For a few years after Kossovo the Serbs resisted; but their efforts,
now at Belgrade, which was made the capital and fortified by Stephen
the chivalrous son of Prince Lazar, now at Smederevo on the Danube,
were spasmodic. Bands of Turks and also of Magyars were terrorizing
the country; and the sagacious old despot George Brankovi['c] was the
last to offer opposition to the Turk at Smederevo. Meanwhile in
Bosnia, the Bogomiles, driven to despair by persecution, had been
calling to the Turk. Constantinople fell in 1453, Serbia laid down her
arms in 1459, while in 1463 Muhammed II. appeared before Jajce,
Bosnia's capital, where one can still see the skeleton of Stephen
Toma[vz]evi['c], the last king, who was executed by the Sultan's
order. And now in this land of heresy, which had become so hostile to
the established Churches, hundreds of those who professed the Bogomile
faith went over eagerly to Islam; they hoped that in this way they
would triumph at the expense of their late persecutors. Those who had
worldly possessions were the first to embrace Islam, in order to
safeguard them. Those who had neither wealth nor much accumulated
hatred remained Christians. One would expect that people who had
adopted a religion under these impulses would be even more
uncompromising than the usual convert, and indeed, as a general rule,
the ex-Christian begs and aghas displayed until recent times not only
a more than Turkish observance of the outward forms of Islam but a
tyranny over the wretched raias, their slaves, that was much more than
Turkish.
Fortune had turned her back upon the Southern Slavs. In the north the
Slovenes were imprisoned in the Holy Roman Empire, while the
Croats--save for the time when they were under Tvertko--had a
succession of alien rulers, such as the aforementioned Ladislas, whom
they naturally disliked.
After Kossovo some of the Serbian nobles had fled to Hungary, to
Bosnia and to Montenegro. It was among the almost inaccessible, bleak
rocks of Montenegro that a few thousand Serbs managed to retain their
liberty. Various Serbian tribes or clans thus found a refuge, and
owing to their isolation from each other they preserved their
differences. They have, in fact, preserved them, as well as the tribal
organization, down to the present day. And then there was Dubrovnik,
the stalwart little republic. Now that she stood alone she needed all
her acumen. Yet if she paid necessary tribute to the powerful, she
would not give up helping the fallen. From this Catholic town in 1390,
the following message was sent to the Serbian Prince Vuk Brankovi['c]:
"If--and God forbid that it should be so--Gospodin Vuk should not
succeed in saving Serbia, and should be driven thence either by the
Magyars or the Turks or anyone else, we will receive the Gospodin Vuk
and the Gospodja Mara his wife, together with their children and their
treasure, in all good faith in our city; and if Gospodin Vuk desire
to build a church of his own faith here for his use, he shall be at
liberty to do so."[19]
Darkness lay over the world of the Southern Slav--under the Turk there
was no history. Generation followed generation, but the day of Kossovo
does not seem to the Serbs as though it were a distant day. Do not we
who go about our business in the brilliance of the morning sometimes
linger to recall the frightful setting of the sun? And every year the
Serbian people sing the Mass for the repose of them who died at
Kossovo.... When, after more than five hundred years, the Serbian
soldiers in the Balkan War came back to this historic plain one saw
them halting, without being ordered to do so, crossing themselves and
presenting arms.