LAZAR OF SERBIA

Lazar of Serbia b.1329-d.1389 1373-1389 A powerful Balkan ruler who met his death in battle against the Ottoman Turks, Lazar’s story is preserved – and confused – by a wealth of epic poetry. Serbia’s heavenly tsar How a catastrophe at Kosovo’s Field of Blackbirds transformed a Medieval prince into a national myth

Words ALEKSANDAR PAVLOVIĆ

ver the centuries that their rule through royal ties. It is highly unlikely that followed the death of Prince Lazar as a minor dignitary would have had the chance Lazar at the 1389 Battle of of marrying so high, and there are no records that Kosovo against the Turks, he corroborate this story from his lifetime. acquired a mythical aura in Stefan Uroš, remembered as Uroš the Weak, was a the oral tradition, literature poor shadow of his father, Stefan Dušan the Mighty, and historiography of the and from 1355 to his premature death in 1371, many South Slavs and became influential noblemen abandoned him and ruled in de one of the central national facto independence. Eventually, even those who remained symbols in Serbian culture. But during Lazar’s youth faithful to the Tsar, like Lazar, realised it was time for and even for much of his adulthood, nothing indicated the new elite to carve off a piece of the Serbian Empire he would ever rise to such prominence. By the 1360s, before it fell completely to ruin. But unlike those whose the Serbian state had been safely in the hands of the swift rise was met by an equally swift fall, Lazar played Nemanjić dynasty for two centuries. Lazar, the son of the long game, slowly and patiently enlarging his estates. a minor dignitary – Pribac from Novo Brdo, a mining His true rise began only in 1373, when he and Bosnian and trade centre in what is now Kosovo – served at the King Tvrtko I defeated the powerful zupan, or lord, court of Serbia’s Tsar, Stefan Uroš V, as stavilac (cup- Nikola Altomanović and divided his lands between them. bearer). Those in this position were among the lowest Some later chronicles state that, “The holy Prince Lazar ranks at the court, usually in charge of the ceremonies tore asunder Župan Nikola and blinded him,” perhaps surrounding the Emperor’s table and dinning rituals. not so holy of an act. These events also show that Lazar, Following the Battle of Kosovo, monastic tradition after leaving the court, assumed the tile of knez, which identifies Lazar’s wife Milica as a descendant of the is a rather fluid label that can encapsulate any leading Nemanjić family. In the much later folk tradition, Lazar position among the Slavs and is often translated into serves the Tsar at the table “with a golden cup”, and king or duke in English. In any case, he was by no means the Tsar gives him his relative as a bride for his faithful ever the “Tsar Lazar, Serbian golden crown” as the folk service. However, both sources represent the wishful songs call him, and never wore a crown of any kind. thinking of Lazar’s descendants who wanted to legitimise Nevertheless, from that time onwards, Lazar was the

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Lazar accuses Miloš Obilić contingent sent from the Bosnian king, and Lazar’s of plotting to betray son-in-law Vuk Branković led the right flank. The Turks A German illustration him and in return the surely relied on a number of their Christian allies, some showing Sultan Murad I knight asserts his loyalty, slain in the heat of battle promising to slay the Sultan of which were regional leaders known to Lazar from their days at the Nemanjić court. It remains uncertain if Lazar was killed in the battle or captured and beheaded later, or if Sultan Murad I died before, during or after the fight. Some much later sources claim that the Christians were winning at first but later succumbed to the Turks. This may well have been a deliberate strategy by the Turks to let the centre forces deeper inside their lines and then close on them from three sides, using the advantage of their swift, light horse cavalry. This would correspond with the fact that, while Lazar died in the field, both Vlatko Vuković and Vuk Branković were unharmed, which would later give rise to the motif of Branković’s treason in popular tradition – encouraged no doubt by the death toll at Kosovo rendering him the single most powerful nobleman left in Serbian lands. But, as much as this scenario makes sense, these are perhaps not much more than speculations or educated guesses. Interestingly enough, none of the earliest sources mention the outcome as a crushing defeat for the Serbs. For instance, days after the battle, the Venetians congratulated Tvrtko I on his victory. Indeed, not only Who killed the Sultan? was the Sultan himself dead, but his son Bayezid (soon Like his liege lord, the life and deeds of Miloš to be Sultan Bayezid I) needed to return home to settle things and consolidate power. Still, the Serbs were Obilić are a subject of much debate exhausted and unable to resist Turkish incursions. In the years and decades after the battle, Lazar’s successors The legend of the Kosovo battle femme manner, their wives had a accepted Ottoman vassalage in exchange for autonomy. actually has two equally grand dispute that then caused the rift characters – Prince Lazar and Miloš among the greatest nobles at the Obilić, who killed the Turkish Sultan Serbian court on the eve of the battle. BELOW A map of the Balkans in the decades before Lazar’s reign Murad I. Arguably, Miloš’s deed is the Serbian folk songs do not describe in and the splintering of the Serbian Empire – note the thin line of greatest single heroic achievement in detail the actual killing, and contain Byzantine territory that will fall to the Ottomans Serbian history, and he thus served only typically exaggerated verses that as the role model for Christians Miloš “killed the Turkish Sultan Murad mightiest district ruler in the remnant of the Serbian June, on the feast day of Saint Vitus. However, hardly during the Turkish rule. One early- and 12,000 Turks,” which is perhaps Empire. His territory included the rich mining towns anything is certain about this battle that resonates so 20th-century ethnographer wrote that a bit too many even for a Serbian he enjoys a sort of religious status knight. The Turkish sources are far of Novo Brdo and Rudnik and, together with his sons- strongly through centuries. Modern historians have among the highlanders of the central more inventive and elaborate on this in-law, his family alliance stretched from the Sava and confirmed some of the information provided by the Balkans: “They all consider him as matter. There, Miloš is portrayed as Danube rivers in the north to the songs and tradition, such as that the their spiritual ancestor, they think of a sort of trickster, who pretends to be him, admire him, and even dream a renegade demanding to see the Adriatic Coast. Equally important, battle did take place on that date, of him. When they were performing Sultan and profess his loyalty to him he enjoyed the support of the Serbian and that both leaders, Prince Lazar heroic deeds, they would ponder and personally. The Sultan offers him his church and provided shelter for the “The legends and Sultan Murad I, were killed. argue if Obilić would do so, and if foot and Miloš, while kissing it, takes monks who fled the Turks. Everything else is shrouded in doubt. so, they came closer to him.” out his hidden knife and drives it into about Prince The story of Miloš Obilić is a Murad I, before himself being cut to The Battle of Kosovo was, to Figures mentioning hundreds of touching one. During the supper pieces by the Turks. a certain extent, inevitable. After thousands of soldiers on both sides on the eve of the battle, labelled by If the literature is contentious, the Lazar some scholars as the ‘Serbian Last history of Miloš Obilić is even more defeating the Mrnjavčević family, are surely gross exaggeration. Even Supper’, Prince Lazar claimed Miloš problematic. Miloš is not actually who ruled a chunk of Serbian the claims that there were 20,000 would betray him on the battlefield mentioned by name as the killer of lands in modern Macedonia, at the apparently arose soldiers on each side made by scarce and switch to the Turkish side. the Sultan until a century after the Battle of Maritza in 1371, the Turks contemporary sources are doubtful. Offended, Miloš responded that he battle. Recently, even the ethnicity of immediately would single-handedly kill the Sultan the hero has been disputed. Albanian established their dominance in Some historians purported to show himself and gladly die the next day, scholars have raised the claim Balkan affairs and occasionally sent that the army led by Lazar included and warned his master that the that Miloš was actually Albanian, after the battle” actual traitor was Lazar’s right-hand supporting it with oral testimonies regiments deep into the lands held Croats, Albanians, Hungarians, man Vuk Branković. Here, various from 100-year-old Kosovan men by Lazar and Tvrtko I. Lazar and the Greeks and others, but it seems narratives give differing explanations. who were reported to have lived Ottoman Sultan, Murad I, even met on the battlefield unlikely that this regional ruler would be able to gather According to much later popular at the time of the battle. The latest tradition as well as some Slav and hypotheses, based on the 1402 close to Kosovo in 1386, but it appears this was nothing such a vast coalition. Not even all his sons-in-law joined Latin writers from, both Vuk Branković Katalan Chronicle, identifies Miloš as more than a brief encounter without a real fight. him on the battlefield. By all likelihood, Lazar led the and Miloš Obilić were Lazar’s sons- a Hungarian. Both of these theories The stage was set for the ultimate battle, which took centre portion of the Christian forces, Duke Vlatko in-law. In a classical cherchez la are rejected by Serbs. place at Kosovo polje (the Field of the Blackbirds) on 15 Vuković occupied the left flank accompanied by a

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In the footsteps of the dead Lazar’s relics rarely stayed in one place for long, as much a victim of war and upheaval as Serbia itself

The journey of Lazar’s earthly remains epitomises Ravanica monastery as all the turbulence and pitfalls of Serbian history and it appears today. Inside reminds us of the flux between religion, nationalism are frescoes showing and politics in the Balkans in general. Lazar’s death, along Following the tradition of earlier Serbian and with depictions of his Byzantine rulers, Lazar erected the monastery wife, Milica, and their Ravanica in 1375-1377 in what is now central Serbia. sons, Vuk and Stefan Fairly modest in size, it was founded to serve as a family chapel during his lifetime and place of his eternal rest. However, as Lazar was killed some 320 kilometres to the south, his body was initially kept in Pristina for several years. According to Medieval monastic writers, the Turks obstructed the translation of the relics. However, it might well be that Lazar’s brother-in-law (and perhaps usurper) Vuk Branković, who at the time controlled this territory, actually kept the relics in Pristina to legitimise his supremacy over the remaining Serbian lands. Eventually, three years after his death, Lazar’s relics were transferred to Ravanica, in a procession involving his widow, his sons Stefan and Vuk, Serbian nobility, and court and church dignitaries. There, Lazar was beatified and put to eternal rest. Eternity, however, has an expiry date in the Balkans, monasteries springing up in Fruška Gora, it soon moved to the Assembly Church in Belgrade the and so in the late-17th century, another migration became the centre of Serbian Orthodoxy for the next following year. After the war, the church seemed followed. During and after the Great Turkish War several centuries. There the relics resided in relative committed to return the relics to Lazar’s original (1683-1699), the Serbian Orthodox Church and its peace for the next 250 years. They were moved only endowment, but the communist authorities did not subjects suffered retaliation from the Turks and fled briefly during the Turkish raids in the 18th century look favourably (to say the least) on religious displays, north of the Sava and Danube rivers to seek luck in and the Serbian rebellion against the Hungarians especially those that would likely spur nationalistic the lands of the Habsburg dynasty. The monks from during the 1848-1849 ‘Spring of Nations’. sentiments. In 1988, the moment to return Lazar’s Ravanica travelled all the way to the present-day The 20th century was no less turbulent. In 1941, relics to their original location had finally come – but, central Hungary, where they built a wooden church Fruška Gora became part of the Independent instead of a classical procession to Ravanica, the for the relics of the Prince Lazar. But again, this rest State of Croatia, a Nazi puppet state ruled by their relics embarked on a 14-month-long journey across was a brief one. Only three years later, in 1696, the Croatian allies, the Ustaše. Fleeing from Fruška Gora Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, remaining in a relics were moved as the monks repaired the older, to Belgrade in 1941, one Serbian priest wrote a plea number of Serbian Orthodox churches. Lazar’s relics derelict monastery Vrdnik on Fruška Gora, popularly to the Church Council to rescue the holy relics from were finally put to rest in Ravanica in 1989, exactly known as the New Ravanica. With other Orthodox likely destruction. Lazar’s relics were subsequently 600 years after his death, where they still reside.

ABOVE Lazar lies dying to the left of Adam While contemporaries of the battle may have believed Lazar was a martyr who gladly sacrificed himself for the As it appears, the tradition could not cope with the Stefanović’s painting of the immediate danger of Turkish rule had been averted, Lord, renouncing all earthly fame and thus earning the fact that the Turks were, simply, too strong. Be as it the Battle of Kosovo, Lazar’s last stand was the last significant attempt to kingdom of heaven. For example, Danilo the Younger “Lazar decided to leave behind the may, Prince Lazar certainly made a mark. As a foreign 1870 preserve Christian rule over the Serbian Empire. wrote in his Discourse On Prince Lazar (1399) that historian once wrote, while other Christian kingdoms in The legends about Prince Lazar apparently Lazar decided to leave behind the transience of transience of earthly rule and align the Balkans empires perished without a sound, falling arose immediately after the battle. Meticulous earthly rule and align himself with the soldiers prey to the Turks piece by piece, through internal research by Serbian Medievalists showed of heaven, and that the soldiers faithful to himself with the soldiers of heaven” conflicts and vassalage, Lazar gathered the remains of that church writers produced ten works him in the earthly kingdom all earned the Serbian Empire to the battlefield and died with a about Lazar and the Battle of Kosovo blessed life in the heavenly kingdom. supper on the eve of the battle, treason of Lazar’s brother sword in his hand. This resonated so strongly that Lazar, in only 30 years after the event. By Lazar and the Battle of Kosovo in law Vuk Branković, Lazar’s deliberate choice of the the man and the ruler, became largely forgotten in the the standards of Serbian Medieval received full glory in the heroic folk kingdom of heaven over earthly fame and so on. name of Lazar, the martyr and the hero. Simply put, the literature, this was an enormous output songs, primarily those collected by In the literary tradition centring on Kosovo, as well man became a legend. in a short span of time. Only Saint Vuk Karadžić in the early-19th century. as in Serbian epic songs, there are two explanations Sava and Saint Simeon, the founders of the Called the Kosovo Cycle, these songs were of the Serbian defeat. Some stories have it that Vuk Nemanjić dynasty and the Serbian Empire, traditionally seen as central to Serbian oral Branković committed treason and abandoned his liege had such an extensive body of religious texts tradition and had all the virtues required of on the battlefield. According to the second interpretation, Further reading written to celebrate their cult, but these works A 1900 painting of a national tradition. In some 15 or so related Prince Lazar made a deliberate choice between the • T Emmerth, Serbian Golgotha: Kosovo, 1389, Columbia University were created over a much longer period. Prince Lazar by artist songs, the Battle of Kosovo is depicted as kingdom of earth and the kingdom of heaven. Although Press 1990 Uroš Predić • J Matthias and V Vuckovic, The Battle Of Kosovo, Ohio University Thus, the production of texts about Prince seeing the downfall of Prince Lazar, the the Serbs were vastly outnumbered, Lazar and his Press 1987 Lazar is almost without a precedent in Serbian Medieval Medieval Serbian Empire and their independence, while soldiers decided to die heroically in battle rather than • R Mihaljčić, The Battle Of Kosovo In History And In Popular literature. Inspired by the gospels and by Byzantine at the same time establishing the Turks as the new subject themselves to Turkish rule. In other words, Lazar Tradition, BIGZ Belgrade 1989 hagiography, several of these monastic writers refer to masters. The Kosovo epic contains various elements of fought to deserve a place in the heavenly kingdom, not to • P Ivić (ed), The History Of Serbian Culture, Porthill Publishers 1995

Lazar’s choice of the heavenly over the earthly kingdom. literary, religious and popular origin, such as the last preserve and enlarge their earthly dominions. © Robert Venables, Petar Milošević

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