In my third book The Bone Goddess, Jovan Vladimir, a real-life Serbian prince is a significant character, while his wife Theodora Kosara is even more prominent and is a viewpoint character. The story of Jovan and Theodora is a very interesting one, even if you strip away the veneer of romanticism that inevitably becomes attached to such tales.
Jovan was a medieval Serbian prince who, after his death, was later recognized as a martyr and a saint. He was married to a woman who was alleged to be the daughter of Samuil, tsar of Bulgaria, though some attest her to being related to Samuil though not as his daughter. Jovan was on good terms with the Byzantine empire and largely neutral in the conflict between the empire and the Bulgarians. The city of Dyrrachium (Now Durrës, Albania) was a strategic one in this conflict and directly to the south of it lay Jovan’s lands of Duklja. It was instrumental for Samuil, therefore, to take Duklja and he attacked in 1009, with the intention of preventing him from joining Basil. With an intention of neutrality, it is not k own if that was Jovan’s plan, though there is a record in the charter of the Great Lavra Monastery of a Serbian diplomatic mission to Constantinople in 992. Jovan retreated with his people up into the mountains. Many of his nobles defected to Samuil and the young Serbain, prince refusing surrender to Samuil, was captured and thrown into prison. The story might have ended there and the young man could very well have rotted in prison and died in obscurity, were it not for Samuil’s daughter, Theodora Kosara, who with her ladies went down to her father’s dungeons to wash the feet of the prisoners. The Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja recounts it thus:
It came to pass that Samuel’s daughter, Cossara, was animated and inspired by a beatific soul. She approached her father and begged that she might go down with her maids and wash the head and feet of the chained captives. Her father granted her wish, so she descended and carried out her good work. Noticing Vladimir among the prisoners, she was struck by his handsome appearance, his humility, gentleness and modesty, and the fact that he was full of wisdom and knowledge of the Lord. She stopped to talk to him, and to her his speech seemed sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.
She and Jovan fell in love and she begged her father to be allowed to marry him. Her father, seemingly magnanimously, agreed. On closer inspection, however, his motives may not have been as altruistic as at first glance. By giving his daughter to Jovan and as a wedding gift (or perhaps a dowry) ceding Jovan’s lands and castle back to him, he effectively now controlled the young Serbian. It was a decisive political arrangement on Samuil’s part. The young lovers settled in comfortable in Skadarska Krajina and had some children. All might have gone on very comfortably in this happily-ever-after fairy tale but for one scheming spider: Ivan Vladislav. Ivan was Samuil’s nephew and Theodora’s cousin. By 1015 he had ascended the throne himself, through a combination of events that worked in his favor and outright murder. He was likely no great admirer of Samuil, as many years before Samuil had order the execution of his parents and siblings. He himself, was spared only at the request of his cousin Gavril Radomir, Samuil’s eldest son. In 1014, Samuil fell victim to something that was probably a stroke brought about by the enormous shock of his defeat at Kleidion and possibly the horror of seeing scores of his soldiers, blinded on the orders of Basil II. The throne fell to Gavril who then was a target of his less-than-grateful cousin Ivan, who killed Gavril (most likely at the behest of the Byzantine government) while the latter was out boar hunting. The throne was now Ivan’s and he set his sights as his uncle had done, on the lands of Duklja which was an inconvenient block on his way to the strategic port city of Dyrrachium. He sent envoys to Jovan requesting his presence at Prespa. Theodora, knowing full well the treachery her cousin was capable of, implored her beloved husband not to listen to Ivan’s demands. The Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja tells us that she went herself to the court at Prespa. At this point, Ivan urged her husband to follow sending a golden cross as a promise of good faith and safe conduct, whereupon the chronicle tells is he replied: “We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, was suspended not on a golden cross, but on a wooden one. Therefore, if both your faith and your words are true, send me a wooden cross in the hands of religious men, then in accordance with the belief and conviction of the Lord Jesus Christ, I will have faith in the life-giving cross and holy wood. I will come.”
Whether this was simply a matter of diversionary tactics or stalling for time, we may never know. In any case, Ivan then sent two bishops and a hermit (presumably trusted and known to Jovan) with a wooden cross that they attested that Ivan had given his kiss of good faith. Jovan then came, taking the wooden cross (so the chronicle tells us) with him to Prespa.
The chronicle does not tell us what words were spoken at this meeting nor exactly what took place, though I attempt to reimagine it fictionally in The Bone Goddess:
Theodora stood on the stone steps of the church, the wind buffeting her veil over her face. Ivan stood near her, his hands clasped before him. He had chosen to wear full ring mail today with a surcoat bearing the Cometomuli colors. On her other side stood the Lombard mercenary Audoin. He rested his hands on the pommel of his unsheathed sword, the point on the stone step, midway between his toes. He seemed to like to keep it unscabbarded. Perhaps so all could read the inscription on the blade: I do not await eternity. I am eternity. Theodora could make out her husband among the men he rode with. Even at this distance, she recognized the set of his shoulders. How fine and handsome he looked astride a horse! He rode with a contingent of about a dozen or so retainers. She was surprised. She had expected he would bring more.
He should have known that the guileful Ivan could not be trusted. In imagery that is almost evocative of the death of the fictional Lord Eddard Stark in Game of Thrones, Jovan was summarily beheaded by Ivan’s soldiers in front of the church at Prespa. According to the chronicle, Jovan was killed while still holding the cross. In religious art, he is depicted – rather improbably – carrying the cross in one hand and his own severed head in the other.
I chose a rather more mundane way of depicting his tragic end:
He was still holding the wooden cross on which Athenasius had inscribed his blessing. He seemed disoriented. A soldier came forward and kicked the cross from Jovan’s hands. His retainers and guards had been forced back by Ivan’s men. Saganek drew his sword and rushed Ivan’s guards. He was yelling something, but Theodora could not hear what it was. It seemed intended for Ivan. Then Saganek went down and she saw he had a spear sunk into his belly. He was clutching it, convulsing, deep scarlet spreading over the front of his linen tunic.
Ivan nodded to the soldiers who flanked him, and they moved in. Jovan’s arms had been jerked roughly behind him. They forced him to his knees. She darted forward to Jovan, but she was pulled back by one of Ivans’ soldiers who wrapped his burly, mail-clad arms around her, restraining her. Audoin came forward now at a nod from Ivan. He raised his great Lombard sword over his head.
“No Ivan, please, no! You must not do this!” Her words came in sobbing gasps. She had promised herself she would not beg anything of Ivan. She would not grovel at his feet.
Jovan looked up at her. He seemed to say something to her. She could not hear. More soldiers moved in front of her, blocking her view.
Mihail growled, “For the love of God and His Mother, take the lady away, my lord. Do not let her be witness to this.”
Ivan shook his head. “No, Mihail. She insisted on doing the work of a man, coming here as her husband’s ambassador. Let her now not have any concession made to her because of her womb.”
His remains were interred at Prespa, though his distraught widow had them later removed to Duklja. He was then made into a saint and his feast day is May 22, the day in which his life was ended via Ivan’s treachery. As for Theodora Kosara, she faded into obscurity, presumably to end her days in a monastery, giving a not-so-happily-after ending to what was otherwise an enchanting fairytale romance.