An interesting, well-researched article below.
Two things to note (?!)
The sources and…
The original book – Notes of the Janissary by Konstantin Mikhailovich – was written in Russian Cyrillic!
The Serbian Janissary
Konstantin Mihailovic
By
George Ljepojevic
Konstantin Mihailovic was born in 1430, at a time of great turmoil in Europe. The Islamic army of the Ottoman Turks (in 1455) led by Sultan Mehmed II, laid siege to a fortified castle in Novo Brdo (a town in today’s district of eastern Kosovo).
Mihailovic stated that the reason his book, “Memoirs of a Janissary” was written was because he wanted to provide a detailed account of his life in the army of the Ottoman Empire, whilst serving as a Janissary. There was not much mentioned about his early life, instead (according to Konstantin ) his life began in 1455. That was the year that was to transform his life dramatically.
The army of Ottoman Empire were on the march, they laid siege to the fortified castle in the city of Novo Brdo for 40 days. Novo Brdo back then was a bustling city, with a huge medieval fortress that was built on an extinct volcano cone. The remains of the fortress can still be seen today.
Novo Brdo was actually mentioned as far back as 1326, it was a well-known place before it became a city. The famous medieval Serbian writer Vladislav the grammarian was an Orthodox, Christian monk. He was born in the city of Novo Brdo. He received his education in the school of Constantine of Kostenets.
Constantine was a medieval Bulgarian chronicler and writer. He was best known for his biography of the Serbian despot Stefan lazarevic. It was Vladislav who mentioned the large cross, visible in the outer wall of the fortress. The cross was a clear image that the people in the city were Christians. The cross is also a symbol with meanings that was not known by the mainstream population. It was symbolic of a division as in, the division of the world into four elements, or cardinal points. Alternately it was also seen as the union of the two concepts of divinity (the vertical line) and, the world the horizontal line. If the cross was shaped obliquely (a cross with the limbs slanted) it, was then technically termed a “saltire” cross. A saltire is a heraldic symbol in the form of a diagonal cross, as in the shape of the letter X in Roman type.
Saint Andrew was said to have been ‘martyred’ on such a cross. Today there are still a number of countries that have the saltire cross on their flag, and also on their coat of arms. At the time of the Serbian Empire the population of Novo Brdo was estimated to have in excess, of 6,700 people.
What was of significance (for the Serbs) was that Novo Brdo was the last city to remain standing during the first invasion by the Ottomans. It was because of a treaty that the city was restored back to the Serbs in 1443.
In 1439 the capital of Smederovo (it was the last independent Serbian state) fell to the Turks. The defeat of Smederovo was a major victory for the Ottomans. After 40 days siege the garrison in the castle at Novo Brdo, surrendered on June 1, 1455.
It was at this point in time for Konstantin when his life was to change. By his accounts, the Sultan Mehmed II stood at the castle small gate and did what the “doctor of death” Josef Mengele did during the second world war. Where the Jews were sorted out, the old and weak were separated from the strong. The weak were sent straight to the gas chambers and, the mothers had their children torn from them and they too were subjected to tortures.
Mehmed sorted the boys from the girls and also the men and the woman. He then ordered all men of any distinguished rank of importance and, also anybody who looked to be a future threat to the Ottomans to be decapitated.
Among the young women and girls some 700 were spared death and, were taken and married off to Ottoman commanders, and also to the common soldier. Among the boys (including Konstantin and his two brothers) some 320, were taken to be trained as Janissaries. Konstantin did write that he and 19 other boys, did try to escape during the night but, were caught near the village called Samokovo. They were returned and were lucky not to have been executed.
Samokovo (in Serbia) was located about 63 kilometres north of Pristina and over 200 kilometres south of Belgrade. Konstantin went on to write that one year later (too young to be a Janissary yet) he was present at the siege of Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. He did record what transpired at the siege in great detail and, what happened there. It was after he completed his training that he was to participate in his first battle. The attack on the army of prince Vlad III of Wallachia, (the same prince that would hundreds of years later become the book character for Bran stoker’s “Dracula”).
Before Konstantin became a Janissary he was indoctrinate into Islam and, he was then forced in to being circumcised. The word janissary means “new soldier.” They were to become the elite troops of the Sultan and also many of them as his personal body guards. Konstantin confirmed that Vlad, did use the barbaric torture of impalement. Vlad had another practice… which was, to cut off the noses off the Ottoman soldiers and send it back to Hungary as a ‘body count.’
In one battle as the Ottoman soldiers were crossing the Danube river and came out, they were attacked by the Wallachians and, some 250 of them were killed. Wallachia is a historical (today) and geographical region of Romania. It was traditionally divided into two sections “Muntenia” (Greater Wallachia) and “Oltenia” (lesser Wallachia)
In 1859 Wallachia united with Moldavia, to form the united principalities which adopted the name Romania in 1866. Their most famous, evil and barbaric prince Vlad III, was a member of the house of Draculesti, which was a branch of the house of Basarab. He was so evil he even impaled his own people. This was to be Mihailovic’s baptism of fire. Vlad’s father Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the “order of the dragon.” This order was founded to protect Christianity in Eastern Europe.
Mihailovic recorded that the Ottoman forces were terrified of being attacked at night, and went to great lengths to protect themselves. They were not successful in preventing night attacks and they lost many soldiers, horses and camels. It was also by word of mouth that Mihailovic wrote about the, “forest of the impaled.” What Mihailovic had recorded was to prove to be correct and not here say. Vlad lined up thousands of impaled Turkish soldiers all along the roadways like lamp posts. The Sultan Murad1, created the janissary corps in 1383 and the number began with 20,000 in 1575 and, increased to 49,000 in 1591, they did drop in numbers at various stages of the campaigns.
Mihailovic went on to record the campaign in Bosnia in 1463. It was at this siege that Mihailovic may have been one of the commanders. The janissaries were protecting the fort at Zvecaj and the ones laying the siege, were led by Matthias Corvinus of Hungary who eventually captured the fortress. After Mihailovic was taken prisoner he was to identify himself and because, of his ethnicity he was repatriated back to his homeland. By 1620 many janissaries were getting rebellious, in 1826 the sultan Mahmud II abolished the corps, in what was to be known as the “Auspicious Incident.” He was the 30th sultan until his death in 1839.
The Auspicious incident started a revolt that escalated into the streets, once the Janissaries heard that they were to be replaced by a more modern army. It was only because of superior numbers that the Sipahis force pushed the janissaries back to their barracks. The Sipahi troops were a cavalry unit (also translated as Spahi, Spakh and Sepehi) the name Spahi is Persian ( Sepah ) which means “army” but, originally ‘cavalry’ was derived from Aspa ( horse )with the compound name standing for “horseman.”The Sipahis formed two different types of cavalry, there was the feudal –like, provincial Timarli Sipahi- Timariots and, the professional salaried ones known as the Kapikulu Sipahi which also were the Ottoman household troops.
The Sipahi troops were funded and influenced by the local businessmen who never did like the Janissaries. According to Turkish Historians they suggested that, Mahmud II himself was behind the “Auspicious Incident.” Mahmud wanted a more modern army and to him the Janissaries were expendable. In the famous battle of Kosovo (fought in the middle of Serbia) the first author to refer to Murad’s killer by his full name was Konstantin Mihailovic, Mihailovic took took no part in. Mihailovic was born 41 years after the battle of Kosovo, and identified Milos Kobica (Milos Kobilovic) as the knight who on that fateful day slew the Sultan Murad. The next time a name was given (in reference to Murad’s murder ) was three decades later, in 1530 by a Slovenian monk Benedikt Kuripecic. He visited Murad’s tomb in Kosovo Polje to provide his version of the knight who murdered Murad and he named a different knight…Milos Kobilovic.
The ‘story’ goes as follows, Milos fell out of favour at his last dinner (before the great battle) with Lazar and his nobles. He took off to Murad’s tent and according to the monk’s story killed Murad, he then tried to escape on horseback but was caught and killed. Benedikt was not explicit about his source on who killed the Sultan. There were a number of legends about the famous battle, and one was (according to the monk) Milos a celebrated figure in Serbian folklore. In Serbian epic poetry and songs Milos Obilic was also called Milos Kobilovic and, was often grouped with other literary figures, Vuk Karadzic, Karadjordje and Njegos. Milos Obilic was also the one who killed Murad by slashing him to death with a dagger hidden in his tunic, however there was to Turkish version how Murad was killed. According to Benedikt, Karadzic, Karadjordje and Njegos were Serbs of Dinaric origin. There was no evidence of this however, they were Serbs.
In the poem, Obilic was the ‘son of the dragon’ he was given a mythical ancestry (as was the norm of the day, back then) to emphasise his superhuman strength. One thing that has to be taken into account in reference to the sultan’s death was that Mihailovic being a former Janissary had more credence than Benedikt as to who the killer was.
There was another legend (the most popular) that told of a treason of Vuk Brankovic who was a Serbian feudal lord and also, the son- in- law of prince Lazar. There was a rivalry between him and Milos, Vuk was intensely jealous of Obilic’s reputation as the bravest of the brave Serbian knights. In order to prove his loyalty to lazar and maintain his reputation Milos made a solemn oath to kill the sultan, Murad during the battle. This definitely points to skulduggery from Vuk Brankovic, Milos was pushed into a situation which basically sealed his death.
To the Serbs Milos was no ordinary man, his mother was said to be a fairy whilst his father was a dragon hence, Milos being the “son of a dragon.” In the early 19th century Milos Obilic was venerated as a saint in the Serbian Orthodox church. In 1913 the medal of “Milos Obilic” was awarded to soldiers for acts of bravery by king Peter1, the medal is the equivalent of the Victoria Cross. The most decorated woman in history was Milunka Savic. She was awarded the Milos Obilic medal just one, of a number of them which included being decorated also by Britain, France and Russia in World War One.
It is in the Balkans that the greatest empires met their doom in one way or another, and Konstantin Mihailovic was there to record the battle of Serbia’s Jerusalem-Kosovo! According to the Turkish historian at that time, Muhamad Ibn Mustafa Mautara also called Neshry. He stated that when the battle was over, Murad and some of his staff went to see the battlefield. Among the dead and wounded was Milos kobilovic who had pretended he was dead. As Murad got closer (he was mounted on his horse), Milos got up and headed for Murat, Murat’s staff went to keep him from Murat, but were waved back and Murat must have been in the mindset that Milos was intending to give himself up.
When Milos was beside the Sultan, he made out that he was about to kiss Murat’s stirrups and pulled out a dagger and stabbed Murat and, killed Milos was then cut to pieces by his staff. There was no verification to back that story (from my perspective, historians will always write in a positive viewpoint, not negative) According to the Turkish historian, the Turks were facing an army eighteen times bigger than theirs. This army had 500,000 infantry with the support of 300,000 mounted knights led by 500 princes. Also, that among this army were troops from Germany, Hungary, Croatia, Albania, Bohemia, Bulgaria and also Romania. This great army looked like it was to destroy the Turkish army but, according to the Turkish historian, there was a rumour that the Serbs, were about to flee (an outright insult to the Serbs) the battle field (on their own land) and leave the fighting to the rest of the foreign army.
This simply means that the historian was not to be trusted with telling the truth. What he did was to glorify the army of the Turkish Empire and, also to praise Murat as a great military leader. So who killed Murat II, was Serbia’s greatest knight Milos Obelic (also who had the name Milos Kobilovic) was revered by the Serbs as being the one, who killed Murat on that Friday in 1389 on the fields of Kosovo. Milos Obilic was also the one and, the same Milos Kobilovic. There were variants of the name Kobilic until the 18th century, Obilijevic was first used in 1754 by Vasilije Petrovic in his work called “History of Montenegro”and in 1765 the well known name of Obilic was used by Pavle Julinac, and since 1765 the present day modern writers use the name Obilic.
SOURCE-NOTES:
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo-Brdo
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/cross
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltire
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin-Mihailovic
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/janissaries
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav-the –Grammarian
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallachia
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milos-Obilic
http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum-posts.asp?TID=8184&OB=DESC
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milos-Obilic
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