the encyclopedic entry of Gazimestan

Gazimestan

Kosovo Field (Serbian: Косово Поље, Kosovo Polje, "field of blackbirds") is a field in Kosovo, some 5 km northwest from Priština, at the confluence of the rivers Lab and Sitnica, and which supposedly is the site of the Battle of Kosovo which took place in 1389. Eponymous of the field are the Ottoman Kosovo Province, and the town of Kosovo Polje (some 6 km to the southwest of the monument).

Gazimestan is the name of a monument to the battle, situated a few km to the southeast of the Kosovo Polje field, situated on a hill rising some 50 m above the plain. It was built in 1953 under the authority of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in the shape of medieval tower designed by Aleksandar Deroko. The Kosovo Field is traversed by the main road across Kosovo (Skopje-Kraljevo), the monument is some 500 m off the road to the east The name is from Turkish gazi "hero", ultimately from Arabic ghazi "warrior". The monument was the location of the Gazimestan speech delivered by Slobodan Milošević on the 600th anniversary of that battle.

Inscribed on the monument is the "Kosovo curse" attributed to Lazar,

"Whoever is a Serb and of Serb birth / And of Serb blood and heritage / And comes not to fight at Kosovo / May he never have the progeny his heart desires! / Neither son nor daughter / May nothing grow that his hand sows! / Neither dark wine nor white wheat"

This form of the curse first appeared in the 1845 edition of the collection of Serbian folk songs by Vuk Karadžić.

The name Gazimestan could also be derived from the serbian words "gaziti" (walk) and "mesto" (place or spot). The Ottomans derived the name of their province of Kosovo from the Serbian "Kosovo Polje".