This page is about the Battle of Kosovo of 1389. For other battles, see Battle of Kosovo;
for the 1989 film depicting the battle, see Battle of Kosovo
The Battle of Kosovo, also known as the Battle of Kosovo Field, took place on St. Vitus'
Day, June 15, 1389, between the army led by Serbian Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović, and the
invading army of the Ottoman Empire under the leadership of Sultan Murad I. The army
under Prince Lazar consisted of his own troops, a contingent led by Serbian nobleman Vuk Branković,
and a contingent sent from Bosnia by King Tvrtko I, commanded by Vlatko Vuković. Prince
Lazar was the ruler of Moravian Serbia, and the most powerful among the Serbian regional
lords of the time, while Vuk Branković ruled a part of Kosovo and other areas, recognizing
Lazar as his overlord. The Battle of Kosovo took place in the Kosovo Polje, about 5 kilometers
northwest of modern-day Pristina. Reliable historical accounts of the battle
are scarce; however, a critical comparison with historically contemporaneous battles
enables reliable reconstruction. The bulk of both armies were wiped out in the battle;
both Lazar and Murad lost their lives in it. Although Ottomans managed to annihilate the
Serbian army, they also suffered high casualties which delayed their progress. Serbs were left
with too few men to effectively defend their lands, while the Turks had many more troops
in the east. Consequently, one after the other, the Serbian principalities that were not already
Ottoman vassals became so in the following years.
The Battle of Kosovo is particularly important to Serbian history, tradition, and national
identity.
Background Emperor Stefan Uroš IV Dušan the Mighty
was succeeded by his son Stefan Uroš V whose reign was characterized by decline of central
power and rise of numerous virtually independent principalities; this period is known as the
fall of the Serbian Empire. Uroš the Weak was not able to sustain the great empire created
by his father nor to repulse the foreign threats and failed to limit the independence of the
nobles. Uroš V died childless on 4 December 1371, after much of the Serbian nobility had
been destroyed by the Turks in the Battle of Maritsa earlier that year. Prince Lazar,
ruler of Moravian Serbia, aware of the Ottoman threat, began diplomatic and military preparations
for a campaign against the Ottomans. Preparations
Army movement After the defeat of the Ottomans at Pločnik
and Bileća, Murad I, the reigning Ottoman sultan, moved his troops from Philippoupolis
in the spring of 1388 to Ihtiman. From there, the party traveled across Velbužd and Kratovo.
Though longer than the alternative route through Sofia and the Nišava Valley, this route led
the Ottoman party to Kosovo, one of the most important crossroads in the Balkans. From
Kosovo, Murad's party could attack the lands of either Lazar of Serbia or Vuk Branković.
Having stayed in Kratovo for a time, Murad and his troops marched through Kumanovo, Preševo
and Gnjilane to Pristina, where he arrived on June 14.
While there is less information about Lazar's preparations, he gathered his troops near
Niš, on the right bank of the South Morava River. His party likely remained there until
he learned that Murad had moved to Velbužd, whereupon he moved across Prokuplje to Kosovo.
This was the best place Lazar could choose as a battlefield, as it gave him control of
all the routes that Murad could take. Army composition
Murad's army numbered from 27,000 to 40,000 fighters. These 40,000 included no more than
2,000 Janissaries, 2,500 of Murad's cavalry guard, 6,000 sipahis, 20,000 azaps and akincis,
and 8,000 troops from his vassals. Marko and Dragaš, although Ottoman vassals, did not
participate in the battle. Lazar's army numbered from 12,000 to 30,000.
Out of approximately 30,000 fighters present, 12,000 to 15,000 were under Lazar's command,
with 5,000 to 10,000 under Vuk Branković, a Serbian nobleman from Kosovo, and just as
many under nobleman Vlatko Vuković. The latter troops were sent by Bosnian king Tvrtko I
Kotromanić. Mixed with Vuković's army was a contingent of Knights Hospitallers, whom
the Croatian knight John of Palisna had led from Vrana. Several thousand were knights.
Furthermore, there has been several anachronistical accounts which have mentioned that the "Christian
army" of Lazar was far greater, and that it also included contingents of other nations,
although these cannot be verified. Battle
Troop Deployment
The armies met at Kosovo Field. Murad headed the Ottoman army, with his sons Bayezid on
his right and Yakub on his left. Around 1,000 archers were in the front line in the wings,
backed up by azap and akinci; in the front center were janissaries, behind whom was Murad,
surrounded by his cavalry guard; finally, the supply train at the rear was guarded by
a small number of troops. One of the Ottoman commanders was Pasha Yiğit Bey.
The Serbian army had Prince Lazar at its center, Vuk on the right and Vlatko on the left. At
the front of the Serbian army were the heavy cavalry and archer cavalry on the flanks,
with the infantry to the rear. While parallel, the dispositions of the armies were not symmetrical,
as the Serbian center had a broader front than the Ottoman center.
Start Serbian and Turkish accounts of the battle
differ, making it difficult to reconstruct the course of events. It is believed that
the battle commenced with Ottoman archers shooting at Serbian cavalry, who then made
ready for the attack. After positioning in a V-shaped formation, the Serbian cavalry
managed to break through the Ottoman left wing, but were not as successful against the
center and the right wing.
Ottoman counterattack The Serbs had the initial advantage after
their first charge, which significantly damaged the Turkish wing commanded by Yakub Celebi.
When the knights' charge was finished, light Ottoman cavalry and light infantry counter-attacked
and the Serbian heavy armour became a disadvantage. In the center, Serbian fighters managed to
push back Ottoman forces, except for Bayezid's wing, which barely held off the forces commanded
by Vlatko Vuković. Vuković thus inflicted disproportionately heavy losses on the Turks.
The Ottomans, in a ferocious counter-attack led by Bayezid, pushed the Serbian forces
back and then prevailed later in the day, routing the Serbian infantry. Both flanks
still held, with Vuković's drifting toward the center to compensate for the heavy losses
inflicted on the Serbian infantry. Historic facts say that Vuk Branković had
seen that there was no hope for victory, and fled to save as many men as he could. He fled
after Lazar was captured, but in songs, it is said that he betrayed Lazar, and left him
to death in middle of battle rather than after Lazar was captured and the center massacred.
Sometime after Branković's retreat from the battle, the remaining Bosnian and Serb forces
yielded the field, believing that a victory was no longer possible.
Murad's death
As the battle turned against the Serbs, it is said that one of their knights, who later
was identified as Miloš Obilić, pretended to have deserted to the Ottoman forces. When
brought before Murad, Obilić pulled out a hidden dagger and killed the Sultan by slashing
him, upon which the Sultan's bodyguards immediately killed him.
The earliest preserved record, a letter from the Florentine senate to King Tvrtko I of
Bosnia dated 20 October 1389, says that Murad was killed during the battle. The killer is
not named, but it was one of 12 Serbian noblemen who managed to break through the Ottoman lines:
Fortunate, most fortunate are those hands of the twelve loyal lords who, having opened
their way with the sword and having penetrated the enemy lines and the circle of chained
camels, heroically reached the tent of Murat himself. Fortunate above all is that one who
so forcefully killed such a strong vojvoda by stabbing him with a sword in the throat
and belly. And blessed are all those who gave their lives and blood through the glorious
manner of martyrdom as victims of the dead leader over his ugly corpse.
Another Italian account, Mignanelli's 1416 work, asserted that it was Lazar who killed
the Ottoman sultan. Succession to the Ottoman throne
Murad's son, Bayezid, was informed of the sultan's death before his younger brother
Yakub. Bayezid sent Yakub a false message, stating that their father had some new orders
for them. When Yakub arrived, he was strangled to death, leaving Bayezid as the sole heir
to the Ottoman throne.
Aftermath and legacy
The bulk of both armies were wiped out in the battle; both Lazar and Murad lost their
lives, and the remnants of their armies eventually retreated from the battlefield. The Serbs
were left with too few men to defend their lands effectively, while the Turks had many
more troops in the east. Consequently, the Serbian principalities that were not already
Ottoman vassals, one after the other became so in the following years. Furthermore, in
response to Ottoman pressure, some Serbian noblemen wed their daughters, including the
daughter of Prince Lazar, to Bayezid. In the wake of these marriages, Stefan Lazarević
became a loyal ally of Bayezid, going on to contribute significant forces to many of Bayezid's
future military engagements, including the Battle of Nicopolis. Eventually, the Serbian
Despotate would, on numerous occasions, attempt to defeat the Ottomans in conjunction with
the Hungarians until its final defeat in 1459 and again in 1540.
The Battle of Kosovo came to be seen as a symbol of Serbian patriotism and desire for
independence in the 19th-century rise of nationalism under Ottoman rule, including the Kosovo curse,
and its significance for Serbian nationalism returned to prominence during the breakup
of Yugoslavia and the Kosovo War when Slobodan Milošević invoked it during a speech at
Gazimestan. See also
Battle of Kosovo Gazimestan
Kosovo curse Notes
References
Sources "Kosovska bitka". Vojna Enciklopedija. Belgrade:
Vojnoizdavački zavod JNA. 1972. John V. A. Fine; John Van Antwerp Fine. The
Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest.
University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08260-4. Emmert, Thomas Allan. "The Battle of Kosovo:
Early Reports of Victory and Defeat" at the Wayback Machine. Kosovo: Legacy of a Medieval
Battle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9789992287552
Sedlar, Jean W. East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500. University of Washington
Press. p. 244. "Nearly the entire Christian fighting force had been present at Kosovo,
while the Ottomans retained numerous reserves in Anatolia."
Cox, John K.. The History of Serbia. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-31290-8.
Cowley, Robert; Geoffrey Parker. The Reader's Companion to Military History. Houghton Mifflin
Books. p. 249. "On June 28, 1389, an Ottoman army of between thirty thousand and forty
thousand under the command of Sultan Murad I defeated an army of Balkan allies numbering
twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand under the command of Prince Lazar of Serbia at Kosovo
Polje in the central Balkans." Further reading
Nikola Kusovac. Kosovska bitka: mit, legenda i stvarnost. Litera.
Rade Mihaljčić. The Battle of Kosovo in history and in popular tradition. Beogradski
izdavačko-grafički zavod. Emmert, Thomas A., Serbian Golgotha: Kosovo,
1389, New York: Columbia University Press. External links
The Battle of Kosovo Serbian Epic Poems edited by Charles Simic
The Legend of Kosovo Battle of Kosovo animated battle map by Jonathan
Webb "Battle of Kosovo". Medieval Times History.
2011. Archived from the original on 3 January 2011. Retrieved 6 February 2011.