# Gazimestan

Gazimestan (Serbian Cyrillic: Газиместан, Serbian pronunciation:, Albanian: Gazimestani) is the name of a memorial site and monument commemorating the Battle of Kosovo (1389), situated about 6–7 kilometres southeast of the actual battlefield, known as the Kosovo field. Gazimestan is accessible from the Pristina–Mitrovica highway, on a 50-metre-high hill above the plain, ca. 5 km northwest of Pristina. Every year, on Vidovdan (St. Vitus Day), 28 June, a commemoration is held by the monument, which in later years is also covered by an image of Prince Lazar, who led the Serbian army at the Battle of Kosovo.

## Name

Gazimestan derives from the Arabic word ghazi 'hero, holy warrior' and the Serbian word mesto 'place'.

## History

Commemorations of the Battle of Kosovo at Gazimestan became more prominent and significant after the founding of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1919. A memorial park was constructed there after 1924.
In 1989, on the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, Serbian president Slobodan Milošević gave the famous and controversial speech Gazimestan speech, which has been called the starting point of the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
In 1997 the site was declared a cultural heritage of Serbia. Large numbers of Serbs gather at the monument to commemorate Vidovdan. Violent protests by the Kosovo Albanian community have sometimes occurred during these gatherings.

## Monument

The Gazimestan monument was designed by Aleksandar Deroko and built in 1953 on the order of the Serbian communist government. The monument connected the "fighting tradition" of the Serbian people with the modern-day victory of the communist revolution. It is designed in the form of a medieval tower. The inside bears inscriptions with excerpts from folk poetry about the Battle of Kosovo. Its design prompted a debate on architectural style: modernist critics, represented by the writer Živorad Stojković, saw it as incompatible with the times and reminiscent of the architectural style favored under the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Later, the Kosovo curse, which was recorded by the 19th-century folklorist Vuk Karadžić and which curses any Serb who does not fight at Kosovo, was also included in Cyrillic letters on the monument. Nowadays, the monument is under constant guard by police and is surrounded by a high fence. It has been claimed that the monument was deliberately targeted for bombing and damaged during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia; however, an investigation by academics András Riedlmayer and Andrew Herscher published in 2001 found that any damage observed "was not consistent with anything that could have been caused by an aerial attack." The staircase inside of the monument was reportedly damaged by an explosive after the Kosovo War.
* Vidovdan 2009
* Vidovdan 2013
* Kosovo curse

## Stone

The Gazimestan stone (Serbian: Газиместан камен, romanized: Gazimestan kamen) is a record of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, which is believed to have been composed by Prince Lazar's son and heir, Stefan. The inscription was carved into a stone pillar, which after the Battle of Ankara (1402) was placed in Gazimestan, the scene of the battle. Today, this text is engraved on a small stone pillar, which is located next to the Monument in Gazimestan.
It is a laudatory poem written in the form of an apostrophe, in which can be seen the influence of church poetry, but which also has distant echoes of chivalric epics.
The text is addressed to the intending traveler, and its beginning is taken from an ancient epigraph and reads: "Man who enters Serbian land". It glorifies the courage and spirituality of Prince Lazar, who represents the pinnacle of human spirituality. His people shine like bright stars, like the earth with colorful flowers, dressed in gold and adorned with precious stones. This kind of depiction of the Serbian army in the Kosovo War will appear later in the folk epic (in the poem Tsar Lazar and Tsarina Milica), but also in modern poetry (by Rakić in the poem Na Gazimestanu). The text reads in Serbian: