Đorđe Branković

Georg Brankovic

Đorđe Branković (* 1645 in Jenopolje (today Ineu , Arad County , Romania ), † December 19, 1711 in Eger in Bohemia ) was a Transylvanian envoy and count.

Life

Count Đorđe Branković was born in 1645 in Jenopolje, which was on the border with the Ottoman Empire , in Transylvania .

His father and two brothers died of the plague. The mother of noble descent went to the monastery, while Đorđe was handed over to the care of her eldest son Simeon. This was a priest in Jenopolje and later also became a monk and under the name Sava (Sawa, 1656–1680) to the Orthodox Metropolitan of Transylvania.

In the period from 1675 to 1677 Đorđe Branković was the envoy of Transylvania at the gate and brought the tribute to the Ottomans. During this occasion he toured Belgrade and Serbia . With his brother Sava, Đorđe was also in Russia , where both of them offered the Russian Tsar Alexei I (1645–1676) an alliance and military aid in the fight against the Ottomans. On suspicion of participating in a conspiracy against the Prince of Transylvania Michael Apafi I (1661–1690), he and Sava were arrested and taken to a dungeon. He soon managed to flee to Bucharest , where he mediated the rapprochement between the Wallachian prince Șerban I. Cantacuzino (1678–1688) and the Austrian Habsburgs . As a reward he was given the title of baron. From the Serbian patriarch Đorđe Branković got the certification of his descent from the last princes of Serbia (those of Branković , 1427-1459), and in the sense of his own proclamation as prince of the Illyricum he called himself Prince Đorđe II. Branković. He made his project known to the Austrian Emperor Leopold I (1658–1705). But Vienna did not accept this proposal. Đorđe Branković only got the title of count. When the Habsburgs penetrated deep into the Serbian hinterland in the Turkish War of 1683–1699, he called on the Serbs to fight for freedom against the Ottomans, with him as their prince. This did not coincide with the state interests of Austria , which is why the military commanders were ordered to arrest him and bring him to Vienna. In Vienna he was imprisoned until 1702 in the inn "Zum golden Bären" under constant guard, then transferred to Eger in Bohemia , where Đorđe Branković died in 1711.

literature

• Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe , ed. by Mathias Bernath, Volume 1, 1974 ( ISBN 3-486-47961-X )
• Enciklopedija Jugoslavije , 2nd edition, Volume 2, 1982