The site was the place where Despot Stefan Lazarević erected a marble pillar with an inscription commemorating the battle. That monument disappeared during the Ottoman period. A monumental building in the form of a temple ("Vidovdanski hram", "Vidovdan temple") designed by Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović was planned but never realized. In 1924 a small monument honouring the Serbian heroes at the battle ("Kosovski junaci", "Kosovo heroes") was erected; it was an obelisk with a cross on top. It had a Cyrillic inscription: "To the fallen heroes for the honorable cross, freedom, and rights of their people – 1389 1912 – [by] thankful descendants, citizens and soldiers of the city of Priština". During World War II, just after the Yugoslav capitulation, the monument was mined by Albanian fascist troops and completely destroyed. In the years prior to the war, a larger monument had been planned and a cornerstone placed near where the present monument is, but the threat of war put it on hold.