In 1813, Serbs suffered a huge defeat, an unsuccessful rebellion followed in 1814, and in 1815 the Second Serbian Uprising began. In 1817, Serbia was de facto independent (as Principality of Serbia). The article deals with the history, culture and structure of Serbs in the Ottoman Empire. History Wars for Serbia (1389–1540) The Turks defeated the Serbian army in one crucial battle: on the banks of the river Maritsa in 1371, where the forces of Vukašin and Jovan Uglješa Mrnjavčević from today's North Macedonia were defeated, destroying any hope for a reunified Serbian Empire. From then on, the Serbian state was on the defensive, and this war culminated in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. This battle pitted Lazar of Serbia, Vuk Branković, and Vlatko Vuković against the best troops of Sultan Murad I. Both Sultan Murad I and Prince Lazar lost their lives in this inconclusive bloodbath. The Battle of Kosovo defined the long-term fate of Serbia, because now it had no force capable of standing up to the Turks directly. This was an unstable period marked by the rule of Prince Lazar's son — despot Stefan Lazarević — a true European-style knight, a military leader, and a poet. Stefan was at first a vassal of Sultan Bayezid I, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396 and at Ankara in 1402, later gaining independence after the loss of Bayezid. His cousin and heir Đurađ Branković moved the capital to the newly built fortified town of Smederevo. The Turks continued their conquest until they finally seized all of northern Serbian territory in 1459 when Smederevo fell into their hands. The only free Serbian territories were parts of Bosnia and Zeta. After the fall of Principality of Zeta in 1496, Serbia was ruled by the Ottoman Empire for almost three centuries. A Serbian principality under Hungarian protection was created, after the fall of the Serbian Despotate, by the Branković family (later other Serbian noblemen assumed the throne) in what is now Vojvodina, Slavonia, and Bosnia. The subordinate state spent its entirety fighting the Ottomans and represented the heritage of what was left of the Serbian Kingdom. It fell in 1540 when the Ottoman conquest of the Serbian lands, which lasted through about 200 years of continuous warfare, was finally complete. Hungary and Serbia (1389–1540) From the 14th century onward an increasing number of Serbs began migrating north to the