Stefan Uroš III. Dečanski

Stefan Dečanski as the founder of the Dečani Church; Fresco, 14th century

Coins by Stefan Dečanski

Stefan Uroš III. Dečanski ( Serbian - Cyrillic Стефан Урош III Дечански ), (* around 1285 - † November 11, 1331 ) from the Nemanjid dynasty (Serbian Nemanjići ) was king of Rascia from 1321 to September 8, 1331 .

Life

Stefan Uroš III. Dečanski was the son of King Stefan Uroš II Milutin and Anna Terter of Bulgaria . His maternal grandparents were Tsar Georgi I Terter of Bulgaria and his wife Kira-Maria Assenina , a sister of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Assen III.

In his childhood Stefan Dečanski was sent hostage by his father to Kara Nogai Khan , the leader of the Golden Horde . On his return he became governor of Zeta . In 1314 Stefan, incited by the nobility, rose against his father. Banished by him to Constantinople , he should be blinded there. Stefan probably did not lose his eyesight completely, but he always had to wear a black bandage over his eyes.

In 1320 he was allowed to return to Serbia. There he had to assert himself against a number of aspirants to the throne before he was crowned king in 1321. He defeated and killed his half-brother Stefan Konstantin in 1322 and sent his cousin Stefan Vladislav II into exile in Hungary in 1324 after he had defeated him too.

The aspirants to the throne received foreign support and so the victorious Serbian king faced an alliance from Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire . The Bulgarian Tsar Michael III. Schischman divorced Maria, the sister of King Stefan Uroš II, and married the Byzantine princess Theodora Palaiologina, the widow of Theodor II Svetoslav and sister of the Byzantine emperor Andronikos III. The allies gathered an army for a major invasion of Serbia in 1330. In the battle of Welbaschd (today Kjustendil ) on July 28, 1330 Stefan Uroš III defeated. Dečanski destroying the Bulgarians. After the battle, Bulgaria came under Serbian influence. Stefan Uroš III. made his nephew Iwan Stephan , a son of the Tsar Michael III who died in the battle. Shishman, the new Bulgarian ruler. With this, Serbia succeeded in its final ascent to a regional great power.

Dissatisfied with his politics, some courtiers conspired against him in order to put his son Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan on the throne. The reason was on the one hand the desire for expansion of the high nobility, while Stefan Uroš III. was not interested in further conquests (he rejected the Bulgarian imperial crown after the battle of Welbaschd), on the other hand, Stefan allegedly intended to appoint his son from his second marriage to the Byzantine princess Maria Palaiologina, Simeon Uroš , as heir to the throne To strengthen relations between Serbia and Byzantium. Dušan and the nobility surprised Stefan Uroš III. with a ruse and held him prisoner in the castle of Zvečan . Stefan Uroš III. Dečanski either died on November 11, 1331 while attempting to escape, or he died a violent death from strangulation (in the second case it is not clear to what extent his son Dušan was privy to these plans).

Stefan's first wife was Theodora, daughter of Tsar Smilez of Bulgaria. In his second marriage he was married to the Byzantine princess Maria Palaiologina, the daughter of Prince Johannes Palaiologos-Komnenos and granddaughter of the Grand Logothet Theodoros Metochites . The Serbian Orthodox Church spoke Stefan Uroš III. holy. His feast day is November 24th.

The Church of St. Stefan Dečanski (Szigetcsép) is dedicated to him.

plant

Stefan Uroš III. Dečanski's greatest work was the construction of the Visoki Dečani monastery , after which it was later given the name “Dečanski”. Today the monastery with Stefan's grave is the center of the cult of St. Stefan Uroš III. Dečanski.

literature

• John VA Fine Jr.: The Late Medieval Balkans . Ann Arbor 1987.
• Frank fighter: Uroš III. Dečanski, Stefan , in: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 4. Munich 1981, p. 373 f.

Web links

Commons : Stefan Uroš III. Dečanski  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	successor
Stefan Uroš II Milutin	King of Serbia 1321–1331	Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan