The Kosovo Maiden or Maiden of the Blackbird Field ( sr, Косовка девојка / ) is the central figure of a poem with the same name, part of the Kosovo cycle in the

Serbian epic poetry Serbian epic poetry ( sr, Српске епске народне песме, Srpske epske narodne pesme) is a form of epic poetry created by Serbs originating in today's Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. The ...

. In it, a young beauty searches the battlefield for her betrothed fiancé and helps wounded Serbian warriors with water, wine and bread after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 between

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

and the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. She finally finds the wounded and dying warrior

Pavle Orlović Pavle Orlović ( sr-cyr, Павле Орловић) is a semi-mythological hero of the Kosovo cycle of Serbian epic poetry; he was a Serbian knight, one of the military commanders under Prince Lazar that fell at the Battle of Kosovo (1389) again ...

who tells her that her fiancé Milan Toplica and his blood-brothers Miloš Obilić and Ivan Kosančić are dead. Before the battle they had given her a cloak, golden ring and veil for the wedding as a promise of safe return, but they were slain and Pavle pointed to the direction of the bodies. The poem finishes with;

"O wretch! Evil is your fortune!
If I, a wretch, were to grasp a green pine,
Even the green pine would wither."

The poem became very popular as a symbol of womanly compassion and charity. Serbian painter

Uroš Predić Uroš Predić ( sr-Cyrl, Урош Предић, ; Orlovat, 7 December 1857 – Belgrade, 12 February 1953) was a Serbian Realist painter. Predić is perhaps best known for his early works depicting ordinary people, as well as his many portrai ...

took up the theme in 1919 with an oil painting of the same title. In 1907, Croatian sculptor

Ivan Meštrović Ivan Meštrović (; 15 August 1883 – 16 January 1962) was a Croatian sculptor, architect, and writer. He was the most prominent modern Croatian sculptor and a leading artistic personality in contemporary Zagreb. He studied at Pavle Bilinić's ...

created a marble relief of the subject as a part of his Kosovo cycle. Another Croatian artist, painter Mirko Rački, painted a version of Kosovo Maiden.

External links

''The Maiden of Kossovo'', Songs from Kosovo cycle
{{Authority control Serbian culture Serbian literature National personifications National symbols of Serbia Characters in Serbian epic poetry Serb culture Cultural depictions of Serbian women Feminism in Serbia

See also

External links