page_title: Kosovo Myth
section_title: In art and culture
hierarchical_section_title: Kosovo Myth / In art and culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Ivan Meštrović Karyatide Vidovdanski hram
context_page_description: The Kosovo Myth, also known as the Kosovo Cult and the Kosovo Legend, is a myth based on legends about events related to the Battle of Kosovo. It has been a subject in Serbian folklore and literary tradition and has been cultivated oral epic poetry and guslar poems. The final form of the legend was not created immediately after the battle but evolved from different originators into various versions. In its modern form as a political and historical narrative it emerged in 19th-century Serbia and served as an important constitutive element of the national identity of modern Serbia and its politics. The Kosovo Myth served as an important constitutive element of the Serbian national identity since that time.
  The Serbian ruler Lazar was challenged by the Ottoman Sultan Murad I to the battle on the Kosovo Polje. According to the Myth, Lazar chose to die as a martyr, with the aim of providing Serbs with a place in the Kingdom of Heaven, instead of the “earthly kingdom” and victory in the battle. Vuk Branković withdrew his troops at crucial moments, thus becoming a symbol of a betrayal, while Miloš Obilić assassinated the Sultan Murad I and then was executed.
context_section_description: In the first half of the 19th century, plays bout the characters of the Kosovo Myth have been published by Serbian authors educated in the Austrian Empire, who adopted ideas combining Enlightenment rationalism and Romantic nationalism. Some of the dramas were works by Zaharije Orfelin, the  Miloš Obilić (1828) by Jovan Sterija Popović, Tsar Lazar or the Fall of the Serbian Empire (1835) by Isidor Nikolić  and the Miloš Obilić (1858) by Jovan Subotić. Matija Ban, a Serbian poet, dramatist, and playwright from Dubrovnik, included the motives of the Kosovo myth in the drama Tsar Lazar or the Defeat at Kosovo (1858), gradually giving them the values of Рomantic nationalism.
  The poet Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro (1830–1851), and his epic drama The Mountain Wreath (1847), which is considered as masterpiece and one of the most celebrated works in the South Slavic literature, represents a prominent example that glorifies the heroic ideals and spirit of the Kosovo Myth. It covers a fictional struggle to extermination against converted Muslim Slavs and Ottoman domination. Petrović-Njegoš often referred to the characters of the Kosovo Myth, cursing Vuk Branković and celebrating Miloš Obilić, and also used birds as symbols. 
  At the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo (1889), Franjo Rački and Tomislav Maretić, the key people of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb, gave lectures on the Battle of Kosovo and epic songs dedicated to it. During the 19th century, the Serbian government financed painters such as Đorđe Krstić and Nikola Aleksić to decorate churches and monasteries with paintings and frescoes with motifs of Kosovo martyrs. Many significant Serbian painters, Adam Stefanović, Pavle Čortanović, Paja Jovanović and Anastas Jovanović, portrayed the heroes and motifs of epic poems from the Kosovo cycle, while the most prominent painting became the Kosovo Maiden (1919) by Uroš Predić. One of the most notable Serbian artists Đura Jakšić wrote and painted inspired by the Kosovo Myth. 
  In the early 20th century, several concerts and plays in the National Theatre in Belgrade were dedicated to the Battle of Kosovo and heroes. The play “Death of the Mother of the Jugović” by Ivo Vojnović, a poet and playwright from Dubrovnik, was first performed in Belgrade in 1906 and in Zagreb in 1907. The first Serbian film, The Life and Deeds of the Immortal Leader Karađorđe (1911) directed by Ilija Stanojević, which portrays Karađorđe's leadership of the First Serbian Uprising of 1804–1813, also features a famous guslar Filip Višnjić who sings about the events of the Kosovo Myth.
  Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović contributed to the Myth when in 1907–11, he was commissioned to design the Vidovdan Temple as "the eternal ideal of heroism, loyalty and sacrifice, from which our race draws its faith and moral strength" and "collective ideal of the Serbian people". The temple's actual construction on the Field of Kosovo was postponed because of the Balkan Wars, World War I, World War II, and eventually shelved. Many of Meštrović's works dedicated to the Kosovo legends and heroes attracted much attention and were exhibited in many European cities, including in the Grafton Galleries in London and at the Venice Biennale. Croatian painter Mirko Rački, also adopted the mythos and painted numerous paintings within Kosovo cycle, including The Mother of the Jugović, Nine Jugović brothers, Kosovo Maiden and Miloš Obilić. 
  French translation of Serbian epic songs of the Kosovo cycle Chants de guerre de la Serbie, étude, traductions, commentaires (1916) by Léo d'Orfer was awarded an Prix Langlois by the Académie Française. Shortly after the withdrawal of the Serbian Army through Kosovo and Albania during World War I, the poets began writing on Kosovo topics again. In 1917, Milutin Bojić published the Poems of pain and pride, a lyrical depiction of the torture of people during the war, and deeply affected by the events he wrote: “We bravely sow our new graves...  O, Lord, haven’t we had enough punishment... It is time to lif
caption: The caryatids designed by Ivan Meštrović, which were supposed to be in his proposed Vidovdan Temple, National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade
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