Stefan Lazarević

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Despot Stefan Lazarević

Coat of Arms Lazarevic
Born 1374
Died 1427
Burial place Koporin monastery
Nationality Serbian
Title Despot
Predecessor Lazar of Serbia
Successor Đurađ Branković
Religious beliefs Serbian Orthodox
Parents Lazar of Serbia
Princess Milica of Serbia

Stefan Lazarević (Serbian Cyrillic: Стефан Лазаревић; 1374 – 19 July 1427) was a Serbian Despotes. He was the son and heir to Prince Lazar (Serbian: Knez Lazar, Кнез Лазар), who died at the Battle of Kosovo against the Turks in 1389, and Princess Milica (Милица) from the subordinate branch of the Nemanjić (Немањић) dynasty. His reign and his personal literary works are sometimes associated with early signs of the Renaissance in Serbian lands. Despot Stefan was a poet and a moderniser. He introduced knight tournaments, modern battle tactics, and firearms to Serbia.


Contents

[edit] Life

Despot Stefan Lazarevic in Manasija monastery
Despot Stefan Lazarevic in Manasija monastery

Stefan became Prince in 1389, and participated as an Ottoman vassal in the Battle of Karanovasa in 1394, the Battle of Rovine in 1395, the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, and in the Battle of Ankara in 1402. He became the Despot of Serbia in 1402 after the Ottoman state temporarily collapsed following Timur's invasion of Anatolia with the Battle of Ankara, and in 1403 proclaimed Belgrade his capital. He built a fortress with a citadel which was destroyed during the Great Turkish War in 1690; only the Despot Stefan Tower remains today. Stefan defeated and killed his brother-in-law Bayezid I's son Musa during the Battle of Despotovac in 1406. After the battle, Serbia had peace with the Ottomans for a long time.

Despot Stefan Lazarević's Seal, 1415 AD
Despot Stefan Lazarević's Seal, 1415 AD

Stefan II became an ally of the Kingdom of Hungary and a knight of a special order, so when the Hungarian king Sigismund renewed the Order of the Dragon (Societas draconistrarum) in 1408, Despot Stefan Lazarević was the first on the list of members. In 1404, Sigismund gave Lazarević land in the present-day Vojvodina (and Pannonian part of present-day Belgrade), including Zemun (today part of Belgrade), Slankamen, Kupinik, Mitrovica, Bečej, and Veliki Bečkerek. In 1417, Apatin is also mentioned among his possessions.

Under his rule, he issued a Code of Mines in 1412 in Novo Brdo in Kosovo, the economic center of Serbia. In his legacy, Resava-Manasija monastery (Pomoravlje District), he organized the Resava School, a center for correcting, translating, and transcribing books.

Stefan Lazarević died suddenly in 1427, leaving the throne to his nephew Đurađ Branković. His deeds eventually elevated him into sainthood, and the Serbian Orthodox Church honors him on August 1st. Despot Stefan is buried in the monastery Koporin which he has had built, as he did the bigger and more famous Manasija monastery. In fact, Manasija was intended as his own burial place, but due to a sudden nature of his death in perilous times it was his brother Vuk that is burried there.

Apart from the biographical notes in charters and especially in the Code on The Mine Novo Brdo (1412), Stefan Lazarević wrote three original literary works: The Grave Sobbing for prince Lazar (1389); The Inscription on the Kosovo Marble Column (1404); and A Homage to Love (1409), a poetic epistle to his brother Vuk.

[edit] Marriage

In 1405, Stefan married Helena Gattilusio. She was a daughter of Francesco II of Lesbos and Valentina Doria. They had no known children.

[edit] Quotes

Facsimile of Despot Stefan's A Homage of Love to his executed young brother Vuk (Lazarević) 1409 AD
Facsimile of Despot Stefan's A Homage of Love to his executed young brother Vuk (Lazarević) 1409 AD
Despot Stefan Lazarević
 A HOMAGE TO LOVE
1.

I, Despot Stefan,
To the sweetest, most beloved one,
Inseparable from my heart,
Always wished for, and much
Possessed of wisdom and
To my kingdom true,
(The name being said)
A warm greeting in the Lord
And unsparingly therein
Our merciful gifts.

 6.

As David rightly sang:
Love is "like precious ointment upon the head,
That ran down upon the beard,
Even Aaron's beard:
As the dew of Hermon
That descended upon the mountains of Zion".
2.

The Lord hath made both
spring and summer,
As also the Psalmist sang,
And all their delights:
The birds their swift and joyous flight,
The hills their peaks,
The groves their length,
The fields their breadth,
The fields their breadth,
The air its beauteous soft sounds,
And the soil its gifts
Of fragrant flowers and grass,
And for man's being itself
its renewal and joy;
But who is worthy enough
to recount all this?

 7.

Youths and maidens,
For love so apt,
Embrace love,
But with hurt to youth or maidenhood,
Whereby our nature unites with godliness
And thus becomes divine.
Do not aggrieve, the Apostle saith,
The sacred Holy Spirit,
Which you publicly acclaimed
As at a baptism.
3.

But all these
And other wondrous works of God,
Which even the sharpest mind
Cannot perceive,
Love all surpasses
And no wonder is it
For God is love,
As saith John, the son of thunder.

 8.

Together we were, and close to each other,
In body and in soul,
But did the mounts dissever us
Or the rivers?
As David saith: "Ye mountains of Gilboa,
Let there be no dew, neither let there be rain
For Saul you did not save
Nor Jonathan".
O the mercifulness of David,
Hear, ye Kings, o Hear!
It is Saul you are bewailing, o found one?
For I found, saith the Lord,
A man after my own heart.
4.

No room in love is there for lies,
For did not Cain, a stranger to love,
say unto Abel:
"Let us go into the field".

 9.

May the winds collide with the rivers,
And run them dry,
As did the sea for Moses,
The judges as for Joshua,
And Jordan for the arc of the covenant.
5.

Pure and keen
Is the work of love,
And every virtue it surpasses.

 10.

And may we be together again,
And see each other again,
And meet again in love,
For His sake,
For whom glory be with the Father
And the Holly Spirit
Forever and ever.
Amen
(Translated by Vida Janković) (1409 AD)

(Quotation from: Serbian Literary Magazine, Relations, No 4/1998, with permition of Executive Editor)

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