Battle of Kosovo
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- This page is about the Battle of Kosovo of 1389; for other battles, see Battle of Kosovo (disambiguation).
The Battle of Kosovo Polje (Косовски бој or Бој на Косову) was fought on St Vitus' Day (28 June) 1389 between Serbia and the Ottoman Empire.
The Ruling Knyaz, Lazar of Serbia, marshalled a Christian coalition force, made of Serbs from both the Serbian empire and from Bosnia. Ottoman Sultan Murad I also gathered a coalition of soldiers and volunteers from neighboring countries in Anatolia and Rumelia. The Ottoman heavily outnumbered the Serbs.
Reliable historical accounts of this battle are scarce, and they've been largely displaced in the Serbian tradition by the epic poetry, which tell a distorted picture of the events.
The armies met at Kosovo Polje. The battle started with Serbian noblemen and Lazar's son-in-law, General Vuk Branković, on one wing, Lazar in the centre, and Bosnian Duke Vlatko Vuković commanding the third wing of the Balkan army.
Murad was assassinated by Miloš Obilić, who made his way into the Turkish camp on the pretext of being a deserter and forced his way into the Sultan's tent and stabbed him with a poisoned dagger. The confusion that followed was quickly quelled by Bayezid, the Sultan's son. For the death of the Sultan, the Ottomans killed many of their prisoners.
The Serbs initially gained advantage after the first charge of the heavy cavalry, which heavily damaged the Turkish wing commanded by Jakub Celebi. In the center, the Serbs managed to push Ottoman forces back with only Bayezid's wing holding off Serbian forces from Bosnia commanded by Vlatko Vuković. The Ottomans in a counter attack pushed Serbian forces back and prevailed later in the day.
Both armies sustained heavy casualties and both armies withdrew from the battlefield, but the toll on Serbia was catastrophic as much of its political elite was wiped out; King Lazar and most of Serbia's knights — more than 150 — died in this one battle.
Aftermath of the battle
-->Bayezid I, as the new sultan, united with the Serbians by taking Lazar's daughter, the Serbian princess Olivera Despina, as a wife. The Serbs were forced to pay tribute to the Turks and promised to do military service in the Sultan's army. The Serbs would later be on the side of Bayezid when he attacked the forces of Timur at the Battle of Ankara. Much later, and after two lesser battles, the latter being the siege of Smederevo, the Ottomans eventually annexed the remainder of Serbia in 1459.
The Battle of Kosovo is often glorified in the annals of Serbian history and it is the subject of Serbian medieval epic poetry, some of that poetry being composed soon after the battle, in the court of Lazar's widow, Milica, and clearly hastening Lazar's pathway to canonization.
External links
- [The Kosovo Battle, Excerpts from various Encyclopædiæ]
- [The events Surrounding the Battle of Kosovo 1389 and its cultural effect on the Serbian people] by Mark Gottfried
- [The Battle of Kosovo: Early Reports of Victory and Defeat] by Thomas Emmert
- [The Kosovo Legacy] by Thomas Emmert [alternate URL]
- [The Battle of Kosovo Serbian Epic Poems] edited by Charles Simic [Alternate URL]
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