en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krvna_osveta
1 correction found
The practice started in the Balkans in the 15th century under Ottoman rule
This is chronologically wrong: blood revenge is attested in Serbian medieval law before Ottoman rule, including Nemanjić-era legal monuments and Dušan's Code.
Full reasoning
The claim says the practice started in the Balkans only in the 15th century under Ottoman rule. The available legal-historical evidence contradicts that.
- A legal-history source notes that Nemanjić-era legal monuments from the 12th century already contain the institution of composition for blood crimes called
vražda. That places the practice, or at minimum its legal handling, in the region centuries before the 15th century. - Another source on Dušan's Code states that in medieval times, revenge in blood was a common way of punishing murder, and that
vraždafunctioned as compensation that ended the blood feud. Dušan's Code is from the 14th century, again predating 15th-century Ottoman rule. - The Serbian government's history page also places the Ottoman Turks as a later "new threat" arising only after medieval Serbia had already reached its apex in the mid-14th century. So a practice documented in medieval Serbian law cannot have originated only after Ottoman rule began.
So the sentence is too late by several centuries. A more defensible formulation would be that Ottoman rule may have affected, revived, or prolonged blood-feud practices in some areas — not that the practice itself started then.
3 sources
- Common law and the institute of blood vengeance - SciUp.org
In our region legal monuments from the era of Nemanjic appear in the 12th century and contain the institution of composition for blood crimes which was called “vražda (money compensation)”.
- FACTA UNIVERSITATIS – Criminal Sanctions in Dušan's Code
In medieval times, revenge in blood (bloodshed) was a common way of punishing the perpetrator of a crime of murder... the law institute of “vražda” ... implied that the perpetrator... paid... compensation and redemption for bloodshed, which shall end the blood feud.
- Serbia Info / History of Serbia: Medieval Serbia (7th - 14th century)
Medieval Serbia... reached its apex in mid-14th century... This is a period marked by the rise of a new threat: the Ottoman Turk sultanate gradually spreading from Asia to Europe and conquering Byzantium first, and then the other Balkan states.