In January 1398, the Ottoman army, which included Bayezid’s sons and was joined by the Ottoman vassal Serbian despot Stefan Lazarević (son of Prince Lazar) who attacked Bosnia. But without success. This was 10 years after the defeat of the Turkish-Serbian army at Bileća by the Bosnian army led by the Bosnian duke Vlatko Vlković. Due to the failure of the Turkish army in Bosnia, the Sultan blamed Stefan Lazarević, to which Stefan sent his mother, the nun Princess Milica, to negotiate.

Otherwise, Stefan Lazarević fought for the Ottomans in 1395 at Rovine, in 1396 at Nikopolje, in 1398 in Bosnia and in 1402 in Ankara. At Nikopolje, he brought the Ottomans a great and historic victory against the Christian coalition, and Sultan Bayezid called him his “born and beloved son”. Here is a book that describes it better about Serbian participation with the Ottomans against the Crusader armies of that time.

Vladimir Ćorović in his work: “History of South (Serbian) Slavonia” (Belgrade, 1933) writes: “We expanded under the Turks, no less than if we had our own most expansive state, the Serbian Orthodox Church had its complete self-government during the time of Turkey.”

It appointed its own patriarchs and bishops, who were only confirmed by the Ottoman Empire, the church was not only a religious but at the same time a political organization of the Serbian people, under the authority of the restored Patriarchate of Peja it was united, for the first time in its history thanks to the Ottomans.

“Dr. Olga Zirojevic: Serbs were better off under the Turks”.

How did the Vassal Serbs help the Turks conquer Constantinople?

“In the conquest of Constantinople/Istanbul in 1453, ten years before the conquest of Bosnia, the Ottomans had many allies who were on their side. One of them was the Serbs who helped the Ottomans in the conquest of today’s largest city in Turkey, Istanbul” – Novak Kilibarda

The Serbs had an Ottoman sultan as their ruler until 1878. That is almost 500 years. The Ottomans and the Turks were very close, which resulted in marriage ties but also in Serbian customs such as “walking in sandals”.

That is why it is often heard in public that the Serbs are genetically close to the Turks because most of them are descendants of Turks through their fathers. That is why some Serbian activists and writers try to hide their genetic origin and accuse others of being Turks.

Olivera’s marriage to Sultan Bayezid

Six months after the Battle of Kosovo, Lazar’s widow Princess Milica (promoted to empress in legends), on the advice of the patriarch and the entire council of priests and the entire clergy, gave consent for her daughter Olivera to marry Sultan Bayezid I.

Thus, Sultan Murad I and Despot Lazar Hrabrenović became friends underground, and on earth, Princess Milica became the mother-in-law of the son of the man who had ordered her husband’s execution, and Olivera’s brother, the new Despot Stefan Lazarević, the brother-in-law of Sultan Bayezid. Bayezid and Olivera had three sons: Sulejman, Isa, and Mehmed (from the Arabic personal name Muhammed). It should only be added that Lazara’s daughter Vukosava was married to Miloš Kobilić, and Mara to Despot Vuk Branković.

In the first battle that the new Sultan Bayezid I fought at Nikopol, seven years after Kosovo, against the Western Crusader army, under the command of the Hungarian King Sigismund (known as Sigismund), the Ottoman army was on the verge of a major defeat.

Then, from the right flank, the Serbian army came to the sultan’s aid, under the command of his brother-in-law, Despot Stefan Lazarević. In the decisive battle, which took place on September 28, 1396, the Ottomans turned the defeat into a victory and decisively defeated the Crusader army. Thus, the brother-in-law saved his son-in-law.

Sultan Bayezid I once again found himself in great trouble, as he was attacked by a powerful Tatar army, commanded by the famous Khan Timurtari /Timur. In the decisive battle, which took place on the plain of Čabikabad/Bosnian Trstikovac near Anagora or Angora/today’s Ankara on April 27, 1402, his brother-in-law Despot Stefan Lazarević again arrived to help his son-in-law Sultan Bayezid I, with ten thousand Serbian soldiers.

This time, luck turned its back on the son-in-law and his brother-in-law: Timur won, the bulk of the Ottoman and Serbian army died, and the rest were captured or escaped. Among the prisoners was Sultan Bayezid I. To humiliate him, Timur ordered him to be put in an iron cage and dragged around Anatolia on a chariot, so that the people could watch their sultan.

Olivera had to serve drunken Tatar soldiers naked. When the shackled sultan was brought to see the condition of his wife, he, out of humiliation, grief and great pain, hit his head on an iron cage, broke his head and soon expired with his brains spilled out (14o3). After this event, Timur freed Olivera and she and her children took refuge in a safe place.

When the situation calmed down, the new sultan became Mehmed’s son and Bayezid’s grandson Murad II (1421-1451). With the death of Despot Stefan Lazarević in 1427, the Hrabrenović dynasty died out. The Despotate was then inherited by Vuk Branković’s son Đurađ (1427-1456), grandson of Mara, sister of Despot Stefan Lazarević.

Marriage of Murad II to Durje’s daughter Mara

Sultan Murad II married Đurđev’s daughter, Mara, called Amarisa, in 1435. This was his third wife in order, and she became the stepmother of Prince Mehmed, the future Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror /tur. El Fatih. Mehmed dethroned his father in 1451 and sent his stepmother Mara, along with rich gifts, to his brother in Serbia.

She did not stay in Serbia for long, and in 1457 she returned to Turkey. She settled in the small village of Ježevo in Sveta Gora, south of Lake Strumica. She was surrounded by Serbian nobles and monks. There, among other things, she developed a lively political activity. She was often called upon as a mediator in concluding various peace treaties or on other issues. She sealed the issued charters with the seal of her late father, Despot Đurđe Branković.

She maintained regular correspondence with the people of Dubrovnik, whom she called her good and old friends. The famous Czech historian Konstantin Jireček said of her that she served Christians with all her might. The patriarchs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople (which included the Patriarchate of Peja from 1459 to 1557) were appointed and removed through her influence.

The name of Sultana Mara is also associated with a long-running dispute with the people of Dubrovnik over the legacy of her late father, Despot Đurđe Branković, which was kept as a treasure by the Dubrovnik nobleman Marko Đorev Gučetić. In 1459, Mara addressed the people of Dubrovnik with a request to hand over her father’s legacy, which belonged to her and her blind brother Grgur.

Mehmed II’s son, the new sultan Bayezid II (1481-1512), also intervened in this dispute, and only a small part of their father’s inheritance was returned to Mara and Grgur. Mara later became a nun and died at a very old age on September 14, 1487. She was buried in the monastery of St. Bogorodica in Kosinica near Drama, in the area of ancient Pangaja.

And, finally, a note that neither Olivera nor Mara changed their names, that they retained the Orthodox faith and that they kept Orthodox monks at court as their hermits.

The Servians kept their name Serv until the Balkan Wars, and you can read more about it here: Constantine Porphyrogenitus De Administrando Imperio chapter 32 and page 153.

After the Balkan Wars, during the First World War, the Servians wrote dispatches to the English, Russians, French and other allies in which they asked them not to call them by their historical name Servia and Servia Slugaria but Serbia and Serbia, and so the Servians became Serbs and Servia became Serbia. Here is a link as proof.

In all historical sources in Latin, the word “Serbs” was regularly translated as “Servants”, and Serbia as “Servaria” (Servia), or “land of the Servants”.

Serbian nationalists state that the Medieval Serbs fought day and night trying to defend “Christian Europe” from the Turks, but you will never hear them talk about the Battle of Nikopolje, where on one side was the strongest army of “Christian Europe” ever assembled, and on the other side were the Turks and Serbs (Sluge), and so the Turks and Serbs (Sluge), led by Stefan Lazarević, slaughtered the strongest army of “Christian Europe” at Nikopolje, so fiercely that it did not recover for the next 300 years. Or, when they state that Marko Kraljević was “the greatest fighter against the Turks”, when in fact he was the Turkish vizier.

Sources

1. Obrana Hrvatske od velikosrpske agresije. “Vojislav Šešelj: Prije Svetog Save, većina Srba su bili Katolici, kao i njegov otac Stefan Nemanja.” YouTube video, December 17, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qP_EHb0xkc4.
2. FortitudoCroatorum. “Pravo znacenje imena Srbin.” YouTube video, January 28, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9LfbOa-eso.
3. Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. De Administrando Imperio. Edited by Gyula Moravcsik. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1967. https://books.google.ba/books?id=3al15wpFWiMC (chapter 32, p. 153).
4. “Serbians Object.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, date unknown. https://bklyn.newspapers.com/image/685850615/?match=1&terms=serbians%20object.
5. Seoba Srba u Hrvatsku. Archive.org. https://archive.org/…/seobasrbauhrvats…/page/n3/mode/2up.
6. Prvi Sematizam Banjalučko… Scribd. https://www.scribd.com/…/Prvi-Sematizam-Banjalucko…
7. “Kratak izvještaj…” Miruhbosne. https://miruhbosne.wordpress.com/…/kratak-izvjestaj…/.
8. Spremić, Momčilo. Despot Đurađ Branković. Belgrade: n.p., year unknown.
9. “DR Olga Zirojevic Srbima je bilo bolje pod Turcima” YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ9Dn0tFUCA.
10. “KAKO SU SRBI POMOGLI TURCIMA U OSVAJANJU CARIGRADA!?!” YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl0svsBb8tg.
11. University of Belgrade, University Library “Svetozar Marković.” http://ubsm.bg.ac.rs/view.php?q=1387&p=0005&e=f&w=1920.