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Posted in honor of the Serbian people and in memory of the 35 Orthodox churches and monasteries burned to the ground by rioting Albanian muslims last week. And for the 30 or so people who died, and the thousand injured, and in honor of the many courageous Italian, Greek, Czech, and American Kfor troops who risked their lives to stop the mobs.

Fierce clashes in Kosovo.

selective silence (many pics)

Russia aids Kosovo

This is a wodnerful piece, but I think it should have been presented in sections, based on several topics, such as the "Filioque" and others.

I would only like to clarify the "greatest Serbian defeat" in Blackbird's (i.e. Kosovo, from the the Serbian word kos, and adjective kosovO) Field (Polye):

(1) The Serb units dispached by the Serbian king of Bosnia and territories, Tvrtko Kotromanich, actually defeted the Turkish wing they engaged and were falsley led to believe that the battle was won and returned to Bosnia bringing "good news."

(2) The Serbian heavy cavalery, commanded by Vuk Brankovich, waited by for orders to go into the battle and supposedly never received them. So they picked wild strawberries while the Serbian light infantry was getting killed in the central and right wings. Leged holds Brankovich as the personification of treason.

(3) A Serb knight by the name of Milosh Obilich went to the Ottoman camp and when lead to the Sultan killed him.

(4) The loss of the commander-in-chief was held hush-hush by his son Bayazit, who led the Ottoman army to victory against light Serb infantry the next day. Perhaps he knew that Brankovich would not intervene and took a chance.

(5) The Turkish army, having beheaded Serb nobility for refusing to convert to Islam, withdrew after the battle to what is today the Former Yugoslav Republic of Madeconia (FYRM), where they remained for almost a century before coming back to occupy Serbia and Bosnia for good.

The point is that the Battle of Kosovo in 1398 is always portrayed in simplistic terms as a win-lose encounter. Historical fact and aftermath are not so black-and-white.

Yes, the Serbs were defeated in the field for several reasons, but the Turkish army suffered great losses, was deeply wounded, and was unable to remain in the area, but had to withdraw and regroup, a process that took many decades -- the time Europe was given as a gift by the Serbs to fortify its defenses against the Ottomans. If it had not been for the Serbs, today's West European topography would be studded with mosques.