Stefan Dušan

Stefan Dušan (born 1308—died Dec. 20, 1355) was the king of Serbia (1331–46) and “Emperor of the Serbs, Greeks, and Albanians” (1346–55). He was the greatest ruler of medieval Serbia, who promoted his nation’s influence and gave his people a new code of laws.

Background and early years

Stefan Dušan was the son of Stefan Uroš III, who was the eldest son of the reigning king, Stefan Uroš II Milutin. While Dušan was still a boy, his father, who governed the maritime provinces of the Serbian state, rebelled against his own father. Milutin took him prisoner, blinded him in order to make him unfit to claim the throne, and about 1314 exiled him to Constantinople. With his father and mother, Stefan Dušan therefore spent several years in the Byzantine capital. Life in Constantinople as an exile, without any prospect of occupying the throne, had a lasting influence on the formation of his character. In addition to a basic education, he acquired a familiarity with the ways of government of the Byzantine world by which he was later to be guided.

The exile in Constantinople ended with the reconciliation of Dušan’s father and grandfather and the family’s return to Serbia about 1320. After Milutin’s death in 1321, Dušan’s father greatly increased his chances in the contention for the crown by demonstrating that he was not blind, claiming a miraculous cure. With the support of a great majority of the nobility, he succeeded in defeating his enemies and was crowned king early in 1322. Dušan, still a youth, was crowned “young king,” or heir apparent.

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Too young to be able to pursue more active policies, Dušan as “young king” governed the maritime provinces of the state. He had to reconcile himself to the loss of Hum (Herzegovina), the most westerly region of Serbia, which the ruler of neighbouring Bosnia conquered in 1326. He gained valuable military experience, however, and the reputation of an able commander in the campaigns against the Bosnians; he particularly distinguished himself in the great battle against the Bulgarians of Velbužd in 1330. Although this victory freed Serbia of the great danger of an allied attack by both the Bulgarian and the Byzantine emperors, dissension soon arose between Dušan and his father. War broke out between them in the fall of 1330. Peace was concluded in the spring of 1331, but soon afterward Dušan rose again against his father and deposed him.

Dušan’s reign began peacefully in September 1331. He subdued the sporadic revolts of the nobility, who had become more powerful during the period of civil wars, and strengthened his alliance with the new Bulgarian emperor, John Alexander, by marrying his sister Helen in 1332. Relations with Bulgaria remained untroubled to the end of Dušan’s reign.

In 1334, however, he began his war of conquest against Byzantium. After taking the border fortresses, Dušan penetrated deep into Byzantine territory to the gates of Salonica, although he did not achieve lasting success in subduing the cities. He made peace with Emperor Andronicus III Palaeologus in August 1334, having extended the territories of his state close to what is today the northern border of Greece. The next year he secured his northern borders against the Hungarians. During the course of his entire reign, Dušan remained on the defensive in the north, although he succeeded in preventing Hungary from extending its boundaries south of the fortresses on the Save and Danube rivers.

Emperor of the Serbs, Greeks, and Albanians

With the death of Andronicus III in 1341, the Byzantine Empire once more fell prey to family quarrels and civil war. Dušan, arriving before the gates of Salonica, received an unexpected ally in John Cantacuzenus, the late emperor’s general, who took up arms against the regents of the young successor, John V Palaeologus, and proclaimed himself emperor. Dušan aided the Byzantine pretender, but their alliance broke up in 1343, and they became bitter enemies. On his own, Dušan conquered Albania and a greater part of Macedonia in the same year. After conquering the stubbornly defended city of Seres in the fall of 1345, Dušan began to call himself “Emperor of the Serbs, Greeks, and Albanians.” He was crowned emperor in April 1346.

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After subjugating other parts of the Byzantine Empire, Epirus and Thessaly, in 1348, he found himself master of a vast territory from the rivers Save and Danube to the Bay of Corinth and from the Adriatic and Ionian shores to the Aegean. Although Dušan was helped by the weakness of his adversaries, he would never have attained his great successes without the forces provided by the militant nobility of the old Serbian provinces and by his German mercenaries. Dušan regarded the subdued Byzantine lands, “Romania,” as his own “imperial lands,” whereas the old Serbian provinces were formally the “royal lands” of his son. In reality, he governed both territories himself, but his administrative reforms concerned mostly the Serbian provinces.

On the eve of the coronation he raised the Serbian archbishopric to the status of a patriarchate, for in the Orthodox East an emperor was inconceivable without a patriarch. He introduced the Byzantine system of titles and ranks, and the imperial chancellery was organized on the Byzantine model, as was the uniform organization of local authorities. Dušan, moreover, considered the introduction of a law code part of his imperial duties, and in the Diets of 1349 and 1354 he promulgated a code containing more than 200 statutes. The code covered mainly criminal law and the relations between the classes.

From the time he imposed himself as co-ruler of Constantinople with the young emperor John V Palaeologus, John VI Cantacuzenus had posed a serious threat to Dušan, especially after he acquired Turkish auxiliary forces, which had twice defeated the Serbs—in 1344 and in 1352. During Dušan’s campaign against Bosnia in 1350, Cantacuzenus’ supporters in the Greek cities sent their armies to attack him in the south, thus forcing him to return to Macedonia and to give up his plans for reconquering Hercegovina. Plans for the conquest of Constantinople drew Dušan into close relations with Venice. The republic was sympathetic to him but remained indifferent toward his proposals for direct action against the Byzantine emperors.

In his last years Dušan maintained cordial relations with the Pope in Avignon. Like some of his predecessors he showed a readiness to accept a union of the churches, especially since in 1350 the Patriarch of Constantinople had proclaimed an anathema on both the Serbian emperor and the patriarch. Enmity between local Orthodox and Catholic clerics stood in his way, as did Hungary’s unsuccessful attack on Serbia in 1354, which upset the work of the papal legation. This attack also frustrated Dušan’s desire to be designated by the Pope as captain of a crusade against the Turks, who at this time had gained a foothold on European soil and had become a danger to the Christians of the Balkans.

Dušan died suddenly in December 1355. He was succeeded by his son Uroš, who was unable to preserve his father’s large empire. The peripheral regions of the empire seceded under their powerful governors, and large areas fell to the Turks. Only 15 years after Dušan’s death, the territory of Serbia was smaller than that from which he had set out on his conquests.

Legacy

Dušan’s popularity was especially great during the era of national awakening and wars for liberation in the 19th century. “Dušan the Mighty” represented at that time a symbol of former glory and greatness, while the restoration of Dušan’s empire was stressed as the ideal goal of contemporary Serbian politics. Modern historians stress his accomplishment in elevating the Serbian state to predominance in the Balkans and in introducing internal reforms, transplanted from Byzantine practices and institutions and aimed at centralizing and unifying the administrative system. During his reign trade, mining, and manufacturing enjoyed considerable growth, and ecclesiastical architecture and the arts flourished. Outlasting his other accomplishments was Dušan’s law code, which remained in use until the end of the medieval Serbian state and later became a valuable source for the study of medieval society.