page_title: Maria of Serbia, Queen of Bosnia
section_title: Youth
hierarchical_section_title: Maria of Serbia, Queen of Bosnia / Youth
caption_attribution_description: Srpski (latinica)‎: Srpska Despotovina Đurađa Brankovića, oko 1450. godine.
context_page_description: Maria of Serbia, christened Helena, was the last Queen of Bosnia and Despoina of Serbia. As the eldest daughter of the deceased Despot of Serbia Lazar Branković, the 12-year-old Helena was given in marriage to the Bosnian prince Stephen Tomašević in 1459. She then took the name Maria, while her husband obtained the title to Serbia through her. The country was lost to the Ottomans within a few months, and the couple fled to Bosnia. Maria's husband ascended the Bosnian throne in 1461, but two years later the kingdom too fell to the Ottomans and he was executed. The widowed queen avoided capture by fleeing to the coast. Having spent a few years in Venetian Dalmatia and possibly Hungary, Maria settled in Ottoman Greece at the court of her aunts Mara and Kantakouzene. Her string of conflicts and legal disputes with Kantakouzene, the Republic of Ragusa and Athonite monasteries earned her an ill reputation, with the monks describing her as an "evil woman".
context_section_description: Maria was the eldest of three children born to Lazar Branković, son of the Despot of Serbia Đurađ Branković, and his wife, Helena Palaiologina. Born probably in 1447, she was christened Helena. Two sisters followed her: Milica and Irene.
  Lazar succeeded his father as despot on 24 December 1456, but his reign was cut short by his death on 28 January 1458. Despoina Helena and Lazar's brother Stefan seized power and began negotiating a marriage between her eldest daughter and Stephen Tomašević, the elder surviving son of King Thomas of Bosnia. The intent was to consolidate an alliance against the threat of the expanding Ottoman Empire, which had already reduced the Despotate of Serbia to a strip of land governed from the Smederevo Fortress. Stephen Tomašević arrived to Smederevo during the Holy Week of 1459, taking over the fortress and the government on 21 March. The marriage was celebrated on 1 April, the first Sunday following Easter. The bride soon afterwards joined the Catholic Church and adopted the name Maria.
caption: The decline of the Serbian Despotate in the late 1450s
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