Bojana Vasiljević “FEAR OF THE TURKS”: MONASTIC DISCOURSE ON THE OTTOMAN THREAT IN 14TH- AND 15TH-CENTURY SERBIAN TERRITORIES MA Thesis in Comparative History, with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies. Central European University Budapest CEU eTD Collection December 2017 “FEAR OF THE TURKS”: MONASTIC DISCOURSE ON THE OTTOMAN THREAT IN 14TH- AND 15TH-CENTURY SERBIAN TERRITORIES by Bojana Vasiljević (Serbia) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Comparative History, with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies. Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU. ____________________________________________ Chair, Examination Committee ____________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor ____________________________________________ Examiner ____________________________________________ Examiner CEU eTD Collection Budapest November 2017 “FEAR OF THE TURKS”: MONASTIC DISCOURSE ON THE OTTOMAN THREAT IN 14TH- AND 15TH-CENTURY SERBIAN TERRITORIES by Bojana Vasiljević (Serbia) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Comparative History, with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies. Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU. ____________________________________________ External Reader CEU eTD Collection Budapest November 2017 “FEAR OF THE TURKS”: MONASTIC DISCOURSE ON THE OTTOMAN THREAT IN 14TH- AND 15TH-CENTURY SERBIAN TERRITORIES by Bojana Vasiljević (Serbia) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Comparative History, with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies. Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU. ____________________________________________ External Supervisor CEU eTD Collection Budapest November 2017 I, the undersigned, Bojana Vasiljević, candidate for the MA degree in Comparative History, with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies declare herewith that the present thesis is exclusively my own work, based on my research and only such external information as properly credited in notes and bibliography. I declare that no unidentified and illegitimate use was made of the work of others, and no part of the thesis infringes on any person’s or institution’s copyright. I also declare that no part of the thesis has been submitted in this form to any other institution of higher education for an academic degree. Budapest, 15th of November 2017 __________________________ Signature CEU eTD Collection Abstract The thesis analyzes late medieval Serbian texts, primarily produced by the members of monastic communities, regarding the fear of the Ottoman presence in the Serbian lands. These popular historical sources have traditionally been used to demonstrate the many hardships the Serbian population had to endure during the beginning of the era of Ottoman domination in the Balkans. In that way, late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century writings of Serbian monks were conceptualized as important arguments in support of the nineteenth-century historiographical construct of “five centuries of Turkish yoke” in Serbia. The thesis analyzes these texts through the theoretical and methodological paradigm of the history of emotions as outlined by Barbara H. Rosenwein. Specifically, it conceptualizes the monastic sources as products of an emotional community and focuses on the discursive analysis of emotives—speech acts capable of social/emotional transformation through their very utterance. The thesis demonstrates that the “fear of the Turks” was an aspect of the broader apocalyptic discourse shared by the learned Byzantine theologians of the era. Moreover, the Athonite monks, primarily the members of the Byzantine Orthodox community, were also concerned with the recent schism between the Serbian Church and the patriarchate of Constantinople and the widely shared belief of the impending end of the world. The main cause behind the storied “fear of the Turks” thus does not lie in the Ottoman actions in the Balkans alone, but in the monks’ appropriation of a Byzantine CEU eTD Collection apocalyptic narrative in order to promote the unity and the interests of the Orthodox Commonwealth. i Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Tijana Krstić, for all the patience and the much needed support without which I would not be able to complete this much overdue project. My thanks also go to Katalin Szende for believing in me and taking care of all the administrative issues that ultimately allowed me to finish the thesis. Also, I would like to express my gratitude to Johanna Toth for sharing with me all the important information and guiding me through the formal aspects of this project. In addition, I am very grateful for all the efforts Zsuzsa Reed invested in this thesis; it was her fast and efficient language checks, as well as very helpful advices concerning the flow of the texts, that made possible the submission of the thesis before the final deadline. Special thanks also go to Annabella Pal and Csilla Dobos, “our mom and granny,” for all the fountains of love and never-ending support. I would also like to express my eternal gratitude to Vedran Sulovsky for all the coffee and fruitful discussions. Thanks also go to Mišo Petrović and Jelena Arsović who helped with the secondary literature. The same goes for Nikola Pantić, the witty voice in the background. Last but definitely not least, this project would never have been completed without the help and support of my loving husband, Josip Banić. For both his professional advice and unceasing patience, for his inspirational words of encouragement and positive energy, and most of all, for CEU eTD Collection putting up with me during this somewhat stressful period, I am forever indebted. It was an honour to stand with CEU. ii Table of Contents Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1 Primary Sources .......................................................................................................................... 4 Literature Overview .................................................................................................................. 10 Emotional Communities and Emotives: Theoretical Paradigms and Analytical Concepts ...... 14 Aims of the Thesis and Methodology....................................................................................... 22 I. “When the Living Envied the Dead”......................................................................................... 26 Communities in Suspense: Serbian Monasteries between the Regional Rulers, Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Threat................................................................................................ 33 II. Spreading Fear: Emotives in Late Medieval Serbian Monastic Texts ..................................... 42 The Two Faces of Fear ............................................................................................................. 42 Constructing the Ottoman “other” ............................................................................................ 48 Visions of Apocalypse .............................................................................................................. 59 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 73 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 78 Primary Sources ........................................................................................................................ 78 CEU eTD Collection Secondary Sources .................................................................................................................... 81 Appendices.................................................................................................................................... 95 1. Maps...................................................................................................................................... 95 iii 2. Pictures.................................................................................................................................. 97 3. Images of the sources............................................................................................................ 99 4. Excerpts from sources and their translations into modern English..................................... 101 CEU eTD Collection iv Introduction Times were bleak in Serbian lands1 when Old Man Isaiah, a monk from the monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos, begun writing his famous lines: And thus I tell that I commenced with [the work on] this book of Saint Dionysius in good times, when the churches graced by God and Mount Athos, favored by the Heavens, flourished as if they were a garden, eternally watered by a spring, but I ended it in the worst of all vile times, when God struck with ire the Christians of the West. And Despot Uglješa gathered all Serbian and Greek armies under his banner, and with them his brother Vukašin and