Pripovesti o srpsko-turskim okršajima i 'strah od Turaka' 1386. godine

Abstract

The "fear of the Turks" as a phenomenon of the Middle Ages, first recorded in Serbian sources after the Battle at the Marica, continued to dominate the life of the Balkan Christian population during the fourteenth century, and even in the fifteenth century. No section of society and no endangered region in the Balkans remained unaffected by a strong feeling of insecurity, anxiety and apprehensiveness. When the akinjis, is Ottoman raiders began to threaten the territory of Prince Lazar and the northern Serbian regions, the "fear of the Turks" became part of everyday life. The events of the great conquests of Sultan Murad I in 1386 left a deep impression on the contemporaries. The outcome of the encounter of the Serbian and Ottoman armies at Pločnik is not quite clear because the evidence in the available sources is conflicting and leaves scope for various interpretations. The Serbian sources are chronologically near to the event, but they are contradictory and provide meagre information, while the picturesque Ottoman accounts are considerably later, written by court historians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and present a tendentious picture. The outcome of the battle at Pločnik was overshadowed by Sultan Murad's success in capturing the town of Niš, an important strategic stronghold of Prince Lazar, which lay on the main Balkan road, the Via Militaris. The details of the siege and of the fall of Niš must be sought in the unreliable Ottomans sources, which may contain at least some part of the authentic historical basis. The fall of Niš had repercussions even in Bosnia, and evidence of the measures taken for the strengthening of the defense of the Serbian towns has been preserved in the treaties which Prince Lazar and Vuk Branković concluded with the Ragusans in 1387. Prince Lazar's orders for the purchase of additional firearms and other weapons after the capture of Niš were a direct consequence of the loss of that town. Besides, they are a part of the complex picture of an age in which the deeply disturbing "fear of the Turks" reigned in the old Serbian lands. From the strategic point of view, the fall of the fortress of Niš represented an irreparable loss for the Serbian lands and an event which foreshadowed the drama of Kosovo.