30th May 2013 / 0 comments

In 1428 the Turkish Empire was at war with Hungary and sent a demand to Djordje Brankovic, ruler of Serbia, to sever all connections with Hungary, to send an army to join Turkey and to hand over his daughter Maria with a dowry of Serbian land. Djorjde Brankovic promised to meet all demands but in return asked if he could build a fortification on the Danube near Smederevo against the Hungarians. Strangely enough the Turks didn’t realise at that point that the same fortification could be used by the Hungarians to enter the Turkish Empire or that the Serbs could escape across the river in case of attack. Permission was granted. The fortification was finished in record time, in 2 years.

Before marrying his daughter Maria to the Sultan, Djordje married another one off to the heir to the Hungarian throne, securing an important ally and was then able to start negotiating with the Venetians about joining forces to attack the Turkish Ottoman Empire. But by this time the Sultan realised the potential danger of the union between Serbia, Hungary and Venice and decided in 1439 to capture the Smederevo fortress. They couldn’t capture it outright but they besieged it for three months until the fortress surrendered.  Djordje managed to escape the country by boat over Danube into Hungary, to his estate at Tokay where he planted vines from Smederevo which eventually produced the famous Tokay wine.

The Fortress of Smederevo had to be reinforced and work started in 1444 when Djordje returned to Smederevo and lasted until 1456.  The fortress was surrounded by water on three sides – from the Danube River on one side, the Jezeva River on another, and on a third by a canal across the promontory. All along the edge of the fortress high bastioned walls were erected every 200 feet. The northern part of the fortress is the Little Forte which was home to Djordje and his wife and where the wall of great hall still stands, the windows still look across the Danube towards Hungary. The Forte was the second line of defence behind the moat with four richly decorated bastions. One of them is engraved with a cross and the year 6938 which is the year of the beginning of the world according to Greek Orthodoxy.

Djordje Brankovic was getting old and not keeping up with new developments whereas the Sultan was more progressive. In April 1453 the Sultan fired the first guns at the centre of Byzantium Empire, Constantinople and after five weeks of heavy bombardment “the pearl of east”  become Turkish. The Sultan, nicknamed the Conqueror, continued his expansion to the West and Serbia and in 1454 issued an ultimatum to Djordje Brankovic who ignored it until the fortress was strengthened. Unfortunately the fortress was never ready for cannons and the plague which killed the king. He left his wife who died under suspicious circumstances and his son who died in 1458 but not before he married one of his daughters to the Bosnian king, Stefan Tomasevic, who entered Smederevo at the end of the same year and become the last ruler of medieval Serbia. He changed his religion to Roman Catholicism which for the Orthodox Serb was worst betrayal of his kingdom. The Serbs started negotiating with the Sultan and scared King Stefan Tomasevic fled for his life from Smederevo with his family. The doors of Smederevo Fortress were open to Mahomet the Conquerer on 20^th June 1459 and for the next three hundred and fifty years Serbia ceased to exist.

The fortress today has best preserved buildings of medieval Serbia, still standing proudly above the Danube despite damage during WWII from bombing by the Allies and an explosion in the ammunition store used by the Germans.  Smederevo fortress is easily accessible on a day tour from Belgrade. For more information about day tours to Smederevo or anywhere in Serbia please email Tara@ReadyClickAndGo.com

 

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