Vidovdan

What it is

Vidovdan falls on 28 June in the Gregorian calendar, and on 15 June for those who follow the Julian. Serbs keep it as a national holiday and a church feast, one of the slavas, the feast days of the Serbian Orthodox tradition. The Serbian Orthodox Church sets the date aside for Prince Lazar and for the others killed at the Battle of Kosovo. For many Serbs the day is bound up with a sense of who they are as a people, and it has long served as a moment to honour the dead.

Battle and memory

The Battle of Kosovo was fought on Saint Vitus Day in 1389. Prince Lazar brought together a Christian force and faced the Ottoman army at Kosovo. Neither side won clearly. Sultan Murad and Prince Lazar both died in the fighting, and the campaign opened the way for Ottoman rule over Serbian lands. From the fourteenth century Serbs held the date in high regard. After the Great Migrations of 1690 it became a way to remember those who had died for their faith and their homeland.

How it became official

The church gave the observance a formal place in 1849, and it was marked in public for the first time in 1851, when it stood for the hope of freedom from Ottoman rule. As national feeling grew across Europe in the nineteenth century, the day spread in popularity, and people began to speak of it as a time for remembering the dead. From 1918 the Yugoslav authorities also set it aside to honour everyone killed in war, above all in the Balkan Wars and the First World War.

Dates that coincided

Several events have landed on Vidovdan, whether by chance or by design. Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on the date in 1876. The Austro-Serbian Alliance was signed in 1881, a day later. Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, and that killing set off the First World War. In 1921 King Alexander I brought in his new state's constitution, which took the Vidovdan date and has been called the Vidovdan Constitution ever since. On the six hundredth anniversary in 1989 Slobodan Milošević spoke at Gazimestan. Under communist rule the day was not marked in public, and that gathering was the first open observance of it in that era.

A disputed origin

The claim that Vidovdan comes from the old Slavic god Svetovit appeared in Serbian writing from the late nineteenth century onward. Natko Nodilo was the first to argue it. He held that Svetovit was honoured by all Slavs, and that a saint with a similar name later took the god's place in Serbia. Some later researchers agreed with him. Most scholars today take a different view: they hold that Svetovit belonged to the Polabian Slavs alone, that the holiday has no tie to him, and that the link is a romantic-era invention.

How Vidovdan is kept

Vidovdan lasts a single day and comes round each year. The Serbian Orthodox Church keeps it as a feast day, so congregations hold services for Prince Lazar and the martyrs of Kosovo, and the dead are remembered. Wreaths and public ceremonies honour soldiers who fell in war, among them those of the Balkan Wars and the First World War. People gather at Gazimestan, the place of the 1389 battle, as they did in 2009 and on the six hundredth anniversary in 1989.

When and where

The date does not move. Vidovdan is 28 June by the Gregorian calendar and 15 June by the Julian, which the Serbian Orthodox Church follows. Between 1800 and 1899, when the calendars were differently aligned, the day fell on 27 June in the Gregorian reckoning. It comes once a year.

Vidovdan belongs to Serbia, where it is a national and church holiday, and to Kosovo, where the 1389 battlefield and the Gazimestan monument stand. It is kept by Serbs, most of all by members of the Serbian Orthodox Church, both at home and in Serb communities elsewhere. The largest public gathering takes place at Gazimestan.

What Vidovdan means

For those who keep it, Vidovdan carries the memory of a defeat that did not end the story. Prince Lazar and the men who died with him are held up as martyrs who gave their lives for faith and homeland. The day joins church mourning to national feeling, and over the centuries it has been used to call Serbs to remember sacrifice and to keep a sense of shared identity alive.

Questions people ask about Vidovdan

See also

SlavaAn annual Serbian family feast honouring their patron saint with blessed bread and winePysankaA wax-resist egg decorating tradition kept by Slavic communities for Easter and spring renewal.Eid al-FitrThe feast that ends Ramadan, opened with morning prayers, sweets and visits homeSukkotA seven-day autumn Jewish festival of temporary booths, harvest prayers and hospitality

Good reading and sources

• Vidovdan on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.