Vuk Branković, Prince of Kosovo

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This article is about the Vuk Branković of the 14th century; for his great-grandson by the same name in the 15th century, see Vuk Branković II.He was member of House of Branković .

Vuk Branković (Serbian Cyrillic: Вук Бранковић) (dead 6.10. 1397) was a Serbian medieval nobleman, Knez (Prince) of Raška-Kosovo, who ruled from his capital Priština to Prizren in the West and Skopje in the South of Balkans, during the 14th century.

His family has been very powerful: his ancestors had been on and off the Serbian throne, the family was always on the right-hand of the Tsar, and Vuk himself married Mara, the eldest daughter of Milica of Nemanja and Prince Lazar (sometimes calles "the Tsar" although formally only a vassal of the fragmented kingdom), the real ruler of southern Serbs after the end of the Nemanjić dynasty. Vuk was even a general in Prince Lazar's army.

Folk tradition portraits Vuk as a traitor: supposedly, Vuk tarnished the family name when he betrayed Prince Lazar at the Battle of Kosovo, which he survived in 1389. History doesn't consider that this is true^[1].

After his father's death Vuk's son, Đurađ, Prince of Kosovo, was claiming the throne of Serbia and he clashed with Prince Stefan Lazarevic, his cousin and Prince Lazar's son. They made peace and fought successfully against the Turks in 1413. Đurađ Branković became new Prince of all Serbian lands and was officially acknowledged in 1429, after his cousin's Stefan Lazarević sudden death in 1427.