Vuk Branković

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Contemporary portrait of eighteen-year-old Vuk Branković. Theotokos Peribleptos Monastery, Ohrid 1364/65

Vuk Branković ( Serbian - Cyrillic Вук Бранковић ; * 1345 ; † October 6, 1397 ) was a Serbian nobleman and one of the Serbian territorial princes who rose to become the most powerful Serbian ruler for a short time after the collapse of the Nemanjid Empire and after the battle on the Blackbird Field . The feudal state he ruled, known as Oblast Brankovića ( Branković's area) or simply Vukova zemlja (Vuk's land), comprised the central part of Serbia, which was ruled by the Nemanjids for 200 years, in the area of Kosovo as well as in the adjacent areas of what is today Southwest Serbia, North Montenegro and North Macedonia. He moved to his lordship on the Blackbird Field in Pristina, not far from the largest medieval city in Serbia and the most important high-medieval silver mining center of the Balkan Peninsula, Novo Brdo .

Life

In close cooperation with his brother-in-law Lazar Hrebeljanović , Branković organized the resistance against the further advance of the Ottomans by playing alongside Murad I during the first incursion of the Ottoman main force in Morava Serbia in 1386, as well as in the decisive battle at Amselfeld, which was well prepared by both sides Prince Lazar was the main actor on the Christian side. In agreement with the principality of the Lazarevići he should have taken over the sovereignty of Morava Serbia after Lazar's death, which was thwarted by Milica Hrebeljanović, Lazar's widow, and the then patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church Kir Spiridon in July 1389. The Lazarevići submitted to Ottoman sovereignty until the first half of 1390, as the Serbian principalities of the Balšići, Dragašiči and Mrnjavčevići had done after the Battle of the Maritza in 1371; thus only Branković's principality remained independent from the Ottomans. Therefore, between 1389 and 1392, Vuk was the nominal heir of the Serbian crown and was recognized as ruler of Serbia by the Adriatic city republics of Venice and Ragusa as well as the Kingdom of Hungary, and was also given an honorary title. which, in particular because of the trade on the important caravan routes between the Adriatic Sea and the mines in the interior, made him a decisive figure among the remaining independent Christian Balkan empires. In 1392 Branković also had to recognize the suzerainty of the Ottomans under Bayezid I , but without giving up his active resistance. In 1396 he refused to take part in the battle of Nicopolis , which ended in a catastrophic defeat for the Christian army. Because of his antagonistic attitude, Branković was subsequently taken into Ottoman captivity, in which he died in 1397. His former lands were given to the Lazarevići after his death.

From the example of a historically unfounded depiction as a traitor in Mavro Orbini's influential Amselfeld version of his Slavic historiography ( Il regno degli Slavi ), the literary elaboration on the figure of Vuk as the central epic personification of the negative hero in the Serbian folk song tradition grew. As an antihero and antagonist to Miloš Obilićs, the protagonist of the good hero, this was adopted in the narrative prose poem of the story of the Battle of the Blackbird Field ( Priča o bojom kosovskom ), which is reflected in the further development of the Blackbird Field Cycle in the Serbian Folk and art epic reflected.

The western Balkan peninsula and the empire of Vuk Branković (2nd half of the 14th century)

Branković's relationship with Lazar before the Battle of the Blackbird Field had passed in a peaceful period, which was overshadowed by the Ottoman upswing as a result of the Battle of the Maritza in 1371. In 1371, Marko Kraljević was formally assigned suzerainty over the Serbian territorial princes through the Serbian royal crown, who, however, avoided any expressions of respect for the royal crown of Markos, which reflected the newly created reality compared to the earlier hierarchical conditions. The political aspirations had generated other interests in the royal houses and led to a new ideological environment. With the death of King Vukašin, the ideologies of rule were adapted to the new conditions. After the fall of the Nemanjid dynasty, the Serbian Orthodox Church and the monastic community of Athos supported the Lazar manor as a new bearer of the Nemanjid government tradition. Prince Lazar thus formed the central figure in the pacification of the ecclesiastical rupture between the Constantinople Patriarchate and the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate of Peć since Stefan Dušan's coronation by the anathema at the church council in the Archangel Monastery of Sveti Arhandjeli near Prizren on the later territory was repealed.

Lazar married his eldest daughter Mara to Vuk Branković, the son of Sebastokrator Branko Mladenović. Since Lazar's four first children were girls, the son Vuks and Maras Đurađ Branković , who was born between 1373 and 1375, was for a time at the top of the line of succession to the throne of Lazar's principality before the birth of Stefan Lazarević (1377). Vuk came from an old noble family whose father was appointed Sebastokrator of Ohrid under Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan when he was awarded Byzantine imperial titles to his immediate relatives. However, it is not clear what relationship Mladen was to the imperial family. Mladen's sons, of whom Vuk was the most important, were able to expand their territory from an area in southern Kosovo after the death of King Vukašin in 1371.

Lazar was subordinate to Novo Brdo as the most important Serbian city in Kosovo, supported Vuk politically and militarily in the consolidation and expansion of his rule, also at the expense of the old Serbian lands that were in the possession of the Mrnjačevići crown. Vuk behaved because he was included as a brother-in-law in the rest of the Lazar family, like the younger against the older in a family hierarchy function. With the marriage of his daughter Mara, Lazar also included Vuk as a son in the political organization of his principality. Vuk carried all the attributes of an independent prince, but did not question the primacy of his father-in-law.

In Lazar's coalition army, Vuk Branković, whose territory between Ibar and Vardar encompassed the core area of ​​the former Nemanjid Empire with the Tsar cities of Prizren and Skopje, and the battle on the Blackbird Field took place within his territory, took on the central position alongside Prince Lazar. The later popular motif of betrayal, in which Branković's figure is the antithesis to the heroic figure Miloš Obilić, is not covered by any of the primary sources, just as Branković's behavior after the battle remains without such evidence (including no signs of a Bayezid reward). Branković was the only Serbian prince to even deny the suzerainty of the Ottomans and was only eliminated as a political opponent of the further Ottoman advance when he was captured after the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. He died in captivity on October 6, 1397.

His great-grandson Vuk Grgurević , who lived in the 15th century , was also called Vuk Branković.

literature

  • Momčilo Spremić: Brankovići - oblasni gopodari Kosova. In: Sveti Knez Lazar - Spomenica o šestoj stogodišnjici Kosovskog boja 1389–1989. Belgrade 1989, pp. 121-130.
  • Momčilo Spremić: Vuk Branković i Kosovska bitka. In: Glas Srpske Akademije Nauka i umetnosti. CCCLXXVIII, Knj. 9, Belgrade 1996, pp. 85-106.
  • Miladin Stevanović: Vuk Branković . Knjiga-Komerc, Belgrade 2004, ISBN 86-7712-038-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Momčilo Spremić: Vuk Branković i Kosovska bitka . In: Glass SANU 9 . 1996, p. 85 .
  2. ↑ Sima Ćirković : The Serbs . Blackwell, 2004, p. 54.
  3. ^ Marko Suica: Vuk Brankovic: slavni i velmozni gospodin. Evoluta, Beograd 2015, ISBN 978-86-85957-57-4 , pp. 84–117.
  4. ^ Marko Suica: Vuk Brankovic: slavni i velmozni gospodin. Evoluta, Beograd 2015, ISBN 978-86-85957-57-4 , p. 124.
  5. ^ Marko Suica: Vuk Brankovic: slavni i velmozni gospodin. Evoluta, Beograd 2015, ISBN 978-86-85957-57-4 , pp. 124-125.
  6. ^ Marko Suica: Vuk Brankovic: slavni i velmozni gospodin. Evoluta, Beograd 2015, ISBN 978-86-85957-57-4 , pp. 128-139.
  7. ^ Marko Suica: Vuk Brankovic: slavni i velmozni gospodin. Evoluta, Beograd 2015, ISBN 978-86-85957-57-4 , p. 128.
  8. ^ Marko Suica: Vuk Brankovic: slavni i velmozni gospodin. Evoluta, Beograd 2015, ISBN 978-86-85957-57-4 , p. 166.
  9. ↑ Reinhard Lauer: Volksepik and Kunstepik - synthesis attempts in the Serbian literature between 1790 and 1830. In: Klaus-Detlev Grothusen (Hrsg.): Yugoslavia - Integration problems in past and present. 1984, pp. 196-219.
  10. ↑ Marko Šuica: O mogučoj ulozi Vuka Brankovča u Kosovskoj bici - prilog razmatranju srednjovekovne ratne taktike. In: Srđan Rudić (ed.): Spomenica Akademika Sime Ćirkovića. Volume 25, Istorijski Institut, Zbornik Radova, Belgrad 2011, ISBN 978-86-7743-091-7 , pp. 225–244, here: p. 231.
  11. ^ Marko Suica: Vuk Brankovic: slavni i velmozni gospodin. Evoluta, Beograd 2015, ISBN 978-86-85957-57-4 , p. 67.
  12. ↑ Marko Šuica 2011, p. 231.
  13. ^ Marko Suica: Vuk Brankovic: slavni i velmozni gospodin. Evoluta, Beograd 2015, ISBN 978-86-85957-57-4 , p. 67.
  14. ↑ Sima Ćirković: The Serbs . Blackwell, Oxford 2005, ISBN 0-631-20471-7 .
  15. ^ Sima Ćirković 2005: The Serbs. P. 79.
  16. ↑ a b Marko Šuica 2011, p. 232.
  17. ↑ Marko Šuica 2011, p. 226.
  18. ↑ Sima Ćirković 2004, p. 87.
personal data
SURNAME Branković, Vuk
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Serbian prince
DATE OF BIRTH 1345
DATE OF DEATH October 6, 1397