IX
The dramatic death of Stephen Dushan, in 1355, just as he was starting upon the expedition against Constantinople for which his whole life had been a preparation, is recorded in the previous chapter. Stephen’s son was so unfit to inherit the aspirations and carry on the work of his father that he was called in derision by his people Nejaki, the weakling.[322] The nobles and generals of Stephen Nejaki ignored him. Each man seized what territory he could hold and defend against his neighbour. There was anarchy in Macedonia and Serbia. The dissolution of Stephen Dushan’s conquests resulted in a bloody and destructive civil war between cities and factions.[323] The dowager Czarina managed to preserve a semblance of prestige, if not of authority, at Serres. But the ‘empire’ was no more. As local rulers, Serbians stayed in the principal cities of Macedonia. There was undoubtedly a Serbian element in the village population. Many villagers, however, who acknowledged the overlordship of Stephen’s warriors and other Serbian nobles, did not know then, any more than they know now, to what race they themselves belonged. This has always been the Macedonian problem.
The defeat of the crusaders on the banks of the Maritza in 1363 had been a defensive battle on the part of the Osmanlis. There was no attempt to invade Macedonia. While Murad was occupied in the subjugation of Thrace and of southern Bulgaria, several efforts were made by the Byzantines to come to an understanding with the Serbians. In 1364, the patriarch Callixtus went to Serres to see Stephen’s widow, who had retired to a convent. His purpose was to form an alliance. Soon after reaching Serres, Callixtus succumbed to the hardships of the journey.[324] His effort came to nothing. That Stephen’s son still held to the pretensions of his father and had no intention of treating with the Byzantines, is demonstrated by a bull, dated from Pristina in 1365, in which he calls himself ‘emperor of the Servians and of the Greeks’.[325]
Stephen Urosh, the ‘weakling’, died in 1367.[326] Uglesa, who usurped the kralship of Serres and shared the ‘empire’ of Stephen Dushan with his brothers and fellow adventurers, Vukasin and Goiko,[327] sent an embassy to the patriarch Philotheos declaring that he would annul the bull of 1352, by which Dushan had created an autocephalous Serbian Church,[328] and would cause all the Serbians to return to the Orthodox allegiance.[329] After three years of negotiation, precious time wasted with trifling formalities, the reconciliation and union of the Serbian and Greek Churches was effected.[330] But, if we are to believe the authorities of Orbini, Uglesa, while he was negotiating with the Greeks of Constantinople, had levied tribute upon the Greeks of Salonika, and would have made himself master of Salonika, had not his untimely death prevented the consummation of the great Serbian dream.[331]
At the time of the reconciliation with the Orthodox Church, Uglesa had completed a plan of united action with his two brothers to oppose the Ottoman invasion of Macedonia.[332] Uglesa had been informed that a great army was gathered in Adrianople, which awaited the return of Murad from Bulgaria to commence its march. Four weeks after the negotiations with the Byzantines had been successfully concluded, in the early summer of 1371, the Serbian army reached the Maritza at Cernomen,[333] between Adrianople and Svilen.[334] This battle has been confused with the earlier battle of 1363, and it is impossible to separate the accounts of the two actions.[335] The Osmanlis were again victorious. Uglesa and Goiko were drowned in the Maritza. Vukasin escaped from the field of battle only to be killed by his servant for the gold chain he wore around his neck.[336]
The battle of Cernomen lost Macedonia to the Serbians. The three princes were killed. Most of the Serbian adventurers who had been the companions of Stephen Dushan, and who had profited by his Macedonian conquests, disappeared. The Osmanlis had no opposition in penetrating to the valley of the Vardar.
The monk Isaias of Serres has left a graphic contemporary picture of the Ottoman invasion of Macedonia. ‘Like the birds of Heaven, the Ishmaelites spread themselves over the land, and never ceased murdering the inhabitants or carrying them off into slavery. The country was empty of men, of cattle, and of the fruits of the fields. There was no prince or leader: there was no redeemer or saviour among the people. All faded away before the fear of the Ishmaelites, and even the brave hearts of heroic men were transformed into weak hearts of women. Rightly were the dead envied by the living.’[337]
The invasion of Macedonia in 1371-2 was as rapid and decisive a campaign as the invasion of Thrace had been ten years before. Kavalla, Drama and Serres were occupied by Khaïreddin and Evrenos.[338] Drama and Serres were colonized, their churches converted into mosques, and they soon became the residence of the owners of the timarets granted in eastern Macedonia. These two cities have always been the strongholds of the Mohammedan element in Macedonia, and the residence of the great Moslem landowners. The cities and villages in the valleys of the Mesta and the Struma acknowledged Murad as sovereign, and submitted without resistance to Ottoman laws and Ottoman taxation.[339] Where-ever it was safe to do so, Murad seized the lands, and appointed Ottoman governors. In districts where pacification would have proved a difficult task, he allowed Serbian chiefs to rule as his vassals.
With the same impetuosity that had carried them to the foothills of the Rhodope Mountains after the capture of Adrianople, the Osmanlis crossed the Vardar in 1372, and pushed their arms into Old Serbia, Albania, Bosnia, and even to the mountains of Dalmatia, from which they could see the Adriatic.[340] Other adventurous bands, eager to attract the attention, the commendation, and the rewards of Murad, followed the footsteps of the Catalans, traversed Thessaly, and appeared in the plains of Attica.[341]
Murad destroyed the Macedonian empire of Stephen Dushan without great effort. The Serbians remaining east of the Vardar, nobles and peasants, became Ottoman subjects. In upper Serbia, they rallied round one of their number, Lazar Gresljanovitch, whom they formally elected as successor of the Serbian kings. But Lazar was so weak that he did not take the title of emperor (tzar) or of king (kral), but called himself merely prince (knez).[342] To secure the existence of his kingdom or principality, he sought peace with Murad, and, following the example of the Byzantine and Bulgarian rulers, became vassal and tributary of the Ottoman emir.[343]