Part 7 – The Hrs, Strez and Dragota Uprisings

Part 7 – The Hrs, Strez and Dragota Uprisings

At Alexius’s invitation the Venetians arrived and assisted in the expulsion of the Normans out of the Adriatic Sea but at the same time demanded large concessions for their services which Alexius I begrudgingly granted. Alexius asked the west for help, not for the liberation of the Holy Land from the infidel but for the protection of Constantinople and the recovery of Anatolia. However when Jerusalem was lost to the Turks in 1071 all the west could think of was revenge. One group of fearsome Crusaders traveled along the Via Egnatia route and entered Macedonia in 1096. They used force and violence to obtain food and other necessities. While passing through Kostur they seized oxen, mules and everything else they could get their hands on. In the region between Prilep and Bitola they destroyed a fortified settlement and killed its inhabitants. After Andronicus I Comnenus died in 1185, Isaac II Angelus replaced him as emperor. It was during Isaac II’s reign that the newly developed feudal powers in Serbia and Bulgaria were established and became a significant political factor in the Balkans. The sacking of Solun by the Normans weakened the Byzantines and that too created favourable conditions for the feudal lords in Macedonia to gain some independence. Among the more successful was Dobromir Hrs. Hrs had accumulated an army of five hundred men and, for the most part, maintained peaceful relations with the court in Constantinople. He was, however, an opportunist and looked for ways to expand his authority. His chance came in 1189 during the third Crusade, led by Frederic I Barbarossa, when a number of Crusaders left the main route and invaded Macedonia. While passing through Gradets they killed people and set fire to several buildings, including the town’s church. After descending to Vkahija (near Strumitsa) they clashed with a rebel group and took their possessions. It was here that Hrs made contact with the Crusaders and sent them on their way. Unfortunately no sooner had the Crusaders departed for Asia Minor than Byzantines rounded up these opportunistic feudal lords and sent them to jail. Dobromir Hrs was imprisoned for a while but was then released and awarded the governorship of Strumitsa. In 1195 Isaac II was deposed and blinded by his brother Alexius III Angelus. When unrest broke out during Alexius III’s reign, Dobromir Hrs again declared his independence, first in Strumitsa and then in the naturally fortified town of Presok. After arming Presok with an elite garrison he transferred his seat and fortified the town with defensive weapons and adequate stores of food. By repealing the Byzantine laws he introduced his own brand of barbarian rule.

After consolidating his power, Hrs went on a campaign to Serres but in 1199 was met by the Byzantine Emperor and a battle ensued. Hrs’s handpicked soldiers fought skillfully. By using catapults, operated by ex-Byzantine mercenaries, they inflicted severe losses on Alexius. In the course of battle Hrs's soldiers slipped out in the dark of night and destroyed Alexius’s siege equipment causing him to lose the battle. Alexius’s failure to defeat Hrs forced the Emperor to meet his demands, thus recognizing Hrs as the ruler of the towns of Strumitsa and Prosek. It wasn’t too long before relations between Prosek and Constantinople deteriorated. The cause of the deterioration was the Emperor's refusal to pay the agreed upon ransom for the release of Hrs's father-in-law, Kamits. Kamits was a prisoner in Bulgaria for some time and the Emperor had agreed to arrange for his release. But after Kamits was freed the Emperor refused to pay the ransom. The two hundred centenariis in gold were eventually paid by Hrs but left bad feelings and a breach in the treaty between the Emperor and Hrs. Free from any obligations, Hrs, together with his father-in-law, renewed their military campaigns and took Pelagonia and Prilep, then entered Thessaly and sparked a massive uprising in the Peloponnesus. While Hrs was wreaking havoc in the western provinces, the Emperor put an army together and went in pursuit. The Byzantines quickly re-took Pelagonia, Prilep and Thessaly, depriving Hrs of his latest gains. Through treachery in 1201 the Byzantines took Strumitsa, leaving Hrs isolated in Prosek. In 1203 the crusaders, under the pretext of restoring Isaac II and his son to the Byzantine throne, drove Alexius III out of Constantinople. Instead of making good on their promises however, the Venetians and crusaders attacked, conquered and divided Constantinople and the Byzantine provinces between themselves. Constantinople fell to the Latins in April 1204. In the west's quest for trade, Venice was becoming the leader of commerce. Venice wanted to become a great merchant power; a middleman of consumerism, but Constantinople was always in the way. Far superior to Venice, Constantinople monopolized the silk trade and prohibited Venice from realizing her dream. Finally, as fate would have it, her moment of glory was near. When the Crusaders ran out of money and couldn't afford to pay for their voyage to the Holy Lands, they turned to Venice. Venice offered them a way out but the offer came at a price. It was Pope Innocent III who turned the crusaders first against the Christian town of Zara in the Adriatic in 1202 and then against Constantinople in 1204. Principles gave away to greed and Christian turned against Christian: all this to satisfy the greed and commercial appetites of Venice. It was not a war of armies but a war of betrayal, deceit and total annihilation. The unsuspecting and trusting citizens of Constantinople gladly opened the city gates for the Crusaders. Instead of bringing peace, however, the Latins killed the entire Constantinople population, military and civilian, and then looted the city of its possessions. The city streets were flooded with the blood of the innocent. Warriors, women and children alike were all slaughtered like lambs by the Latin crusaders. This was an act of shame that the western Church will have to bear for all eternity. In 1204 the Latin Crusaders formed a Frankish kingdom, the Kingdom of Solun, on the eastern coast of the Aegean Sea with Solun as its capital. With Boniface of Montferrat as its first king, the Solunian people went through twenty years of unprecedented oppression and subjugation. In their seizure of Macedonia, the Crusaders took over large quantities of grain supplies, livestock and other wealth, establishing their own garrisons in various towns. After the 1205 defeat of the Latin Emperor Baldwin and the Adrianople Crusaders, the Bulgarian army attacked and destroyed the town of Serres and invaded the district of Solun.

Bulgarian pressure on Solun increased in 1207, particularly after the death of Boniface of Montferrat. The Bulgarian emperor Kaloyan laid siege to the city but soon died and the siege was abandoned. In the period after Kaloyan's death a power struggle ensued in Bulgaria and Strez. A descendant of the Bulgarian royal line was able to establish an independent kingdom in Macedonia. With the aid of Serbia he set himself up in Prosek and extended his rule from the Solun region to Ohrid. All Bulgarian governors within these territories swore loyalty to him. After a while, agitation from the Bulgarians subsided and Strez was able to establish good relations with the Bulgarian state. Upon consolidating his rule in Macedonia, Strez began a campaign against the Kingdom of Solun which in 1212 sparked a massive conflict in Pelagonia. Even though the conflict was between Strez and the Latins, it had support from the more powerful Despot of Epirus on one side and the Bulgarian state on the other. After losing to the Latins, Strez broke off relations with the Serbians. In 1214 he initiated a campaign against them but died unexpectedly. After Strez’s death the Despot of Epirus conquered a large portion of Macedonia, including Skopje and Ohrid. In 1244 Solun too fell prey to the army of Epirus. Immediately after conquering Ohrid, Demetrius Chomatianus, the Archbishop of Ohrid, crowned the Despot Theodore Angelus Ducas Comnenius, emperor. The despot had intentions of renewing the Byzantine Empire but his defeat by the Bulgarians in 1230, near Klokotnitsa, prematurely ended his great plans. Bulgaria, on the other hand, not only increased its reputation and prestige but also expanded its territory to Thrace, Macedonia and part of Albania. After it consolidated its hold on the new territories, Bulgarian governors were appointed and garrisons were stationed in various Macedonian towns. The Byzantine bishops in the eparchies were replaced by archpriests of the Trnovo Church, which in 1235 became a Patriarchate. The power of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, which was somewhat eroded by the Serbian Church becoming autocephalous in 1219, was now further eroded with the formation of the new Bulgarian Patriarchate. Another less known uprising termed the Dragota uprising named after its leader, took place in 1255 in the Melnik Region during Nicaean rule. In 1246, the Nicaean ruler John III Vatatzes conquered Melnik and the surrounding region and established Nicaean rule. The City of Melnik and its vicinity being in mid-course of the Struma River always played a geopolitical role in Macedonia’s history. Important roads passed through there and connected the coast of the Aegean Sea with the Danube including Salonica with Sofia. On the road from Melnik to Seres, near Melnik, is the Rupel Gorge, a very important strategic position which allowed rulers of the city to control the main roads from north to south and from east to west. As a result Melnik developed through the centuries as a strong fortress, and has served as capital city many times through history reaching its zenith in the 13th century when it became Alexeus Slav’s capital. Dragota was originally from Melnik but because of his military achievements in the Bulgarian army, he was appointed military commander of Seres. After Emperor Ka1iman’s death in 1246 the Nicaeans invaded Macedonia. Dragota unable to resist their attacks allowed the region to fall in 1246. Afterwards he surrendered Seres to the Emperor John Vatatzes, and some time later helped the Nicaeans conquer the city of Melnik. He was greatly awarded for his help, and as a Nicaean Vassal was formally appointed commander of Melnik and the surrounding region. Unfortunately with the new rulers also came new taxes and a much stricter regime clamping down on the Macedonian people. Being unable to forgive himself for what he did, Dragota initiated an uprising against the Nicaeans. He hand picked his soldiers for the rebellion from the armed forces he was given to command which consisted mostly of Melnik citizens from the local population.

He attacked the Nicaean garrison in Melnik, and tried to destroy the fortress but was unsuccessful so he blockaded it and established his rule in Melnik. Soon afterwards he took control of the Strumitsa Region extending as far south as the Rupel Gorge and as far north as Sandanski. News of the uprising and of the blockade of the Malnik fortress spread far and wide reaching Emperor Theodore Lascaris who at the start of the summer of 1255 with a strong army personally departed for Melnik to suppress the uprising.

It took him 20 days, to march his army from Constantinople to Seres where he spent the night before marching north, down the valley of Struma for Melnik. Upon finding out that a large army lead by the Emperor himself was coming for them, the rebels made preparations to defend their city. They first reinforced the Rupel Gorge through which the Nicaean army had to pass. An ambush was set up in the narrowest passage of the Gorge which successfully slowed the army’s advance. Being unable to pass, the Nicaeans developed a new strategy, similar to that of Basil II when he attacked Samoil in 1014, to surprise the rebels from behind. While the bulk of the Nicaean army was conducting a frontal attack another part of the army attacked from the rear surprising the rebels; sending them in flight, in a panic in every direction. Sensing this, the frontal army broke through the pass barriers and went in pursuit. In the chaos, many rebel soldiers including their leader were run over by horses. Dragota died three days later. During the same day, by nightfall the Niceans had taken over the Rupel Gorge and Emperor Theodore Lascaris marched into Melnik and liberated his Nicaean soldiers besieged in the fortress. Unfortunately as had been a cruel habit of invaders in Macedonia, the Nicaeans took severe revenge against the uprising participants and their families. After the eviction of the Latins in 1261, the seat of the Nicaean government was moved from Nicaea to Constantinople. To the Byzantines, Constantinople was “the Jerusalem” and they were not about to leave it in foreign hands. Unfortunately, after the damages inflicted by the Fourth Crusade the city was no longer the focal point of an integrated empire. It was more like an immense city-state in the midst of a number of more or less independent provinces. Much of Peloponnesus and the islands remained in French or Italian hands and the Byzantine rulers of Epirus and Thessaly refused to recognize Michael VIII as their emperor. The regime change in Constantinople was good for Macedonia. During its initial rule the Macedonian people experienced two decades of life without external harassment. Then in 1282 the Serbian feudal army of king Stephen Urosh II Milutin invaded northern Macedonia and took Lower and Upper Polog, Skopje, Ovche Pole, Zletovo and Piyanets. Shortly afterwards, the Serbs initiated a new campaign and invaded Poreche and the Kichevo and Debar regions. After that a Serbian detachment was dispatched along the lower course of the Struma River and penetrated as far as Krstopol. About four decades later the Serbians, under the rule of the Serbian King Stephen Urosh III Dechanski, launched another campaign against the Byzantines. During their first wave of attacks they invaded and captured the towns of Shtip, Chreshche on the River Bragalnitsa, Veles and Prosek on the Vardar. Then in 1328 they took Prosek and the Serbian army invaded the regions of Demir Hisar and Debartsa, coming face to face with the Byzantines in Ohrid. Ohrid was an important Byzantine stronghold and the threat did not go unnoticed in Constantinople. Emperor Andronicus III Palaeologus immediately prepared a counter-offensive and went in pursuit of the invaders. By 1330 the Emperor had recaptured the towns in the Demir Hisar and Debartsa regions, including Zheleznets. Four years later, under the leadership of their new ruler Stephen Urosh IV Dushan, the Serbs renewed their offensive in Macedonia. With the capture of Serres in 1345, Serbian rule was extended over virtually all of Macedonia. The same year the Serbian ruler Stephen Urosh IV Dushan proclaimed himself emperor and elevated the Serbian Archbishopric to a Patriarchate. The coronation took place in Skopje on April 16, 1346 but the Byzantines refused to recognize it along with Serbia's territorial gains and the Serbian Patriarchate. During the course of the late 1340’s Serbian rule was expanded to Thessaly and Epirus. But in 1350 the towns of Serres and Voden rebelled and severed links with the Serbs.

After that opposition became common everywhere and the Serbs found it very difficult to hang on to their conquered territories. After Stephen Urosh IV Dushan’s death in 1355 the central government's authority quickly eroded, leaving the feudal lords to rule independently. The most notable of the feudal lords in Macedonia at the time were the brothers Volkashin and Uglesha. Volkashin proclaimed himself king in 1365 with Emperor Urosh as co-ruler. In Constantinople, meanwhile, Michael's son, Andronicus II who reigned from 1282 to 1328, unwisely attempted to economize by cutting down the size of the army and disbanding the navy. This forced unemployed soldiers and sailors to seek service in foreign and enemy states. It has been said that many of Michael’s sailors ended up in the service of the new Turkish emirs, raiding the Aegean islands. Unable to afford his own, the emperor contracted the Genoese to provide him trade ships and a navy to defend Constantinople by sea. This unfortunately made the Venetians very jealous, to the point of declaring war, which in 1296 led to the first of a series of naval battles off Constantinople. Michael’s cost cutting measures weakened the empire’s ability to adequately defend itself and the Turks did not hesitate to take advantage of it. The empire’s downslide began in 1302 when a band of Turkish warriors, under the leadership of Osman I, defeated the Byzantine army near Nicomedia in northwestern Anatolia and, for the first time, penetrated

Europe. Osman I was the founder of the Osmanli, or Ottomans as they would later be known by westerners. Unable to beat the Ottomans back, a year later in 1303, Andronicus hired a professional army of mercenaries known as the Grand Catalan Company. The Catalans made one successful counterattack against the Turks in Anatolia but after that they became unruly and unpopular. After their leader was murdered they turned against their employers. Having failed to conquer Constantinople they headed for Macedonia and stopped in Solun, looting and plundering everything in sight. Even Sveta Gora (Mount Athos), Macedonia’s Holy Mountain was not spared by the Catalan’s ferocious greed. Solun, however, held out and succeeded in repelling the Catalan invaders who were forced to push further southwards. For some years the Catalans used the Gallipoli Peninsula as a base from which to ravage Thrace, inviting thousands of Turks to come over and help them. The Catalans finally moved west and in 1311 conquered Athens from the French and established the Catalan Duchy of Athens and Thebes. The Turks who were left behind were not ejected from Gallipoli until 1312. The Catalans were only a minor problem for the Byzantines in comparison to their own internal strife and civil wars. The trouble started around 1320 when Andronicus II disinherited his grandson Andronicus III. The cause of the young emperor was taken up by his friends, who periodically fought against the old emperor. The civil strife lasted from 1321 to 1328 until the older Andronicus yielded the throne to the younger. Unfortunately this internal fighting took attention away from needed economic reforms and gave the enemy new opportunities to gain more ground.