The Virtues of the Ruler according to the Life of Stefan Lazarević by Constantine of Kostenets
The Virtues of the Ruler according to the Life of Stefan Lazarević by Constantine of Kostenets

Summary/Abstract: The author discusses the image of the Serbian ruler Stefan Lazarević in his Life by Constantine of Kostenets and in particular, the role of the Old Testament allusions, citations and models. She finds out that the verbal royal iconography created by Constantine of Kostenets is supported by biblical, historical and mythological characters, referred to in a similar context also in the Manasses Chronicle and in the Alexander Romance. Elena Kotseva analyzes the image of Stefan Lazarević in the context of the trend in the 14th-15th literature to draw comparisons with Joshua, Moses, Samson and David, with Alexander the Great, Constantine the Great, Darius and Croesus. At the same time she finds parallels to the image of the Serbian ruler in the oral tradition, in epics and balladic motifs. She analyzes the image of the Serbian ruler created by Constantine of Kostenets in the context of the Balkan culture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and of the cultural memory for the apocalypse of the war in the epoch of the death and lamentation of Prince Lazar, the death of Vladislav Varnentchik and the fall of Constantinople.

• Details
• Contents