Szendrő (Смедерево / Smederevo / Semendria) is a town in Serbia, the seat of the Danube District. It lies 48 km southeast of Nándorfehérvár / Belgrade, on the right bank of the Danube, at the mouth of the Great Morava River. The Serbian name is derived from the South Slavic personal name Smeder, meaning Smeder’s estate. The castle played an important role in the medieval history of Hungary.
Location: https://tinyurl.com/wks9n73x
In Roman times, it was the site of a settlement called Vinceium. Its famous castle, with a triangular plan and 21 towers, stands at the former mouth of the Jessova, a left tributary of the Morava River. The Castle of Szendrő (Cмeдepeвcκa твpђaвa / Smederevska tvrđava) is a medieval fortress in the Serbian town of Szendrő, which served as the temporary capital of the Serbian state in the Middle Ages.
Amid the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the early 15th century, the Christian rulers of the region lost several battles, such as the first Battle of Kosovo Polje / Rigómező and the siege of Veliko Tarnovo. Despot Stephen VI Lazarevic had to maintain a delicate balance between the Ottoman and Hungarian squeeze on the Serbian state. Around 1403, he accepted vassalage from King Zsigmond of Hungary and founded his new capital at Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade), which was ceded to him.
After the death of Stephen in 1426, his nephew and successor, George, had to return the city to the Hungarians. To compensate for this loss, the despot decided to build a new capital, and his choice fell on the region of Szendrő. Thus, the triangular-shaped fortress was built between 1427 and 1439 by order of the Serbian despot, George Brankovic.
In 1428, during the Ottoman Empire’s war with Venice, the Hungarians and the Ottomans agreed to recognize Brankovic as the independent ruler of Serbia, thus making the Serbian territories a buffer state. The treaty also established Ottoman control of Serbia, with the Hungarian vassal being preserved. Because of better Hungarian relations and religious differences with the Ottomans (Hungary and Serbia were Christian, as opposed to the Muslim Turks), it was preferred that the future capital be closer to Hungary than to the Ottoman Empire.
In the autumn of 1428, construction of the new capital began. In 1430, the first part of the fortress was completed, including the palace and other buildings sufficient to form the inner castle. Work on the outer castle and other fortifications continued until 1439.
The castle of Sendrő is a monumental complex built in the Byzantine tradition, modelled on the walls of Constantinople. Although the foundations of the walls were not intended to be submerged, it was still a water fortress, as it was once surrounded by water. Its military importance declined after the fortress was completed, so few structural changes were made over the centuries, and as a result, the original architectural style has survived to the present day.
The 11.3-hectare fortress is surrounded by 1.5 kilometres of stone walls more than 2 metres thick and 25 towers, each about 25 metres high. It was bordered on both sides by the Danube and the Jezava rivers, although the Jezava has since been diverted so that its outflow has been moved. On the third side, two moats have been added to the defences, one for the inner castle and one for the outer castle, leaving the area south of the outer walls open.
Szendrő’s location on the Danube between Nándorfehérvár and Galambóc provided easy access to the rest of the river. It also allowed the control of Danube traffic, including the prevention of Hungarian access to the Morava Valley, which was a fulfillment of Turkish demands.
Its position as a fortress linking the Balkans and Central Europe has made it an important religious and commercial center for centuries. The Danube also provides links to several other historic forts, including Nándorfehérvár / Belgrade, Újvidék / Novi Sad, Pétervárad / Petervaradin, and the castle of Galambóc / Golubac.
The castle of Szendrő is strategically well-defended, situated on the right bank of the Danube, on a triangular plain formed by the confluence of the Danube and Jezava rivers, at only 72 meters above sea level. This position allowed the Serbian capital to remain close to the Christian Kingdom of Hungary while also satisfying the Muslim Ottoman Empire’s ruler, Sultan Murad II’s demand to prevent the uncontrolled crossing of the Great Morava Valley by the Hungarians.
On 20 April 1434, Catherine, the youngest daughter of George Brankovic, and the Hungarian lord Cillei Ulrik were married in the new fortress. This marriage spoilt the friendly relations the despot had maintained with the Ottoman Porte, although Ulrik’s kinship with Queen Erzsébet meant an enhanced Serb-Hungarian alliance. As a result, in mid-1434, a message arrived from Edirne that the security of Serbia could only be guaranteed by the Ottoman Empire if Brankovic’s eldest daughter was married to Sultan Murad II.
After long deliberations, the council convened in the palace was forced to accept the offer, and it was agreed that Mara would engage herself to the sultan, so that in the autumn, the Turks took the bride-to-be with them, accompanied by Murad’s best soldiers. On 14 August 1435, the formal treaty of “brotherhood and friendship” between Serbia and the Republic of Venice was signed in the great hall of the palace. This treaty resulted in George and his sons being granted Venetian citizenship.
At the beginning of June 1439, the peace with the Ottomans, which had been established by the marriage of Mara and the Sultan, was broken. Under the leadership of Murad II, 130,000 Turkish troops launched an attack and occupied the hills around the city. The monarch, Brankovic, rushed to Hungary for help, leaving the command of the defense of the capital to his son Gergely (Grgur). The help did not arrive, as the Hungarian army gathered around Szeged numbered only 24,000, and in addition to poor morale, dysentery was ravaging the camp.
Despite the lack of a relief army, the castle withstood the attack, even when Murad brought in the novelty cannons. After nearly three months of siege, on 18 August 1439, famine forced the Serbs to surrender. Princes Gregory and Stephen were sent to Anatolia and blinded against the pleas of their brother Sultana Mara. To make matters worse, King Albert Habsburg of Hungary also died in the dysentery epidemic, and civil strife broke out in Hungary, the most important ally, over his succession.
We know that the small unit of Hunyadi János achieved some success against the besieging Ottoman army, and it gained him a reputation. The Ottoman Empire, which captured the fortress in 1439 and again in 1459, later reinforced the fortifications.
However, five years later, in 1444, the blinded princes were allowed to return to their country through the Peace of Szeged, and the Sultan returned the castle to Brankovic, along with several other fortifications. The Sultan granted Ulászló I and Hunyadi János 100,000 gold coins in addition to the surrender of Serbian lands to the princes, who had signed a 10-year peace treaty.
The Sultan probably offered this not only to compensate for the losses caused by Hunyadi’s long campaign and to avoid a two-front war but also to mourn the death of his dearest son and to ensure a peaceful succession through Brankovic, who was allowed to regain his country. The peace was not to last, however, and King Ulászló, who led the Hungarian army that had suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Várna, died, further aggravating an already unstable domestic political situation.
Around the beginning of 1449, Brankovic imprisoned Hunyadi János, an enemy of his relatives, in the castle when he captured the fleeing general after he had lost the second battle of Kosovo Polje / Rigómező. Hunyadi was not handed over to the Turks, but in exchange for his freedom, the Hungarian nobles who had surrounded the city gave the despot 100,000 gold pieces and several former Serbian castles. Governor Hunyadi then confiscated all of his possessions in Hungary from George, who was considered a traitor, and launched a punitive campaign against the Serbian capital. The startled ruler finally made amends by releasing Hunyadi László, who had been held hostage by him. Finally, peace was achieved because Brankovic later betrothed his granddaughter, Cillei Erzsébet, to the younger son of Hunyadi János, the young Mátyás.
The Governor also had a different circular tower built at his own expense to further protect the key fortress. In 1453, Sultan Mehmed II led another attack on Szendrő as part of a raid that devastated Serbian territories. The Turks carried off 50,000 men, women, and children in the raid. Despite being defended by only 6,000 men, the town held out against the Ottoman army of 20,000.
The castle was besieged a second time under the personal leadership of Sultan Mehmed, but the Ottomans’ third attempt in 1456 was similar, ending in a Serbian victory. In March 1459, Tomašević István took control of the fortress, but the Turks successfully captured the capital that same year, leading to the end of the medieval Serbian state, while Tomašević fled to Bosnia.
Several unsuccessful attempts were made to retake the castle. After the 1475-1476 campaign against Szabács (Sabac), King Matthias surrounded Szendrő, but he did not want to attack the very strong castle, instead, he had three fortifications built around it of wood and earth. Nevertheless, the Turks attacked them in the winter of that year, and the lone defenders finally gave up their positions in exchange for a free retreat, as the Turks had filled the defensive fortifications with wood from the surrounding forests. The destroyed fortifications were rebuilt by Sultan Bayezid II in 1483.
After the death of King Matthias, the castle was attacked under the leadership of Kinizsi Pál in 1494, but the legendary general died of a stroke during the siege, and the Hungarian army withdrew unsuccessfully. In 1512, the Transylvanian Voivode Szapolyai János besieged the castle without success. During the Hungarian-Ottoman wars, the beys of Szendrő always caused considerable threat and led several raids against Hungary. In 1688, it fell into Habsburg hands when it was abandoned by the Turkish garrison after the fall of Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade). On 25 September 1690, it was retaken by Grand Vizier Mustafa Pasha Köprülü.
In 1789, the Austrian armies captured it but were later forced to return it to the Turks. The nationalism that emerged in the early 19th century led to the first Serbian uprising. On 8 November 1805, the Serbian insurgent army led by Petrović Đorđe Karađorđe recaptured Szendrő from the Turks. The fortress then became the seat of Serbia’s Constituent Council and Supreme Skupstina (National Assembly) and remained so until 1807, when it was moved to Belgrade. After the unsuccessful first and second Serbian uprisings, the fortress was returned to the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan’s order of 10 April 1867 finally returned it to the independent Serbian state, but only on condition that the Turkish flag remain displayed alongside the Serbian one.
On one of the towers in the inner castle, there is a large brick inscription with the name of George Brankovic (Đurađ Branković) and the date of construction. The inscription, written in Cyrillic letters, reads: ‘V Hrista Boga blagoverni despot Đurđ, gospodin Srbljem i Pomorju Ze (t) skomu; povelenijem jego sazida se grad sij v leto 6938.’ (By order of the faithful Despot George, Lord of the Serbs and the Zeta coast, this castle was built in the year 6938 [Byzantine chronology, corresponding to 1430].) Above it is an Orthodox cross, from which it takes the name “Krstata kula” (Cross-tower). This type of brick inscription is rare and can only be found in the territory of the former Byzantine Empire, the only known example in the former Yugoslavia.
During the First World War, Szendrő was occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1914, and the medieval castle was used as a prisoner-of-war camp until 1918. In the Second World War, the relatively intact castle was used as a warehouse for military equipment, storing large quantities of fuel and around 400 wagons of ammunition. However, for reasons that are still unclear, on 5 June 1941, a massive explosion destroyed half the town, destroying some 2,500 houses, with only 26 buildings escaping damage. In total, 2500 people died, and 2000 were injured in the disaster. Not only was a large part of the southern wall destroyed, but also a large part of the city. Further damage was caused by Allied bombing in 1944.
The castle was declared a National Cultural Monument of Outstanding Cultural Interest in 1979. Since the 1970s, restoration and conservation work has been carried out on the fort, followed by archaeological and architectural research. Most of the work carried out so far was done between 1970 and 1995. While some parts have been at least partially repaired, others have only undergone conservation work and are still in a poor state of repair. Since 2009, it has been undergoing extensive restoration and conservation work, and in 2010 was inscribed on the proposed list of World Heritage Sites.
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Here are more pictures of Szendrő:
