Kosov army

It was a good article ,but I see lot of bullshit in the comments. I get especcialy
annoyed by Albanian ones. You guys show some deep lack of self-respect
issues and inferiority complex with your real country's history if you have the
need to claim parts of surrounding people's history all the time. First of all, to
all of you saying that there was some kind of Balkan coalition, can you cite
me any primary source for that? And since most people in comments don't
even know the difference between source and literature, by source I mean
things written about battle or accounts of it written from 1389 to 1602
(preferably before 1400)? Coalition bullshit was first proposed in Albanian
intelectual circles during Enver Hoja's time in late 20th century and British
and Western historians just started copying without critical reasearch
because it fitted into multi-cultural agenda. Aboslutely the best and most
proffesionaly written work written about battle of Kosovo was "The Battle of
Kosovo" by Petar Tomac, a JNA general and a communist written during
1960s. It is analitical, uses accounts of other battles Turks fought in at the
time, compares them to situation at Kosovo, lets you draw your own
conclusion and examines every part of the battle with every possible
hypothesis there is. What is the most important thing about that work, in it
you can find all 20 sources and accounts of battle written between 1389 to
1602 translated and presented in full form whether they are Turkish, Serbian,
or Western. All sources mention just three leaders of Serbs and those are :
knez Lazar of Moravian Serbia, Lord Vuk Brankovi his vassal, and Vlatko
Vukovi, vassal of Bosnian king Tvrtko who coronated himself as king of
Serbia in 1377 at the grave of Saint Sava so it made sense he would send
force to defend what he percieved as part of his realm. All of these 3 lords
were faithful of Serbian Orthodox church including Vlatko Vukovi who was
born in the time when Eastern Hum, was still part of Serbian Empire and
under rule of Vojislav Vojinovi. Mention of forces other than these 3 are
much later fabrications and speculations. The only other force mentioned
outside of these three is in the latest account in 1602 which mentions 200
crusaders of the Hospitaler order that Ivan Palina led out from Zadar (it
doesnt say they actualy arrived at Kosovo or participated in battle, and even
if they did their number is miniscule). In any case people fail to understand
how medieval armies functioned. These are not nationalisticaly charged
armies raised by conscription though in these case Serbs had to raise
considerable levy among peasant population in both Moravian Serbia and
Kosovo which at that time was without a doubt of completely Slavic character
(Founding charter of Deani from 1330 contains 15000 names of all serfs of
monastery and vast majority of those names are not just Serb Christian but of
completely Slavic origin while only under 2 percent have albanian christian
forms like Gjergj, and situation wasnt much different in Turkish censi of
Brankovi lands in 1476 which have 50-80000 names)-. Army at Kosovo could

be a patchwork of forces, and undoubtedly there were mercenaries and

condotierri on all sides, and maybe even a few ethnic Albanians but there are
simply no sources at all for that . Calling the Serbian side anything other than
Serbian is like calling sides in battle at Agincourt, English-Flemish-WelshNorman coalition vs French-Occitan-Italian-Flemish-Burgundian coalition
instead of just English vs French on account that there was small percentage
of mercenaries from cited regions. Lords are those that matter and no lords of
Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria or Wallachia are recorded to have participated or
to have brought forces. Heck if you pull it out of context every millitary force
in feudal Europe can be interpreted as coalition, a coalition between vassals
and their lord, but that is just stretching it. Besides this battle obviously
demanded even peasant to be levied en masse, that is why it was the most
remembered in the Serbian people (because ordinary peasants actually
participated unlike Velbud), that and more importantly because the drama
and tragedy of battle (decimation and chaos, both leaders killed, end of an
age) were great material for an epic balad about it.