History teaches us that a long reign of one ruler is usually followed by a short reign of his successor as an unwritten rule. Uros’s son Dragutin had the might to defeat his father and overthrow him, but not the strength to hold power for himself.

The defeat of the new Serbian king by the Byzantine army in 1281 was crucial for Dragutin. His younger and belligerent brother had no trouble in overwhelming Dragutin and seizing the Serbian throne. The toppled king withdrew to a region surrounding Mt. Rudnik, Macva and Srem. He ruled these lands until his death in 1316.

Earlier historians had a rare ability of passing correct judgments. It may be impossible to find a better description of King Milutin than the one penned by Stanoje Stanojevic at the dawn od the 20th century.

“Milutin was not a ruler of outstanding ability, but he did possess the will and ambition to strengthen his state. He worked on that task determinedly and steadily. He was bold enough to set new, big aims for the state of Raska and steer the state policy onto a course that would give the Serbs the might that provided them with the dominant position in the Balkan peninsula.”

The unwritten rule of history has another part, too. According to it, the short rule of a monarch is followed by a long rule of the next one. Milutin continued the policy of his predecessors, preparing to mount an attack on Byzantium. Unlike them, however, he carried it out. He warred with Constantinople several times, conquering Porec and the surrounding regions in the second half of the eighth decade of the 13th century.

Milutin advanced on Byzantium before the end of the century. The victory was so convincing that the Serbian king regained all the territories he had earlier conquered and even married the Byzantine princess Simonida. All this took place in 1299.

Milutin had a lot of trouble with his successors. He gave the region of Zeta to his son Stefan. The dissatisfied prince attacked his father but was defeated, blinded and expelled to Constantinople. The reason for Stefan’s discontent was the same as the one causing discord in earlier generations of Serbian rulers — the question of succession. This time, however, there were also disagreements in principle. Milutin’s reconciliatory attitude towards Byzantium, certainly under his wife Simonida’s influence, led Stefan to rebel against his father.

The results of Milutin’s reign in Serbia were clearly visible. When he came to power, the borders of the Serbian state stretched to the town of Lipljan. In 1321, when he died, the borders expanded far up north and down south. Those were real foundations for the rise of medieval Serbia in the 14th century.

All of Stevan’s three descendants replaced one another on the Serbian throne. While the reigns of his first two sons were considerably short-lived, Uros remained on the throne for more than thirty years (1243-1276).

A most interesting event in that period of Serbian history was the arrival of German miners, the Saxons. They arrived in Serbia in the 1230s, bringing with them new techniques of prospecting and processing precious metals, namely silver, copper and lead. Their knowledge and skill revived the production of metals and opened wide the door of the Mediterranean markets for the Serbian economy. The Saxons developed the mines of Breskovo, Trepca, Rudnik, Rogozna, Novo Brdo, and other mining centers. The growth of mining in Serbia opened a series of economic and trade links with the Adriatic coastal region and southern Italy.

If we dare take a general view of Uros’s long-lasting rule, however complex and dangerous it may be, we can conclude that this period was marked by the bloodless balance of power. Uros was fortunate enough to enjoy favorable external conditions. His conflicts and reconciliations with Dubrovnik have already been mentioned. His ties with the Hungarian king and his rapprochement with King Charles Anjou of Sicily turned him against Byzantium. Uros’s wife Jelena, Charles’cousin, came from the Anjou dynasty. Uros’s grand plans for the coalition and action against Constantinople did not quite materialize, though he devoted much time and attention to that effort. Preparations for an attack on Byzantium lasted a decade though Uros did not dare take such a decisive move during his rule. Thus his long-lasting rule in Serbia remained somehow unfinished and understated.

After the death of Stevan the First Crowned, the question of his successor was not raised. It was only natural that his crown be passed to his eldest son Radoslav, by his first wife Evdokia. Radoslav was made co-ruler during Stevan’s life.

Information about the reign of King Radoslav is scarce. What we do know are only facts about the political situation in Serbia and the Balkans as a whole. Under the influence of his father-in-law, Theodore I Angelus, the ruler of Greece, the new Serbian king made a U-turn in Serbia’s foreign policy, shifting the course from the West to the East. Radoslav was educated in the spirit of the Byzantine tradition. Naturally, his sudden and tactless change in the political course disturbed the internal situation in Serbia.

At one point, Radoslav turned to the Archbishopric of Ohrid, the then Greek seat in the West. His aim was to get closer to the Byzantine side and strengthen its influence. He went as far as to engage in direct negotiations with Ohrid, skirting Archbishop Sava, head of the Serbian Church. Sava saw the negotiations with Ohrid a grave danger for the independence of the Serbian Church. He feared they would lead to the recognition of the supreme rule of the Ohrid Archbishopric. That would reestablish relations that existed before 1219. Angry and disappointed, Sava set out on a journey again. He stayed in Nicaea, Palestine and returned to Serbia via Salonika. However, his attitude towards Radoslav remained unchanged.

The change on the Serbian throne in 1233 was the work of internal putsch. The feudal lords toppled Radoslav and brought Stevan’s younger son Vladislav in his place. Radoslav took refuge in Dubrovnik. The following year, in 1234, he issued the famous Charter to the people of Dubrovnik, promising them many concessions and broad rights if he returned to the Serbian throne. However, Serbia’s former king did not stay in Dubrovnik for long. Soon he was forced to return to Serbia after failing to find refuge in Duress.

King Vladislav then turned to Bulgaria. Again thanks to his family connections there, Serbia’s external policy took another course. Due to the hospitality Dubrovnik showed to Radoslav, relations between the Republic of Dubrovnik and Serbia became tense. Negotiations ended in 1235 with the new peace agreement. However, relations between the two states never became too friendly.

From 1237, Vladislav had to protect his western borders. Defending the region of Hum from Herzog Koloman of Croatia, Vladislav reached the city of Split. He signed the treaty on friendship and concerted activities against common enemies with Split the same year.

King Vladislav did not stay in power long after the death of his father-in-law and protector, the Bulgarian King, in 1241. Two years later, he had to abdicate and turn over rule to Uros, his youngest brother and the third son of Stevan the First Crowned.

If there is a figure in the history of Serbia who leaves us speechless and eclipsed by his greatness, then it is St. Sava. That is why writing about the greatest of all Serbs is an onerous and responsible task.

Rastko (Sava) Nemanjic was the third and youngest son of Stefan Nemanja. The exact date of his birth is unknown, though it is believed that he was born around 1174. His father gave him the region of Hum to rule. Young Rastko, however, wanted something else. He left Hum as early as in 1191 for Mt. Athos to join a monastic order there, where he got a monastic name Sava. He stayed in the monastery of Stari Rusik, then moved to Vatoped. That was where he greeted Stefan Nemanja in 1197, when his father became a monk named Simeon. Together they restored the monastery of Chilandar and founded the Serbian monastic family on Mt. Athos.

Sava’s statesmanship began with reconciling his elder brothers. Then he had Simeon’s relics transferred and buried to the monastery of Studenica, which was Simeon’s endowment.

Sava was far from enthusiastic about Stevan’s links with Catholic Rome. In 1217, he returned to Mt. Athos, firmly determined to resolve the Serbian ecclesiastical question. He succeeded in it in 1219: the Serbian Church gained independence, while Sava became the first Serbian archbishop. He divided the entire state territory into episcopacies, protopopiates and parishes, appointing his most devoted friends as bishops. He supplied all the episcopacies with spiritual books and had them transcribed. He set up the center of the Church in the monastery of Zica. Sava liberated the Church from any ruler, making it the first institution of the Serbian people.

The foundations of the Serbian ecclesiastical organization laid by Sava Nemanjic outlived not only the fall of the Serbian state, but remained a permanent pillar of support under the long infidels’rule, which followed.

Sava was also Serbia’s first great man of letters, both prolific and heterogeneous. As expected and logical, his writings were spiritual and permeated with a sense of Orthodoxy. Early on, Sava wrote works of ecclesiastical content: the Karej and Chilandar typica. He wrote a code of ecclesiastical law known as Krmcija. However, works that exhibit his true literary talent were written later on. The first of them was the Biography of Saint Simeon (Stefan Nemanja). Sava’s Service to Saint Simeon, a profound spiritual writing in the tradition od Byzantine Christian poetics, is exceptionally important.

St. Sava’s trail is present not only in the history of the Serbian people and enormous number of pages of recorded past. His thought and spirit have remained alive among all Serbs, whose souls and minds are not filled with absurdity and whose conscience refuses to be the slave to the delusions of today.

Crowning is the old name for the act of coronation, hence the name First Crowned. The first Serbian king, Stevan Nemanjic, ruled for little more than two decades (1205-1228).

His rule was adorned by two — mutually conflicting — traits. First and foremost, Stevan brought the crown to the Serbian state. Under his rule the Serbian autocephalus church was established. However, the other side of Stevan’s policy was not so bright and sublime. He warred with his own brother and thus established an unfortunate habit in the Serbian medieval history. Similar conflicts between siblings of the Nemanjic dynasty later became a frequent norm. At the same time, he turned Serbia towards the catholic West. As much as that decision had practical and political reasons, it distanced Serbia from its true Orthodox roots. That is why Stevan came into conflict even with his brother Sava.

Power brings about misunderstandings and splits. It turns love into rivalry, closeness into a source of danger. Serbia’s first crowned ruler did not avoid that fate. History is unjust because it remembers only victories. Victories and victims.

Throughout the conflicts between Vukan and Stevan, the former one enjoyed the support of the catholic landlords in Zeta. He relied on support from Hungary and the Curia. When Vukan defeated Stevan for a while, he recognized the priority of the Catholic Church and the supreme rule of the Hungarian king.

After finally defeating Vukan, Stevan himself turned to the West, the Venetian Republic and Rome. The disintegration of the thousand-year-old Byzantine Empire compelled Stevan to seek allies elsewhere. Needs must when the devil drives. Politics is ignorant of the holy vows.

Apart from all this, Stevan was a successful ruler both in wars and diplomatic negotiations. The young state prospered thanks to cooperation between the two brothers, Stevan and Sava, at least until each of them went his own way. Power has another poor trait — success means loneliness. The Serbian ruler was left alone — without allies among neighbors or friends at courts. He was abandoned even by Sava, his major diplomat and ally. The Serbian king, Stevan the First Crowned, died suddenly in September 1228.