Constantine from Ostrovitza

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Konstantin Mihajlović from Ostrovitza (originally Konstantin Mihailović , * around 1435 in Ostrovica; † after 1481 ) was a Serb who was brought to the Janissaries by the boy harvest of the Ottomans . He is considered the (main) author of a historical work that has been edited in the German-speaking area under the title " Memoirs of a Janissary or Turkish Chronicle " .

Life

Nothing is known about his father Mihail Konstantinović apart from Ostrovitza, where Konstantin was born. However, Ostrovitza cannot be located with certainty either, as there are several villages with this name in the Serbian-Bosnian-Croatian area. He himself describes his ethnic origin as Raitze , a synonym for Serb. Konstantin later moved to Novo Brdo , a rich mining town in the Middle Ages and an important trading center in the Balkans. Novo Brdo was Serbian again after a short occupation by the Ottomans in 1441, but due to agreements, mounted soldiers had to be made available to Sultan Mehmed II on request. One of the 1,500 horsemen from Serbia that the Sultan used in the siege of Constantinople (1453) included Constantine along with some other people from Novo Brdo.

“Those people who had been dispatched by the despot [including myself wanted to turn back] when they heard that the Sultan was besieging Constantinople, but they were warned that if they wanted to turn back they would absolutely be killed. So they had to go to Constantinople and help the Turks with the conquest; but with our help alone it would never have been conquered. [But our help was of little use to the Turks.] "

Janissary students during weapons exercises

After the conquest of Constantinople, Mehmed II attacked the Balkan countries and, after 40 days of siege, also conquered Novo Brdo, to which Constantine had returned.

“When the city had surrendered, [...] [the Sultan] had the boys gather on one side and the women on the other [...] 320 boys and 704 women were kept by the Sultan; The latter he distributed among the heathen [that is, his men], but he drew the boys with his Janissaries and sent them across the sea to Anatolia, where they were reared. I, too, were dragged from that city with my two brothers into captivity, I who wrote all this down. "

A year later, Constantine was already in the service of the Sultan and took part in the siege of Belgrade (1456) . From 1458 to 1460 he fought with the Turks in the Peloponnese and in 1461 against the Empire of Trebizond . In 1462 he was with the Janissary troops who went to war against Vlad III. Draculea moved.

After the conquest of Bosnia in 1463, the Sultan appointed Constantine to the command of the small fortress Zvečaj on the Vrbas . He placed 50 Janissaries under him and paid him for the next six months. But in the same year Matthias Corvinus conquered Bosnia and Zvečaj also fell into his hands. Constantine was taken prisoner by Hungary and, according to him, was very happy about this fate.

"And I praised the Lord God that I was finally happily returned from captivity to the Christians."

With this sentence the part of his chronicle with the personal experiences ends.

There are two theories for his future life:

  • Đorđe Živanović suspects that Constantine emigrated to Bohemia or Poland. He justified this with the criticism that he had made of the Hungarian Prince Johann Hunyadi and Matthias Corvinus , but also of the Pope, which he should not have dared to venture in Hungary. This coincides with the anti-Hungarian and anti-papist attitude of the Poles and Bohemians at the time.
  • Bronislaw "Branko" Ćirlić is of the opinion that Constantine was sent to the military border in southern Hungary, which Matthias Corvinus populated with Serbs who fled from the Turks. In this enclave, which is practically under Serbian administration, criticism of Hungarian politics would also have been possible.

Memoirs of a Janissary or Turkish Chronicle

After an introductory sentence quoted in the following, Constantine follows a preface in which he expresses his belief in the Holy Trinity and asks for the conversion of the "cursed heathen" .

“ This is how Konstantin, the son of Mihail Konstantinović, a Raitze from Ostrovica whom the Turks have made into a Janissary, begins his Turkish chronicle. "

In 49 chapters Konstantin von Ostrovitza first describes the genealogy of the Osman dynasty , then his own experiences and finally the government and the construction of the Sultan's empire. In this third section he deals in particular with the organization and combat tactics of the Ottoman army .

output

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Renate Lachmann: Memoirs of a Janissary or Turkish Chronicle. Styria Verlag, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1975, ISBN 3-222-105529 , p. 25 f.
  2. ^ Renate Lachmann: Memoirs of a Janissary or Turkish Chronicle. Styria Verlag, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1975, ISBN 3-222-105529 , p. 108. The passages marked with square brackets are inserted from other versions of the chronicle.
  3. ^ Renate Lachmann: Memoirs of a Janissary or Turkish Chronicle. Styria Verlag, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1975, ISBN 3-222-105529 , p. 113.
  4. ^ Renate Lachmann: Memoirs of a Janissary or Turkish Chronicle. Styria Verlag, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1975, ISBN 3-222-105529 , p. 140.
  5. ↑ Đorđe Živanović: Konstantin Mihajlović iz Ostrivice, Janičarove Uspomene ili Turska Hronika. Beograd 1966, foreword, pp. XXVI ff. [1]
  6. ↑ Bronislaw Ćirlić: Próba nowego spojrzenia na "Pamietiki Janczara". Pamiętnik Literacki, No. 43, 1952, pp. 140 ff. [2]
  7. ↑ Raitze is derived from the Serbian core landscape of Raszien with the capital of the same name.
  8. ^ Renate Lachmann: Memoirs of a Janissary or Turkish Chronicle. Styria Verlag, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1975, ISBN 3-222-105529 , p. 53.
personal data
SURNAME Constantine from Ostrovitza
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Konstantin Mihajlović from Ostrovitza
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Serbian-Ottoman chronicler and Janissary
DATE OF BIRTH 1435
PLACE OF BIRTH Ostrovitza
DATE OF DEATH 15th century