between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. By 1688, the Habsburgs controlled western parts of present-day Vojvodina, as well as some areas in the south of the rivers Sava and Danube, while in 1690,"
"her daughter, Olivera, to his successor, Sultan Bayezid I. After the battle, in 1390 or 1391 depending on source, Serbia became a vassal Ottoman state, and Stefan Lazarević was obliged to participate in battles if ordered by the Ottoman sultan. He did so in the Battle of Rovine in May 1395 against the Wallachian prince Mircea I and the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396 against the Hungarian king Sigismund. After that, Sultan Bayezid awarded Stefan with the majority of the Vuk Branković's land on Kosovo, as Branković sided with the Hungarian king at Nicopolis. When Timur's army entered the Ottoman"
"Ottoman and Zetan invaders, led by Lala Şahin Pasha, penetrated as far as Bileća. The Battle of Bileća, which took place in late August 1388, ended with the victory of the Bosnian army, led by Duke Vlatko Vuković. 15 June 1389, the date by which Tvrtko had intended to complete his conquest of Dalmatia, was also the day when the Ottoman army met the forces of a coalition of Serbian states at the Battle of Kosovo. Tvrtko, feeling it his duty as King of Serbia, ordered his army to leave Dalmatia and assist the lords Lazar Hrebljanović and Vuk Branković."
"Bulgarians in the Battle of Velbazhd in 1330. By 1346, the Serbian king Stefan Dušan had been proclaimed emperor. Yet Serbian dominance was short-lived; the Serbian army led by the Lazar Hrebljevanovic was defeated by the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, where most of the Serbian nobility was killed and the south of the country came under Ottoman occupation, as much of southern Bulgaria had become Ottoman territory in 1371. Northern remnants of Bulgaria were finally conquered by 1396, Serbia fell in 1459, Bosnia in 1463, and Albania was finally subordinated in 1479 only a few years"
"of the early Ottoman state's expansion has replaced it. In the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osman's son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326, making it the new capital of the Ottoman state and supplanting Byzantine control in the region. The important port city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387 and sacked. The Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe. The Battle of Nicopolis"
"was attacked from north, five months after the battle, by troops of the Hungarian King Sigismund. When Turkish forces, moving toward Hungary, reached the borders of Moravian Serbia in the summer of 1390, Milica accepted Ottoman suzerainty. Stefan Lazarević participated as an Ottoman vassal in the Battle of Karanovasa in 1394, the Battle of Rovine in 1395, the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, and in the Battle of Angora in 1402. After Angora, he visited Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, where he was given the title of Despot, and since then his state became known as the"
"by siege. In 1346 Stephen Dušan proclaimed himself Emperor but the empire began to fall apart after his death in 1355 due to rivalry among the nobility and the lack of consolidation of the newly conquered territories. In 1371 a Serbian army led by Vukašin advanced on Adrianople only to be surprised in a dawn attack by an inferior Ottoman force commanded by Lala Şahin. The Serbian leaders were killed and Serbian lands were grabbed by various independent nobles as well as the Ottomans. A decade later, Serbs defeated Ottomans in Battle of Pločnik in 1386. As the Battle of"
"Ottoman Kosovo Kosovo was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1455 to 1912, at first as part of the eyalet of Rumelia, and from 1864 as a separate Kosovo Vilayet. During this period several administrative districts (known as ""sanjaks"" (""banners"" or districts) each ruled by a ""sanjakbey"" (roughly equivalent to ""district lord"") have included parts of the territory as parts of their territories. During the Great Turkish War (1683–99), in October 1689, a small Habsburg force under Margrave Ludwig of Baden breached the Ottoman Empire and reached as far as Kosovo, following their earlier capture of Belgrade. Many Serbs and"
"ended in a draw, decimating both armies (both Lazar and Murad I fell). The battle is particularly important to Serbian history, tradition, and national identity (see Kosovo Myth). By now, the Balkans was unable to halt the advancing Ottomans. Eventually, Serbian nobility became Ottoman vassals. Serbia managed to recuperate under Despot Stefan Lazarević, surviving for 70 more years, experiencing a cultural and political renaissance, but after Stefan Lazarević's death, his successors from the Branković dynasty did not manage to stop the Ottoman advance. Serbia finally fell under the Ottomans in 1459, and remained under their occupation until 1804, when Serbia"
"and Ineu from the Ottoman Empire. After Belgrade had been liberated from the Ottomans in 1688, Serbs from the territories in the south of Sava and Danube rivers began to join Serbian Militia units. One of the first commanders of the Serbian Militia during the Great Turkish War was Antonije Znorić. In the period 1689—1691, one of the commanders of Serbian Militia units in Banat was Novak Petrović. The Ottoman Empire had suffered partial military collapse against the Austrians in the 1680s, most notably at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, and the loss of Belgrade to Maximilian II of"
"the Byzantine Empire. Conflict firstly erupted between the Ottomans led by Beyazid I and the Wallachians led by Mircea the Elder after the voivode openly supported the Christian peoples south of the Danube who were fighting the Turks. There was also a contest for the control of Dobruja, which had been independent for most of the 14th century, but fell under Ottoman rule in 1388. In 1389 Mircea took control of the province and held it with some interruptions until 1418. In 1394 Beyazid I crossed the Danube, leading a strong army with the purpose of overthrowing Mircea and replacing"
"1394 become an Ottoman vassal. In 1402 he renounced Ottoman rule and became an ally of Hungary, and the years that followed were characterized by the Ottomans and Hungary battling over the territory of Serbia. In 1453, the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, and in 1458 Athens was taken. In 1459, Serbia was annexed, followed by Greece a year later. Several minor, unsuccessful and short-lived revolts were conducted against Ottoman rule mostly with the help of the Habsburgs; 1594, 1688–1691, 1718–1739 and 1788. In 1799, the ""dahia"" (janissary leaders, high-status infantry in the provinces) took over the Sanjak of Smederevo, renouncing the"
"leaders of both armies were killed, and which gained a central role in Serbian folklore as an epic battle and as the beginning of the end for medieval Serbia. Much of Serbia fell to the Ottomans by 1459, the Kingdom of Hungary made a partial reconquest in 1480, but it fell again by 1499. Territories of Serbian Empire were divided between Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Venice and Royal Hungary, with remaining territories being in some sort of a vassal status towards Hungary, until its own conquest. The defeat in 1456 at the Siege of Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) held up Ottoman"
"area which is now Serbia and Montenegro. Kosovo was absorbed into the Serbian state of Rascia in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, and was part of the Serbian Empire from 1346 to 1371. In 1389, in the Battle of Kosovo, the army of the Serbian Prince Lazar Hrebljanović was defeated by the Ottoman Turks, who finally took control of the territory in 1455. During the rule of the Nemanjić dynasty (c. 1160–1355), many Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were built throughout Serbian territory. From the mid-13th century to the end of the century, the Nemanjić rulers had their"
"various Serbian kingdoms and the Ottoman Empire. The turning point was the fall of Constantinople to the Turks. In 1459, following the siege, the temporary Serbian capital of Smederevo fell. Zeta was overrun by 1499. Belgrade was the last major Balkan city to endure Ottoman forces. Serbs, Hungarians, and European crusaders defeated the Turkish army in the Siege of Belgrade in 1456. After repelling Ottoman attacks for over 70 years, Belgrade finally fell in 1521, along with the greater part of the Kingdom of Hungary. The Vojvodina rebellion between 1526 and 1528 led to the proclamation of the Second Serbian"
"The battle most likely ended in a stalemate, and afterwards Serbia enjoyed a short period of prosperity under despot Stefan Lazarević and resisted failing to the Turks until 1459. The Serbs had taken an active part in the wars fought in the Balkans against the Ottoman Empire, and also organized uprisings; because of this, they suffered persecution and their territories were devastated – major migrations from Serbia into Habsburg territory ensued. After allied Christian forces had captured Buda from the Ottoman Empire in 1686 during the Great Turkish War, Serbs from Pannonian Plain (present-day Hungary, Slavonia region in present-day Croatia,"
"result was indecisive, but it led to the subsequent fall of Serbia. Stefan Lazarević, the son of Lazar, succeeded as ruler, but by 1394 he had become an Ottoman vassal. In 1402 he renounced Ottoman rule and became an Hungarian ally; the following years are characterized by a power struggle between the Ottomans and Hungary over the territory of Serbia. In 1453, the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, and in 1458 Athens was taken. In 1459, Serbia was annexed, and then Greece a year later. With the fall of Serbia, migrations began to the north. Serbs became mercenaries in foreign armies and"
"mostly converted to Islam, but remained strictly a minority in a still largely Serb-inhabited region. Ottoman Kosovo Kosovo was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1455 to 1912, at first as part of the eyalet of Rumelia, and from 1864 as a separate Kosovo Vilayet. During this period several administrative districts (known as ""sanjaks"" (""banners"" or districts) each ruled by a ""sanjakbey"" (roughly equivalent to ""district lord"") have included parts of the territory as parts of their territories. During the Great Turkish War (1683–99), in October 1689, a small Habsburg force under Margrave Ludwig of Baden breached the Ottoman Empire"
"Anatolian Peninsula. In the following decades, the Ottoman Sultans combined their growing military strength with astute dynastic politics to expand their territory eastwards into the whole of Anatolia and westwards into the Balkan Peninsula. Thus, in 1387 Murad I (1362–89) conquered much of Greece and fought a large Christian army at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. In the early 1390s his successor Bayezid I (1389–1402) established his suzerainty over Stefan Lazarević of Serbia, the Turnovo Bulgaria of Ivan Shishman and the Vidin Despotate of Ivan Sratsimir. The Ottoman Empire had become one of the most important powers in the"
"of Kosovo in 1389, between Serbs and Ottomans – and faced an Ottoman army of up to 60,000. Sultan Murad personally commanded a large section of cannons and janissaries, while his son and successor Mehmed, who faced battle for the first time, led the Anatolian troops at the right wing. Hunyadi commanded the center of his army in the battle, while the Crusaders right wing was under the Wallachians. The Hungarians had long barrage cannons. The next day the battle opened when Hunyadi attacked the Ottoman flanks with mixed cavalry (light and heavy). The Turkish flanks, consisting of soldiers from"
"the southern governors. Soon thereafter, Serbian Emperor Stefan Uroš V died; as he was childless and the nobility could not agree on the rightful heir, the Empire was subsequently ruled by semi-independent provincial lords, who often were in feuds with each other. The most powerful of these, Tsar Lazar, a Duke of present-day central Serbia (which had not yet come under Ottoman rule), stood against the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. The result was indecisive, but it resulted in the subsequent fall of Serbia. Stefan Lazarević, the son of Lazar, succeeded him as ruler, but had by"
"and Syrmia. These fights ended with no territorial gains for Lazar, who made peace with Sigismund in 1387. In the Battle of Kosovo fought on 15 June 1389, Lazar led the army which confronted a massive invading army of the Ottoman Empire commanded by Sultan Murad I. Both Prince Lazar and Sultan Murad lost their lives in the battle. Although the battle was tactically a draw, the mutual heavy losses were devastating only for the Serbs. Lazar was succeeded by his eldest son Stefan Lazarević. As he was still a minor, Moravian Serbia was administered by Lazar's widow, Milica. She"
"(maternally a Nemanjić), Vuk Branković and Radoslav Hlapen continued ruling their respective regions. In addition to Marko, Tvrtko I was crowned King of the Serbs and of Bosnia in 1377 in the Mileševa monastery. Maternally related to the Nemanjić dynasty, Tvrtko had seized western portions of the former Serbian Empire in 1373. On 15 June 1389 Serbian forces led by Prince Lazar, Vuk Branković, and Tvrtko's nobleman Vlatko Vuković of Zachlumia, confronted the Ottoman army led by Sultan Murad I at the Battle of Kosovo, the best-known battle in medieval Serbian history. With the bulk of both armies wiped out"
"and Lazar Hrebeljanović holding today's Central Serbia and a portion of Kosovo. Hrebeljanović was subsequently accepted as the titular leader of the Serbs because he was married to a member of the Nemanjić dynasty. In 1389, the Serbs faced the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo on the plain of Kosovo Polje, near the town of Pristina. Both Lazar and Sultan Murad I were killed in the fighting. The battle most likely ended in a stalemate, and Serbia did not fall to the Turks until 1459. There exists 30 Serbian chronicles from the period between 1390 and 1526. The Serbs"
"Empire began, with feudal disintegration during the reign of his successor, Stefan Uroš V (r. 1355–71). Parts of Kosovo became domain of Vukašin Mrnjavčević, but Vojislav Vojinović expanded his demesne further onto Kosovo. The armies of Vukašin from Pristina and his allies defeated Vojislav's forces in 1369, putting a halt to his advances. After the Battle of Maritsa on 26 September 1371 in which the Mrnjavčević brothers lost their lives, Đurađ I Balšić of Zeta took Prizren and Peć in 1372. A part of Kosovo became the demesne of the Lazar of Serbia. The Ottoman Empire invaded the realm of"