Jovan Uglješa

Jovan Uglješa († 1371 ) was the brother of the Serbian king Vukašin and despot of Serres .

The earliest mention of Uglješa is dated 1346, but as Uglessa baronus , Lord of Trebinje in today's Herzegovina , which at that time belonged to the Serbian state of the Nemanjids . At the side of his brother Vukašin, Uglješa made a career at the imperial court of the Nemanjids and rose to voivode . With the slow fragmentation of the Serbian Empire after the death of Stefan Dušan , Uglješa, together with Jelena, the widowed wife of Stefan Dušan, was able to establish himself as a ruler in Macedonia. He assumed the title of Lord of the Serbian Lands, Greece and the Coast . InByzantine sources only mention him as a despot of Serbia. In the letters of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Philotheos Kokkinos , his territory is mentioned in Serres and on the lower reaches of the Struma .

With the mediation of the Patriarch Philotheos, and in order to favor a coalition against the Ottomans , the bishoprics under his and Jelena's rule, which Stefan Dušan had withdrawn from the Church of Constantinople at that time, came back under the jurisdiction of the Constantinople Patriarchate . In the Battle of the Mariza in 1371, Jovan Uglješa tried with his brother Vukašin to stop the Ottomans' advance; both died in battle. He was married to Jelena, the later nun Jefimija , not to be confused with the empress widow Jelena.

literature

• Божидар Ферјанчић: Деспоти у Византији и Јужнословенским земљама (= Посебна издашиа. Српска академија наука и уметности, Београд 1960, pp. 171–181 passim .