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“Whoever is a Serb, of Serbian blood, whoever shares with me this heritage, and he comes not to fight at Kosovo, may he never have the progeny his heart desires, neither son nor daughter; beneath his hand let nothing decent grow – neither purple grapes nor wholesome wheat; let him rust away like dripping iron until his name shall be extinguished!” -Prince Lazar By the year 1389, the Ottoman Empire of the Turks had conquered most of the Balkan Peninsula (the area north of Greece between Italy and Russia) in Eastern Europe, and was prepared to continue expanding. Standing in the way were the peoples of Serbia and Bosnia. On June 28, 1389, the Serbian Empire and the invading Ottoman Empire fought one of the most important battles of their histories. The losses were heavy on both sides, but the Turkish forces, led by Sultan Murat, decimated the outnumbered Serbian forces led by Prince Lazar. The Battle of Kosovo was a crushing defeat for the Serbians, and signaled the beginning of the end for the independent Serbian state. The Serbians would remain under Turkish rule for the next 500 years. At the Battle of Kosovo, the Serbs had lost more than their nation. They, an Orthodox Christian nation, had lost to an Islamic state that they felt was bent on the destruction of Christianity. The Battle of Kosovo was less about a territorial dispute than it was about a battle of religious ideologies. Serbians today remember their defeat at the Battle of Kosovo as a glorious battle that is celebrated, rather than mourned. Out of the dust of the battle came one of Serbia’s saints, Prince Lazar, and one of Serbia's greatest heroes, Miloš Obilić. But it also produced one of Serbia’s greatest villains, Vuk Branković. Details of the battle are sketchy, but most of the battle is remembered through the oral tradition of Epic Poems. The Battle of Kosovo cycle of heroic ballads is generally considered the finest work of Serbian folk poetry. A wonderful translation of the poems is available at Projekat Rastko, a great resource for Serbian Literature. The poems would have been sung to the accompaniment of a gusle, a one-stringed musical instrument the presents a faint and raspy tone. To hear one of the Epic Poems played on a gusle click the mp3 player below: The Tsar Lazar and Tsarina Militsa Weblink: Ojkrajino Although we have no gusle on hand, we will be experiencing the story through the eyes of the Maid of Kosovo, who has quite the story of her own. The Maid experiences tremendous personal loss in the battle, and her loss serves as a parallel for the Serbian peoples and the losses they suffered that fateful day. By combining stories from the epic poems with some historic facts, I hope to shed some light upon the reasons that the Battle of Kosovo is remembered, and why it is important. I will rely solely upon the epic poems themselves to tell the stories. |