Battle of Čokešina

The Battle of Čokešina (Битка код Чокешине), also referred to as the "Serbian Thermopylae", was fought on Lazarus Saturday, 28 April 1804, between the Serbian insurgent army under the command of the Nedić brothers and forces of the Ottoman Empire. It took place near the Monastery of Čokešina, not far from Loznica. The battle is known as the Serbian Thermopylae because the Serbian army numbered 303 hajduks were outnumbered fifteen to one, according to historians. The small Serbian force were eventually defeated after a day of fierce fighting; the death of all the insurgents resulted from the battle. Its aim of preventing the siege of the Ottomans at Šabac being broken by relieving Bosnian–Ottoman troops was nevertheless achieved.

Background
In the spring of 1804, the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire and the Dahije ignited, and insurgents besieged larger places and liberated a significant part of Belgrade pashalik. The insurgents of the Valjevo region were led by priest Matija Nenadović and his brother Jakov. After the 11March victory over the Turks at Svileuva, Jakov Nenadović besieged Šabac. The Ottomans from Bosnia, Mehmed Pasha Fidahić of Zvornik, and Mula Nožina went to help the besieged Turks at Šabac. In response, the Serbian strategy was to have the relieving Bosnian–Ottoman force met by the united insurgents at the Monastery of Čokešina. This would prevent Ottoman reinforcements from reaching Šabac and relieving the siege already underway there.

Harambaša Đorđe Ćurčija, brothers Damjan and Gligorije Nedić and Jakov Nenadović met up with a part of the army near the monastery, the majority of the insurgents' forces having been left at the siege of Šabac. Đorđe Ćurčija and Jakov Nenadović first clashed over the strategy for opposing the Turks. Ćurčija left Čokešina with about 300 hajduks. Jakov then came into a conflict with the Nedić brothers: The priest Mateja Nenadović describes in his memoirs that his uncle Jakov Nenadović wanted to camouflage the monastery near the village Čokešina and build fortifications around it; then the Serbian force of 300 would welcome the Turks into a trap and fight them there, but that the Nedić brothers did not agree with this plan. Seeing that he could not command them, Jakov left too and withdrew his army with him. The Nedić brothers instead went further towards Lešnica; here they remained at the scene of the upcoming battle against the Turks, with their two faithful lieutenants Damnjan Kotešanin and Panta Damnjanović helping in the command of the 300.

The battle
The Battle of Čokešina took place on Lazarus Saturday (Lazar's Saturday), 28 April 1804. The battle was fought in a sinkhole all that day. The Turks used stealth to come upon the hill from behind. The Nedić brothers with their men opposed the enemy on Lipovica Hill, where they resisted for hours until they were decimated. When they "ran out of cartridges", several of them retreated towards the Lipovica stream, where they offered their last resistance. At the end, when the haiduks ran out of ammunition in the evening, they made a last-ditch attempt to attack with knives and rifle butts; it was already too late, however, and the Turkish forces overcame them.

Vuk Karadžić described the battle in the predgovor ('preface') of his Srpske narodne pjesme ('Serbian folk poems', Vienna, 1841) by citing lyrics of guslar Filip Višnjić's Boj na Čokešini. According to the folk song, there were over seven thousand Turks, but their number is probably exaggerated. The Nedić brothers were wounded in several places; their wounds were especially severe, they could not stand or take shelter in a safer place. From a sitting position, they leant their backs on each other, shooting and encouraging other fighters to persevere until their deaths. Jakov Nenadović had escaped the skirmish and left the battle to go for help, but when he came back the next day, it was too late. All the insurgents had perished, except for a few who were severely wounded and lying among the dead. They too died from repeated wounding they had received during and after the battle.

Near Čokešina, on the edge of the forest, there is a signpost indicating the way to the battlefield. This place has stone markers to show where the two Nedić brothers and their comrades offered their last resistance; the site is now overgrown with dense forest.

Aftermath and consequences
After five days, the refugee abbot Hadji Konstantin, together with the locals and the mother of the Nedić brothers, found a horrible sight: the butchered bodies of the Damnjan Nedić and his brother Gligorije and their 300 hajduks, the burned monastery, and nine survivors in serious condition; these nine eventually died even though they were given help. They were all buried next to the monastery.

The battle at Čokešina prevented the Bosnian Turks from providing assistance to the besieged Šabac. The insurgents conquered Šabac on 1 May. The heroic death of the two Nedić brothers and their hajduk comrades became a legend, and the German historian Leopold von Ranke went on to call the battle at Čokešina the "Serbian Thermopylae".

Legacy and memorials
The place of the battlefield, where the Nedić brothers offered their last resistance, became overgrown with dense forest. The battlefield itself is located further from the Čokešina monastery on the Lipovac hill and near Lipovački potok (Lipovica stream), a little further from the road from Mačvanski Prnjavor to the Monastery of Čokešina. The place of the battlefield was marked immediately following the battle with stone monuments, on which an inscription in Glagolitic script was engraved.

There is a museum dedicated to the fallen of the Battle of Čokešina, near Monastery of Čokešina, now an immovable cultural asset, and a cultural monument of great importance.

Historiography
Failure to recognize some of the ramifications of the Serbian revolt (1804–1813) against the Ottomans can be attributed in part to the scarcity of academic literature in English on the subject. In 1853, the only concise study in the English language came from the pen of German historian Leopold von Ranke by way of translation. After more than a century, came the work by Michael B. Petrovich in 1976.
 * Leopold von Ranke (1853): The History of Servia and the Servian Revolution with a sketch of The Insurrection in Bosnia, translated from German by Mrs. Alexander Kerr. London: Henry G. Bohn, Covent Garden.
 * Petrovich, Michael Boro (1976): A History of Modern Serbia, 1804–1918. Two volume set published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich