Page:
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |
Next
The first Serb princes who more or less successfully united several Zhupaniyas into one state, belonged to what might be called "the Visheslav dynasty." Zhupan Visheslav lived in the beginning of the 9th century, and seems to have been the descendant of that leader of the Serbs who signed the settlement treaty with the emperor Heraclius towards the middle of the 7th century. His ancestral Zhupaniya comprised Tara, Piva, Lim (the neck of land between the Montenegro and Serbia of pre-war days). Visheslav's son Rado slav, his grandson Prissegoy, and his great-grandson Vlastimir, "the first clear personality" of Serbian history, continued his work. Vlastimir successfully defended the western provinces of Serbia against the Bulgarians, although the eastern provinces (Branichevo, Morava, Timok, Vardar, Podrimlye) were occu pied by the Bulgars. The Bulgarian danger, and probably the successful operations of the Greek emperor Basil the Macedonian (867-886), determined the Serbian Zhupans to acknowledge again the suzerainty of the Greek emperors. One of the important con sequences of this new vassalship to the Byzantine empire was that the entire Serbian people embraced Christianity, about 879—a process begun, however, by Latin priests between 642 and 731. In all important transactions the Serbians were led by the Grand Zhupan Mutimir Visheslavich (d. 89o). During the reign of his heirs almost all the Serbian provinces were conquered by the Bul garian Tsar Simeon (924). In 931 Chaslav, one of the princes of the Visheslav dynasty, liberated the largest part of the Serbian territory from Bulgarian domination, but to maintain that liberty he had to acknowledge the Byzantine emperors as his suzerains.
The Princes of Zeta and the First Serb Kingdom.—To wards the end of the 9th century the political centre of the Serbs was transferred to Zeta (or Zenta: see MONTENEGRO) and the Primorye (Sea-Coast). The prince (sometimes called king) of Zeta, Yovan Vladimir, tried to stop the triumphal march of the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel through the Serb provinces, but in 989 was defeated, made prisoner and sent to Samuel's capital, Prespa. The historical fact that Vladimir married Kossara, the daughter of Samuel, and was sent back to Zeta as reigning prince under the Bulgarian suzerainty, forms the subject of the first Serb novel, Vladimir and Kossara, as early as the 13th century. Vladimir, who seems to have been a noble-minded man, was murdered by Samuel's successor, the usurper Tsar Vladislav (1015). By the Christians of both churches in Albania he is to this day venerated as a saint. But after the death of Samuel the Bulgarian power rapidly lost the Serb provinces, which, to get rid of the Bulgarians, again acknowledged the Greek overlordship. About 1042, how ever, Prince Voislav of Travuniya (Trebinje), cousin of the assassinated Vladimir of Zeta, started a successful insurrection against the Greeks, and united under his own rule Travuniya, Zahumlye (the modern Herzegovina) and Zeta. His son Michael Voislavich annexed the important Zhupaniya of Rashka (Rascia or Rassia), and in 1077 was addressed as king (rex) in a letter from Pope Gregory VII. His son Bodin enlarged the first Serb kingdom by annexing territories which up to that time were under direct Greek rule. After Bodin's death the civil wars between his sons and relatives materially weakened the kingdom. Bosnia reclaimed her own independence; so did Rashka, whose Grand Zhupans came forward as leaders of the Serb national policy, which aimed at freedom from Greek suzerainty and the union of all the Serb Zhupaniyas into one kingdom under one king. The
task was difficult enough, as the Byzantine empire, then under the reign of the energetic Manuel Comnenus, regained much of its lost influence. About the middle of the 12th century all the Serb Zhupaniyas were acknowledging the suzerainty of the Byzantine emperors.
A change for the better began when Stephen Nemanya became the Grand Zhupan of Rashka (1159). He succeeded in uniting all the Serb countries except Bosnia under his rule, and although he never took the title of king, he was the real founder of the Serb kingdom and of the royal dynasty of Nemanyich, which reigned for nearly 200 years. His youngest son, Prince Rastko, secretly left his father's court, went to a convent in Mount Athos, where Stephen Nemanya died as the monk Simeon at Chiliandarion in 1200, became a monk, and afterwards, under the name of Sava, the first archbishop of Serbia. As such he established eight bishoprics and encouraged learning. He is regarded as the great patron of education among the Serbs, as a saint, and as one of the greatest statesmen. After Stephen Nemanya and Sava the most distinguished members of the Nemanyich dynasty were Stephen Urosh I. (1243-76), his son Milutin (1281-1321) and Stephen Dushan' (1331-1355). Urosh married Helen, a daughter of the exiled Latin Emperor of Con stantinople, Baldwin II., and through her kept friendly relations with the French court of Charles of Anjou in Naples. He en deavoured to negotiate an alliance between Serbs and French for the partition of the Byzantine empire. His son Milutin con tinued that policy and increased his territory by taking several fortified places from the Greeks; but later he joined the Greeks under the emperor Andronicus against the Turks. Milutin's bastard's son, Stephen Dushan, was a great soldier and statesman. Seeing the danger which menaced the disorganized Byzantine empire from the Turks, he tried to prevent the Turkish invasion of the Balkan peninsula by replacing that empire by a Serbo Greek empire. He took from the Greeks Albania, Epeiros, Thessaly and Macedonia (excepting Salonika). Towards the end of 1345 he proclaimed himself "emperor of the Serbs and the Greeks," and was solemnly crowned at Skoplje on Easter Day 1346. At the same time he raised the archbishop of Ipek (Petch), the primate of Serbia, to the dignity of patriarch. Three years later he convoked the Sabor (parliament) at Skoplje to begin a codification of the laws and legal usages. The result was the publication, in
of the Zakonik Tsara Dushana (Tsar Du shan's Book of Laws), a code of great historical interest which proves that Serbia was not much behind the foremost European states in civilization. In 1355 Dushan began a new campaign against the Greeks, the object of which was to unite Greeks, Serbs and Bulgars and prevent the Turkish power taking root on European ground. While making preparations for a siege of Constantinople he died suddenly at Deabolis on Dec. 20, 1355. Under his only son Stephen Urosh V., a young man of nineteen, his brother Simeon Urosh and some of the powerful viceroys of Dushan's provinces made themselves independent. The most prominent amongst them was Vukashin, who proclaimed himself king of Macedonia. He wished to continue Dushan's policy and to expel the Turks from Europe, but in the battle on the Maritza on Sept. 26, 1371, his army was destroyed and he was slain. Two months later Tsar Urosh died, and the rule of the Nemanyich dynasty ended.