THE NEMANJIĆ DYNASTY OF SERBIA

This biographical work about the Nemanjićes, dear Reader, has been written with an aspiration to reach the word, nearly the prayer, of the anonymous Mileševa monk from the 13th century: “Clarify my language, my Saviour…“. Also, it has been an attempt to preserve from once fierce fire, as a poet has said, a sparkle which still smoulders – as we hope it does.

The Nemanjićes, the saints-yielding Serbian dynasty, ruled Serbia for somewhat more than two centuries – from the enthronement of Stefan Nemanja in 1166 until the death of Emperor Uroš V in 1371.

All of the ruling Nemanjićes were personalities of outstanding stature who soberly looked upon political relations, personalities with a vision regarding the development of their state which had not come into being from selfish or vain motives. They boldly walked toward their destiny. And Serbia was not the sole arena of their heroic deeds. Nemanja, Stefan and Sava – as well as all the Nemanjićes who lived after them – wisely wavered between Rome and Constantinople, Hungary and Venice, Epirus and Nicaea… Having opted for Orthodoxy, they respected the power and influence of the Catholic world. Although part of the “Byzantine Commonwealth“, they also sought a place for Serbiabeyond it – in an integrated European community of Christian peoples. Having turned to the East, they did not separate Serbia from the West. The Nemanjićes were men of uncommon spirit, religious, learned, art lovers, passionate, strong-willed, of great ambitions, brave, but also rulers who could be ruthless. They were unique personalities of their age – an age of great sinners yet also of fervent faith, not distanced from either. Despite reckoning with heavenly heights and gifts, they would sometimes oversee earthly measures. For, the encounters of divine and human reasons and standards are always difficult.