Jovan Oliver

Jovan Oliver Grčinić, known as Despot Jovan Oliver (Serbian: Јован Оливер Грчинић; ca. 1310-1356) was a magnate of the Serbian Emperor Dušan the Mighty (r. 1331-1355), holding the titles of sebastokrator and despotes, and the great voivode-military rank, showing his prominence and status as one of the most important nobles of Dušan. Oliver supported Dušan in the succession war against his father, and was one of the supreme generals in the southern military expeditions (South Macedonia, Thessaly). His province included Ovče Pole and the left bank of the Vardar. After the death of Emperor Dušan, there are no more mentions of Oliver. During the fall of the Serbian Empire, his lands were held by the Dejanovići.

Life

Jovan was the son a vlastelin Grčin (Грчин, Greek) who had lands in some part of the Serbian Kingdom. He is referred to in a Ragusan source as Oliver Grčinić, his knowledge of Greek lends support to the notion of Greek origin.^[1] He ruled his domain, in the modern-day Republic of Macedonia, as a semi-independent prince, acknowledging Dušan's suzerainty but not subordinate to him.^[1] He probably had supported Dušan's overthrow of his father, King Uroš III, in 1331, and after the death of his first wife, Karavida, in 1336, he married Maria Palaiologina, Dušan's stepmother. There is considerable scholarly debate as to when Jovan Oliver acquired his domains, i.e. whether he held them before Dušan's accession, whether they were granted to him by Dušan as a reward for his support, or whether he gained them as a result of his marriage to Maria.^[2]

At any rate, he was one of the most powerful nobles under Dušan, and exercised considerable influence over him, as in the negotiations in July 1342 which led to the decision to support John VI Kantakouzenos in the Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347, in exchange for which he hoped to marry his daughter to Manuel Kantakouzenos.^[3] He was also active in the 1334 war with the Byzantine Empire, and was present during the subsequent peace negotiations together with Vratko Nemanjić, when Jovan was probably named despotes by Andronikos III Palaiologos.^[2] With the death of Hrelja in late 1342, he was able to further expand his lands, including the important towns of Štip and Strumica, when Hrelja's domain was split between him and Dušan.^[4]

In 1341, imitating the Serbian kings, he built the Eastern Orthodox monastery of Lesnovo as fulfillment of a zadužbina ("obligation").^[4] Jovan Oliver outlived Dušan, but after his death, his sons were unable to assert themselves: possibly opposed by a coalition of other nobles, they failed to acquire any positions of importance, and most of their father's lands were taken over by Constantine and John, the sons of sebastocrator Dejan Dragaš of Kumanovo.^[5]

Family

He had 7 children:

• Danica
• Krajko
• Damjan
• Vidoslav
• Dabiživ
• Rusin
• Oliver

References

• Fine, John Van Antwerp (1994), The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest, University of Michigan Press, ISBN 978-0472082605, http://books.google.com/?id=Hh0Bu8C66TsC