Anul 1432: începutul conflictului dintre Ilie vodă şi Ştefan vodă, fiii lui Alexandru cel Bun. Documente inedite din arhiva Ordinului Teuton
1432: The Beginning of the Conflict between Alexander the Good’s Sons, Elijah and Stephen. Documents from the Archive of the Teutonic Order

Summary/Abstract: The fratricide war between Alexander the Good’s descendants is difficult to reconstruct due to the lack of sources. Thus, until now, historians dated the beginning of the conflict between Alexander’s sons, Elijah and Stephen, using Jan Dlugosz’s Chronicle. According to the Polish chronicler, the war started in the autumn of 1433, when Stephen received Ottoman and Wallachian support. However, documents from the archive of the Teutonic Order from Berlin-Dahlem shed a new light on these events. It seems that the first conflict between Elijah and Stephen broke in mid-1432, after a joint rule that lasted half a year. Although Stephen was helped by the Wallachians, he was defeated by Elijah, who in his turn was assisted by the Tatars mercenaries sent by his Lithuanian ally, Boleslav Swidrigaillo. As a result, Stephen fled to the Ottomans. Later that year, he once again tried to gain the throne, but he failed despite having the Ottomans’ support. Next spring, in 1433, the two brothers made a short lived peace. The second was ended with Stephen’s victory, which was recognized by the Polish king as the legitimate ruler of Moldavia, while Elijah fled the country. Thus, it seems that Dlugosz compressed the two fratricidal wars, from 1432 and 1433, in a single one.

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