Vita of the despot Stefan Lazarević
The Life of Despot Stefan Lazarevic (Житија деспота Стефана Лазаревића) is one of Constantine of Kostenets as hagiography drafted Altserbische ruler's biography and historiography on the Serbian Despot Stefan Lazarevic , four years after his death in 1431 in the writing school of the monastery Manasija has arisen (Resava). It represents the most important historiographical Slavic work of Southeast Europe of the late Middle Ages and is one of the most important source works for the early history of the Ottoman Empire , as well as for the Byzantine and Serbian history between 1370 and 1430 in general.
The vita as a historical source
The work comprises 300 printed pages and deals with the time of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović , the battle on the Blackbird Field and, in particular, the government of Stefan Lazarević and the conditions and events in the Ottoman and Byzantine Empire . It is based on the Byzantine historiographers such as Nikephoros Gregoras , and heralds in Serbian literature for the first time a secular direction in the genre of hagiographies (stories of saints) to the Serbian rulers, which had been influenced by the church until then. Thus, in the vita of the despot Stefan Lazarević , the objective historical sources already predominate , which the ideal ideas in the earlier Serbian dynastic historiographies do not know.
The Vita was commissioned by the Patriarch Nikon (1419–1435) and the Synod and is by far the most important work of its genre in the medieval Slavic literature of Southeast Europe, which describes the despot's biography in an almost modern form, and is also one of the most important historical works Source works of the Slavic south counts. This also brought about a certain change from monastic to courtly historiography, in which a reference by authors from classical antiquity was also an innovation.
Lore
The vita was probably written before the year 1431, since after that all trace of Constantine is lost. The original text has not been preserved; four copies, two Serbian and two Russian, date from 15th to 17th centuries. Century.
- Odesser or Cetinje copy - Serbian editors between 1508/10 and 1523/27
- Cavtater or Bogičever copy - Serbian editors of the first half of the 17th century - Bogičević Museum in Cavtat
- Kyrilobelozersk copy - Russian editors of the 16th century - in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg
- Volokolamer copy - Russian editors from the end of the 15th century.
There are also three short copies by the Russian editors: Troicker, Kazan and Pogodin copies.
Shape and development
The stylistic form of the vita of the despot Stafan Lazarević developed from the Serbian dynastic rulers' biographies, which were initiated as a genre by Saint Sava in Serbian literature with the biography of Stefan Nemanja. With the further development by Danilo II. (1270-1337) and his students - "Životi kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih" -, in which six biographies form the core of an anthology, hagiography, historiography and panegyric rhetoric were combined as elements of stylistic and compositional work , in which, however, a tendency to abandon the strict hagiographic tradition and insert elements of secular biographies established itself. With the two heirs of the tradition - Grigorij Camblak and Konstantin Kostenezki - two foreigners took over the two literary directions found, with Hesychast Camblak continuing the conservative hagiographic style and composition and Konstantin Kostenezki continuing the secular direction. While Camblak remained without a successor in Serbia, Konstantin Kostenezki's work represented the climax and temporary end point of the development of Serbian biographies. Camblak's work remains without great historical source value, but is a work of high literary quality due to its intimate poetry and religious emotional depth. In contrast, the vita of the despot Stefan Lazarevic is a first-order historical source, and since Byzantine historiography between 1360 and 1420 is rather obscure, it is of the greatest relevance.
content
General
In his work, Kostenezki goes far beyond the framework of a mere vita; it is practically a general historical study of the time of Stefan Lazarević:
"I have not only described this as a vita, but as if I were a chronicler, with all other things"
In particular, the turmoil of the Ottoman throne after the death of Bayezid I is dealt with in great detail, as are the Turkish events and circumstances in general. In addition, as an important personality at the Serbian court, Constantine was a man who was the focus of political life and who had to have first-class information material at his disposal.
The vita begins with flashbacks to the great personalities of the old covenant or the old world as well as the story of the Hellenic sages ( Thucydides , Aristotle , Plato ) as well as Hermes Trismegistos and their alleged prophecies, which are related to the youth and origin of the Serbian despot become.
As a contemporary witness, he reports extensively on the Battle of the Blackbird Field, the Battle of Rovine , the Battle of Nicopolis, the Battle of Angora , the Second Battle of the Blackbird Field and historical personalities such as the ruling family of Stefans and the Ottoman sultans and sons of Bayezids.
In the portrayal of life Stefans be Lazar , Olivera Despina , Jefimija , Milica Hrebeljanović , Prince Marko , George Brankovic , Vuk Lazarevic and among shifting alliances during the Ottoman interregnum and civil war, the warring sons Bayezid - Mehmed I , Süleyman Çelebi , İsa Çelebi , Mustafa Çelebi and Musa Çelebi treated chronologically.
Battle on the blackbird field
Constantine's vita, written 40 years after the battle on the Amselfeld, shows the extent of this historical event as a picture left on contemporaries. Undoubtedly, the legend of the course of the battle grew from the earliest days; the battle on the Blackbird Field was interpreted as an event of the utmost moral and religious importance. Constantine claims that the disaster was pre-arranged through provisional intervention - first "Lazar's men defended themselves and were victorious" but "this was not the time of redemption" and therefore "the son of the [Turkish] tsar did it again in battle strengthened and won, since God so willed it " . Lazar died "crowned with the laurels of a martyr" while his knights eagerly pleaded "to be killed before him so as not to have to witness his death" . The bravest of the knights - Miloš Obilić - "a very noble man" who "slandered the envious of their master and accused them of treason" - demonstrated his loyalty and courage by killing the Turkish Sultan Murad despite the denigration of his own countrymen. This interpretation of Constantine can be found later in other works and was supplemented in the Turcica memoirs of a Janissary Konstantins Mihajlović from Ostrovica with the motif of disagreement and betrayal as an explanation of defeat.
Over the further development of the greatest medieval religious concepts, these were taken as dishes of the need to explain what was seen as the greatest historical catastrophe, in order to then be at the center of the legends of the Serbian heroic epic .
Praise to Belgrade
Constantine's praise of Belgrade is still one of the best-known and by far the most detailed medieval portrayals of the city, in which there is an enumeration of numerous buildings, most of which have now been lost, such as the individual functions of the two ports, the various city gates and newly built churches.
The Great Description of Belgrade by Constantine as Jerusalem is also one of the most important city praises of Byzantine culture . In terms of praise, Belgrade became the last Orthodox city on the Balkan Peninsula to receive his praise at the last moment. This laus of Belgrade ends the lauds of Constantinople, Thessaloniki, Kiev and Preslav and is at the same time the first praise of a Serbian city in the Serbian language. Konstantin Kostenezki, the chronicler of his time, describes and praises the great buildings in Belgrade, although he often loses himself in comparisons in which he tries to equate Belgrade with Jerusalem. Belgrade, like the great religious archetypes of holy cities - Jerusalem (Judaism / Christianity / Islam), Rome (Christianity) and Constantinople (Christianity / Islam) - is described as being built on seven hills . He lists these seven hills of Belgrade, but is not very clear. Constantine continues to make use of numerous exaggerations, of which the portrayal of the Danube as Pishon , one of the four rivers of Paradise, belongs to an older view and is attributed to discussions by Psellos that Constantine was familiar with. The Serbian residence is described geographically and topographically very precisely in a transition from the old Paradise Rivers in a blending to the new construction of Belgrade on the Sava and Danube:
“And another of the 36 important rivers of ecumenism is the Save ; here it is like a wall that divides into two arms and unites again in the most beautiful place, where the Pishon ( Danube ) flows with three arms into it are three islands on which Belgrade joins, which will be reported in more detail later. "
All of these exaggerations in the comparisons of Stefan with Solomon and Belgrade with Jerusalem are products of Byzantine literature that were also found in identical parallels in the later praises of Constantinople. So the not moderate epithets are also in Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopulos Praise Constantinople in an exuberant praise Andronikos II. As builder, although he only renewed older churches.
Belgrade, which, following the example of Constantinople, which was resettled by Constantine the Great , received a regular increase in population through the "apostle-like", is compared with the "Solomonic Jerusalem", the "Upper Jerusalem" (Sion / Upper City with Stefan's Castle) or " lower Jerusalem "(Danube Lower City) praised:
“And who could describe the location, appearance and beauty of Belgrade in whacked words ?! The despot built numerous walls and towers for the people who live in the city and in front of it; therefore it can be said about the Belgrade hill as about Solomon's Jerusalem: from these buildings the shadow falls on the surroundings as it fell from the high, mighty Babylonian gates. "
In the time of Kostenezki, the despot's castle in the upper town with the donjon "Nebojša" as well as the extension and construction of the tower-rich Belgrade city wall, which, by separating the upper (residence) and lower town (civil town), enclosed the medieval city in a mature defense system . The court of the literarily active Stefan Lazarević experienced an emphatic cultural heyday ( Palaiological Renaissance ) and was an important refuge and gathering place for Orthodox scholars who contributed to the establishment of an important late medieval writing school (Belgrade Writing School) . Also mentioned are the newly founded churches for the Dormition of the Mother of God (Uspenija prečiste Vladičice) (metropolis / seat of the exarch), another under the patronage of the three hierarchs (burial church of the metropolitans), a hospice church dedicated to St. Nikolaos (for the sick and pilgrims) and one near the Great Morava lonely situated monastery of St. Trinity, where Stefan Lazarevic wanted to be buried: the Resava (Manasija) monastery, consecrated by Patriarch Kirilo I (1407–1419 ), center of the Serbian literary culture (with a large, predominantly liturgical library); also the women's monastery started by Stefan's mother, Princess Milica (as a nun: Jevgenija) for the asleep of the Blessed Mother Ljubostinja (1407), in which she was also buried. Konstantin Kostenezki is the most important witness of urban renewal and the last reference before the return of the royal seat to Hungary:
“And really, this truly tsarist (city) was also the most beautiful ... and the despot also had the imperial residence conspicuously decorated and deep trenches drawn around the double wall. ... The upper town has four gates, in the east, west, north and south; the fifth leads to the lower town. The great gate to the east and south has great pillars and bridges that are pulled with chains. To the west is a small gate that also has a bridge; to the north is a small gate that leads into the small town as well as to the rivers. The gate to the castle also has a bridge with chains over a moat. ... In the east of the city there was a large church to which one descends like in the Kidron valley to Getsemani . And this church is the Mitropolija of Our Lady asleep; she had a rich monastery and numerous gardens; it was also the seat of the Belgrade Mitropolitans, the exarch of all the Serbian countries. It was richer than other churches during the time of the despot. The despot also founded a new church, Perivonija, which was dedicated to three great saints, and the burial church of the Archipresbyter of this church. "
The genre of praising cities in the Byzantine culture was ended at the end of the 15th century, in their place came the lamente ( threnoi ) of Constantinople, since the owls / praises became groundless after the fall of Constantinople . Probably the last lament for the lost Byzantium and the lament of the foreseeable downfall of the Serbian despotate can also be found in Đurađ Branković's funeral address in Smederevo in 1456 , where the expelled bishops, church people and ordinary people of Constantinople were asked to end together with the Serbs of the epoch of the longed-for cities of paradise in the lament over the death of the despot and the fall of the city of Constantinople in the tragic loss of the missed mission.
Milorad Ekmečić sees in Constantine a witness to the time limit of Serbia's medieval history. In the description of the response of the Serbian people by Kostenezki to Hungary's attempt to transform Belgrade into a Catholic city after 1427, Ekmečić sees one of the first signs of the long process of the gradual formation of a Serbian national consciousness, which is the opening of a new epoch over the The next centuries in the type of social conditions, religious intolerance and violence, differed fundamentally from the previous medieval era, in which the awareness of common language and roots was the basis. Religious affiliation took precedence over language roots and henceforth formed the watershed of national identity for the southern Slavs.
"Suddenly everything became desolate with hatred, everything was reshaped, everything became as if it did not exist, everything was filled with bitterness."
In Kostenezki's work, this transformation of Catholics is cited by an example that happened after Easter: as the Hungarian priests from the other side, like deceivers, when they held masses in the churches and came to the people with their deeds and carried their icons through the city An Orthodox monk was walking through the streets, shaggy and as if out of his mind and many of the residents fled into the interior of Serbia for fear of the Hungarian Catholics.
Belgrade Charter
The Vita also contains the representation of the Charter of Belgrade, to which the city festival of Belgrade goes back to this day. The Charter of Belgrade ( Povelja grada Beograda ) Stefan Lazarevic certain after safe return from the battlefield in Ankara after King Sigismund 1403 Belgrade as the residence of his Despotate received, the Ascension Day as a day of patron saint festival .
“From the Amselfeld (Kosovo) to the Ismailern (Ottoman) prisoner until the arrival of the Tsar of the Persians and Tartars crushed them and released me from their grip with divine gentleness. Coming from there, on my return, I found the most enchanting place, where the great city of Beligrad has always stood and now I have found it destroyed and abandoned. I decided to rebuild it and consecrate it to the Mother of God and to give freedom to its inhabitants. "
literature
- Source editions
- Константин Филозоф: Житија деспота Стефана Лазаревића. Prosveta, Srpska Književna zadruga, Stara Srpska Književnost, knj. 11, Beograd 1989. ISBN 86-07-00088-8
- Maximilian Braun : Description of the life of the despot Stefan Lazarević from Constantine the Philosopher . In the excerpt published u. trans. by Maximilian Braun. Wiesbaden, Mouton 1956.
Web links
- Константин Филозоф: Житије деспота Стефана Лазаревића (Rastko)
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- ↑ Gordana Jovanović 2007: Veljko Vrboric (ed.): Konstantin Filosof: ЖИВОТ СТЕФНА ЛЗАРЕВИЧА ДЕСПОТА СРПСКОГА. Biblioteka Knjizevnost i Jezik, 17, Belgrade. ISBN 978-86-84885-19-9
- ↑ Marko Šuica 2009: Bitka kod Nikopolja u delu Konstantina Filozofa . Istorijski Časopis, 58, 109-124
- ↑ Stanislaus Hafner 1964: Studies on Old Serbian dynastic historiography . Southeast Europe Work, 62. Oldenbourg, Munich.
- ^ Ivan Dujcev: Reports litteraires entre les Byzantins, les bulgares et les Serbes aux XIVe et XVe siecles. In: Vojislav J. Duric (ed.): L'ecole de Morava et son age. Belgrade 1971, p. 97.
- ↑ Maximilian Braun (ed. And translator): Description of the life of the despot Stefan Lazarević . Mouton & Co., The Hague. P. VII.
- ^ Gerhard Podskalsky : Theological literature of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria and Serbia 865-1459 . München, Beck 2000. ISBN 3-406-45024-5 , p. 343. (Googlebooks: limited preview)
- ^ Henrik Birnbaum : The Old Serbian Vita . Henrik Birnbaum (Ed.) 1974: On medieval and renaissance slavic writing: selected essays . The Hague, Mouton. P. 308
- ↑ Henrik Birnbaum 1974: p. 310.
- ↑ Henrik Birnbaum 1974 p. 312.
- ↑ Konstantin Filosof 1431: ЖИВОТ СТЕФАНА ЛАЗАРЕВИЧА, ДЕСПОТА СРПСКОГА.
- ^ Svetozar Koljević 1980: The Epic in the making . Clarendon Press, Oxford. 136. ISBN 0-19-815759-2
- ↑ Svetozar Koljević 1980: p. 156
- ↑ Svetozar Koljević 1980: p. 158.
- ↑ Svetozar Radojčić 2008: Ideja o u gradu savršenom državi kneza Lazara i despota Stefana Lazarevica . Zograf, 32, 5–12 (SCIndeks: PDF) ( Memento of the original from October 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Svetozar Radojčić 2008, p. 10
- ↑ Svetozar Radojčić 2008: p. 10
- ↑ Svetozar Radojčić 2008, p. 10.
- ↑ Konstantin Filosof 1431: ЖИВОТ СТЕФАНА ЛАЗАРЕВИЧА, ДЕСПОТА СРПСКОГА.
- ↑ Svetozar Radojčić 2008, p. 11
- ↑ Konstantin Filosof 1431: ЖИВОТ СТЕФАНА ЛАЗАРЕВИЧА, ДЕСПОТА СРПСКОГА.
- ↑ Konstantin Filosof 1431: ЖИВОТ СТЕФАНА ЛАЗАРЕВИЧА, ДЕСПОТА СРПСКОГА.
- ↑ Svetozar Radojčić 2008: p. 11
- ↑ Svetozar Radojčić 2008, p. 11
- ↑ Milorad Ekmečić 2011 Dugo Kretanje Između Klanja i oranja - Istorija Srba u Novom Veku (1492-1992) . 4th edition, Evro Giunti, Belgrade. Pp. 16-17. ISBN 978-86-505-1614-0
- ↑ Milorad Ekmečić 2011, p. 17
- ↑ Konstantin Filosof 1431 ЖИВОТ СТЕФАНА ЛАЗАРЕВИЧА, ДЕСПОТА СРПСКОГА.
- ↑ Milorad Ekmečić 2011 p. 17
- ↑ Belgrade as new Jerusalem: Reflections on the reception of a topos in the age of despot Stefan Lazarević ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
