page_title: Stefan Dušan
section_title: Family
hierarchical_section_title: Stefan Dušan / Family
caption_attribution_description: English: Family of Serbian Emperor Stefan Dušan. Српски / srpski: Фреска Цара Душана са породицом
context_page_description: Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, known as Dušan the Mighty, was the King of Serbia from 8 September 1331 and Tsar and autocrat of the Serbs and Greeks from 16 April 1346 until his death. Dušan conquered a large part of southeast Europe, becoming one of the most powerful monarchs of the era. Under Dušan's rule, Serbia was the major power in the Balkans, and an Eastern Orthodox multi-ethnic and multi-lingual empire that stretched from the Danube in the north to the Gulf of Corynth in the south, with its capital in Skopje. He enacted the constitution of the Serbian Empire, known as Dušan's Code, perhaps the most important literary work of medieval Serbia.
  Dušan promoted the Serbian Church from an archbishopric to a Patriarchate, finished the construction of the Visoki Dečani monastery, and founded the Saint Archangels Monastery, among others. Under his rule Serbia reached its territorial, political, economic, and cultural peak.
  Dušan died in 1355, seen as the end of resistance against the advancing Ottoman Empire and the subsequent fall of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the region.
context_section_description: By his wife, Helena of Bulgaria, Emperor Dušan had at least one child:
  Stefan Uroš V, succeeded his father as Emperor, r. 1355-1371
  According to contemporary Byzantine historian Nicephorus Gregoras, Dušan also had a daughter:
  Theodora
  According to Gregoras, Dušan was negotiating a potential alliance with Orhan, which would have involved marrying off his daughter to Orhan himself or one of Orhan's sons in 1351. However, these negotiations broke down after the Serbian emissaries were attacked by Nikephoros Orsini - the marriage proposal was withdrawn and Serbia and the Ottoman Empire resumed hostilities. Theodora most likely died between 1352-1354.
  Some historians speculate that the couple had another child, a daughter. J. Fine suggested that it might be "Irene", the wife of caesar Preljub (governor of Thessaly, d. 1355-1356), mother of Thomas Preljubović (Ruler of Epirus, 1367–1384). In one theory, she married Radoslav Hlapen, Governor of Voden and Veria and Lord of Kastoria, after her first husband's death in 1360. This hypothesis is not widely accepted.
caption: Fresco of Dušan, his wife Helena, and their son Uroš
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