Stefan Dušan

King of Serbia (r. 1331-1355)

• Born: 1308
• Birthplace: Central Serbia
• Died: December 20, 1355
• Place of death: Near Prizren, Serbia

The greatest king of medieval Serbia, Stefan Dušan extended his kingdom’s borders at the expense of the Byzantine Empire. He successfully defended Serbia against its enemies, promulgated an important law code, and was crowned czar of the Serbs and the Greeks in 1346.

Early Life

Stefan Dušan (DEW-shahn) was the son of Stefan Uroš III Dečanski and his first wife, Theodora. He was born during the reign of his grandfather, the Serbian king Stefan Uroš II Milutin (r. 1282-1321), who was successfully waging war with the Byzantine Empire and expanding Serbian rule in the Balkans. Dušan’s father was the governor of the maritime provinces of Serbia on the Adriatic coast, but he rebelled against Milutin and tried to seize royal power. The revolt was unsuccessful and Dečanski was captured and subsequently blinded by Milutin to make him unfit for succession. Around 1314, Dečanski was sent into exile to Constantinople with his wife and young son. For nearly seven years, Dušan lived in the imperial capital, where he received an excellent education and came to understand and appreciate Byzantine government and traditions. These were to be important influences on his later policy.

About 1320, Dušan’s father and grandfather were reconciled, and the family returned to Serbia. The following year, Milutin died, and Dečanski made a successful bid for the throne. He claimed that his blindness had been miraculously cured (other sources suggest that he had always been able to see a little but had hidden that fact), and the Serbian nobility accepted him from among three claimants as their new king. At an assembly in January, 1322, Dečanski was crowned by Serbian archbishop Nikodim, and Dušan was proclaimed coregent or junior king (in Serbian, mladi kralj). The exact significance of this title is difficult to determine, but it may have been partly based on reservations that the nobility expressed about Dušan’s father. From the beginning of Dečanski’s reign, Dušan played an important role in the kingdom. He was appointed to govern the crucial region of Zeta, in what is now Serbia and Montenegro, and he participated actively in several important military campaigns. The most crucial of these was against the Bulgarians and resulted in a great Serbian victory at Velbužd (now Kjustendil) on July 28, 1330. This battle established Serbian control over Macedonia and became the foundation on which Dušan’s later Balkan hegemony was based.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Velbužd, the Serbian nobility revolted against Dečanski. They resented his cautious and pacific policy, especially toward Byzantium. There may also have been conflict between Dušan and his father, either from natural rivalry or because the nobility influenced Dušan. The son marched against the king and captured him on August 21, 1331. Early in September, Dušan was crowned king. His father was subsequently murdered and eventually canonized by the Orthodox Church. Before Dušan could embark on the great work that justified posterity in calling him Serbia’s greatest medieval ruler, he had to suppress a revolt in Zeta, probably based on provincial bitterness felt by the local nobility, who did not achieve the degree of influence over the new king that they had expected. By the end of 1332, Dušan’s position was secure.

Life’s Work

The major focus of Dušan’s foreign policy was the Byzantine Empire. Before he could begin the process of further territorial expansion to the south into the Greek lands of the Byzantine Empire, however, he had first to consolidate relations with Bulgaria and his other neighbors. During the spring of 1332, Dušan signed a peace treaty with the new Bulgarian ruler, Czar Ivan Alexander. Throughout his reign, Dušan was able to count on good relations with Bulgaria and to rely on there being no Byzantine-Bulgarian alliance directed against Serbia. To the north, Dušan adopted a two-part policy toward Charles I (Charles Robert of Anjou; r. 1308-1342), king of Hungary, and toward his son and successor, Louis the Great, king of Hungary and Poland (r. 1342-1382 and 1370-1382). On one hand, Dušan’s stance was militarily defensive, and he prevented Hungary from pursuing its territorial interests south of the line of the Sava and Danube Rivers. On the other hand, he was diplomatically aggressive, forcing the Angevin rulers of Hungary to protect their other European interests rather than focusing on Serbia. Dušan was also careful not to antagonize Bosnia to the northwest and the powerful maritime city of Dubrovnik on the Adriatic Sea. Though Serbia had territorial interests and claims in this region, especially the district of Hum, which it had lost during the reign of Dečanski, Dušan chose not to pursue these. He correctly judged that the support of the nobility for any ventures in this area was lacking. In 1333, he reached a settlement with Dubrovnik, which brought substantial revenues to the Serbian royal treasury. In the following year, he concluded an agreement with Bosnia. To the east, the north, and the northwest, therefore, Dušan was assured of peace and had a free hand to pursue his southern policy.

In the spring of 1334, the Serbian king launched an attack into the Byzantine territory of Macedonia. Dušan’s efforts achieved early successes, in part through the help of the Byzantine general Syrgiannes, who was the governor of the region and who had earlier revolted against Emperor Andronicus III Palaeologus (r. 1328-1341). The Serbian army captured several important fortified cities, but the campaign ended when Syrgiannes was killed and the Byzantines mounted a counteroffensive. In a peace treaty signed on August 26, 1334, a compromise was reached. The Serbs withdrew, but the Byzantines confirmed many of their conquests. The border established between the two states at this time was nearly identical to the modern border between Serbia and Montenegro and Greece.

The next phase of Dušan’s southward expansion came following the death of Andronicus III in 1341. Quarrels over the succession in the Byzantine Empire brought the empire near to civil war. One of the leading parties was John VI Cantacuzenus (r. 1347-1354), who had been Andronicus III’s leading general and close adviser but whose own ambitions had been shunted aside in 1341. He led his army to Serbia to seek Dušan’s support in ousting his opponents in Constantinople.

An agreement was forged between the two in July, 1342, in which the Serbs expected to be rewarded with imperial territory. Dušan invaded southern Macedonia and also captured large portions of Albania. After early cooperation that benefited both sides, the alliance between Dušan and Cantacuzenus dissolved over conflicting interests. The Serb advance in the Balkans continued, however, and by the end of 1345, Dušan controlled all Macedonia, except Thessaloniki, east to the straits of Chrysopolis. In the following three years, Dušan added to his empire, conquering Epirus and the region of Thessaly from the Byzantine Empire. These conquests extended his control south to the Gulf of Corinth.

Even before these successes, Dušan had changed his title. After 1343, he called himself king of Serbia, of Albania, of the Coast (that is, the Dalmatian coast), and of the Greeks. Late in 1345, he began to style himself czar, the Slavonic equivalent of emperor. To reflect this enhanced status, he arranged for the archbishop of Serbia to be raised to the rank of patriarch, and then, in April, 1346, Dušan was himself crowned czar of the Serbs and the Greeks. In his next years, the czar turned his attention primarily to consolidating and administering his royal lands and his multiethnic empire.

To regularize practice, he introduced a system of titles and ranks that he modeled on the Byzantine structure of government. He also reorganized the imperial chancery, again using the Byzantine model. His greatest achievement, however, was the law code that was prepared at his direction during the late 1340’. It was promulgated by a council in Dušan’s capital of Skoplje in 1349. It consisted of 201 articles that specialized in public and criminal matters. It did not deal with issues of civil legislation, which were addressed in other ways. In general, the code reflected Dušan’s great reliance on his nobility as a base of political support for the monarchy, for it significantly enhanced their authority over lands and villages given them as fiefs. Byzantine elements may be found in the code, especially in matters relating to the church, but it was primarily based on previous Serbian practice and codes. The code was modified slightly in 1353 or 1354.

In his last years, Dušan’s relations with the imperial court in Constantinople worsened. Emperor John V Palaeologus (r. 1341-1391) and his coruler, Cantacuzenus (Dušan’s former ally), sought to recover parts of Macedonia. By allying themselves with Turkish auxiliaries, the Byzantine rulers defeated Dušan in 1352. In retaliation, the Serbian czar planned an invasion of Byzantium; he was most likely preparing for an expedition that would reach Constantinople itself when he unexpectedly died in December, 1355. As his successor he left his son Stefan Uroš V, who was, however, unable to maintain Dušan’s accomplishments.

Significance

One measure of the magnitude of Stefan Dušan’s territorial expansion is the fact that he doubled Serbia’s size and conquered the parts of Macedonia and the south that his predecessors had either not been able to annex or had not even attempted to acquire. During his reign, he was able to transform his position from that of a semipuppet placed on the throne by a rebellious nobility into that of a strong and effective ruler whom later centuries remembered as “Dušan the mighty.” His military and territorial successes were, however, not his only claim to be regarded as the greatest of medieval Serbia’s rulers. His legislative skill, his administrative reforms, and his law code also contribute to this reputation.

Another measure of Dušan’s greatness is found in the fact that his attention was by no means limited narrowly to Serbian affairs. He developed cordial ties with Popes Clement VI (1342-1352) and Innocent VI (1352-1362) in Avignon with two policies in mind. First, he was sympathetic to the possibility of Church reunion between Latin West and Orthodox East, especially since the patriarch of Constantinople had anathematized Dušan and the Serbian church after 1346. Second, he needed support from the west against the Ottoman Turks. They had significantly expanded their empire in Anatolia (now Turkey) during the early part of the fourteenth century and in 1354 had established themselves in Europe by conquering Gallipoli. Dušan recognized them as a danger not only to Serbia but also to all Christians, whether Catholic or Orthodox. He hoped to be named to head a great crusade against the Turks. That he thought he might be able to use such a campaign also to conquer Constantinople and establish his rule there is clear from some of his preliminary negotiations with the Venetians.

All these ambitions came to naught. Within twenty years of Dušan’s death, Serbia had been reduced to a territorial extent smaller than when he had ascended the throne. In the Battle of Kosovo on June 15, 1389, Serbia was decisively defeated by the Ottomans, who were thereby firmly established in the Balkans. Nevertheless, Dušan may fairly be credited with having fundamentally established the predominance of the Serbian state in the region. This accomplishment was, in subsequent generations, to be an important and enduring fact of Balkan history.

Princes and Czars of Serbia, 1168-1459

Reign

• Ruler

1168-1169

• Tichomir Great Prince

1169-1196

• Stefan I Nemanja

1180

• Serbian independence

1180-1196

• Instability

1196-1228

• Stefan II

1228-1234

• Stefan III Radoslav

1234-1243

• Stefan IV Vladislav

1243-1276

• Stefan Uroš I

1276-1282

• Stefan Dragutin

1282-1321

• Stefan Uroš II Milutin

1321-1331

• Stefan Uroš III Dečanski

1330

• Battle of Velbužd: Serbia controls Macedonia

1331-1355

• Stefan Uroš IV Dušan

1345

• Dušan assumes title czar of Serbia

1349

• Dušan’s law code promulated

1355-1371

• Stefan Uroš V the Weak

1371

• Dynastic collapse

1371-1389

• Stefan Lazar I (prince)

1389

• Battle of Kosovo: defeat by Ottomans

1389-1427

• Stefan Lazar II Lazarevich (despot)

1396

• Serbia is an Ottoman vassal state

1427-1456

• George Brankovich

1456-1458

• Lazar III Brankovich

1458-1459

• Helene Palaeologina (regent)

1459

• Annexation by Turkey

Bibliography

Cox, John K. The History of Serbia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. This comprehensive history of the Serbian region includes a chapter on “The Splendor of Medieval Serbia.”

Dinič, M. “The Balkans, 1018-1449.” In The Cambridge Medieval History/Middle Ages, edited by Joan M. Hussey. Vol. 4. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1966. Based solidly in nineteenth and twentieth century Balkan scholarship, this reliable study treats Dušan’s reign in the context of both Balkan history and Byzantine relations with the region. The treatment of Dušan’s law code is superficial, but political and diplomatic details are reliable. The analysis of the fate of Dušan’s empire is particularly good.

Dušan, Stefan. “The Code of Stephan Dušan.” Translated by Malcolm Burr. Slavonic and East European Review 28 (1949-1950): 198-217, 516-539. A full translation of the text of the czar’s law code, originally issued in 1349. The English rendering is fluid and readable, and there are helpful annotations of technical terms and obscure references.

Fine, John V. A. The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1987. An authoritative study on all aspects of Balkan history in the era covered in its subtitle. Two long chapters are devoted to the period of Dušan’s life and rule. They are particularly good with regard to social conditions in Serbia and to Serbia’s relations with its Balkan neighbors. This work contains one of the very few presentations of Serbian-Albanian relations.

Pavlowitch, Stevan K. Serbia: The History of an Idea. New York: New York University Press, 2002. A history focused on Serbia as an idea that persisted even through its border changes and through its temporary “nonexistence.” Includes significant discussion of medieval Serbian rulers and their relationship to the Church.

Soulis, George Christos. The Serbs and Byzantium During the Reign of Tsar Stephen Dušan (1331-1355) and His Successors. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Library and Collections, 1984. The most thorough study in English of Dušan’s career. The focus is on Serbian-Byzantine relations, but this is treated broadly enough to include detailed analysis of other aspects of the czar’s foreign policy. One chapter is devoted to Dušan’s internal policy in his conquered Byzantine lands, and there is a full discussion of the law code of the czar.

Soulis, George Christos. “Tsar Stephen Dušan and Mount Athos.” Harvard Slavic Studies 2 (1954): 125-139. A specialized study that focuses on the monastic communities of the arm of the Chalcidian peninsula that is dominated by Mount Athos. Dušan sought the support of the monastic groups on Mount Athos for the creation of a Serbian patriarch and his own eventual coronation as czar. He was, in addition, a patron of considerable importance for several of the monasteries. An important work for understanding Dušan’s ecclesiastical policy.