Pretkosovski događaji u Hešt bihištu Idrisa Bitlisija
The Pre-Kosovo Events from Hešt Bihišt by Idris Bitlisi

Summary/Abstract: This is a translation of those sections from the historical work of Hešt Bihišt which deal with the more important events in the Balkans in the period between the first incursions of the Ottoman troops into the territory of the Balkan Peninsula and the famous battle of Kosovo (1389). As it is generally known, the Hešt Bihišt is a great Ottoman history concerning the first eight Ottoman rulers, i. e., from Osman to Selim I (1310-1512), written in Persian by Idris Bitlisi, the great Ottoman historian and court chronicler (waq'a niwis) of Bajazid II (1481-1512), who lived at the end of the 15th and at the beginning of the 16th centuries. These events, one by one, were crucial for the history of the Balkans: all of them together represent a preparation for the final clash on the Kosovo in 1389 and, later, the fall of south Slavic and other Balkan peoples under the Ottoman power. In comparison with the earlier Ottoman historians and his immediate predecessors, Idris Bitlisi gave the fullest account of all these events. This translation has been made acording to the manuscript of this work, which is kept in the Archives of Socialist Republic of Croatia, in Zagreb. The manuscript itself was acquired from the inheritance of the late Franz Ottenfels, the Austrian diplomatic representative in Istanbul in the first half of the 19th century. It reached this Yugoslav institution by accident, together with the rest of Ottenfels's books. A description of the pre-Kosovo events, with which we are concerned here, was given by Bitlisi in the third »bihišt« of his work, in which he also dealt with the age of the third Ottoman Sultan, Murat I (1359-1389). This third »bihišt« (which in the Zagreb manuscript bears the title Dastan-i sultiin Murad-ghazi), contains, in addition to introductory parts, eighteen »dastans« or narratives. This translation relates the pre-Kosovo events from those »dastans « which deal with them. Thus in the dastans 2-5 (pp. 263- 281, according to our own pagination marked on the photocopies), among other things, the following is decribed: the first campaign of the Sultan (Murat I) in the lands of Rumelia (the Balkans) and the capture of some fortifications; the capture of the cities of Edirne and Dimotika; the capture of the fortresses and cities of Plovdiv, Zagora, Gumuldjina and the surrounding regions; the battle of the Marica.

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