Vranje in the context of "List of cities in Serbia"

The Kingdom of Serbia was a country located in the Balkans which was created when the ruler of the Principality of Serbia, Milan I, was proclaimed king in 1882. Since 1817, the Principality was ruled by the Obrenović dynasty (replaced by the Karađorđević dynasty for a short time). The Principality of Serbia, under the suzerainty of the Turkish Empire, de facto achieved full independence when the very last Ottoman troops left Belgrade in 1867. The Congress of Berlin in 1878 recognized the formal independence of the Principality of Serbia, and in its composition Nišava, Pirot, Toplica and Vranje districts entered the South part of Serbia.

In 1882, Serbia was elevated to the status of a kingdom, initially maintaining a foreign policy friendly to Austria-Hungary before turning to the Russian Empire and France following a coup d'état in 1903. Between 1912 and 1913, Serbia greatly enlarged its territory through engagement in the First and Second Balkan Wars – Sandžak-Raška, Kosovo Vilayet and Vardar Macedonia were annexed. At the end of World War I in 1918 it united with Vojvodina and the Kingdom of Montenegro, and in December 1918 it merged with the newly created State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as Kingdom of Yugoslavia) under the continued rule of the Karađorđević dynasty.

Gedik Ahmed Pasha (Serbian: Гедик Ахмед-паша; died 18 November 1482) was an Ottoman statesman and admiral who served as Grand Vizier and Kapudan Pasha (Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy) during the reigns of sultans Mehmed II and Bayezid II.

Very little was known about Gedik Ahmed Pasha in primary sources until late in historiography. Serbia and Albania had both been proposed as geographical regions for his birthplace and Mükrimin Halil Yinanç had even claimed that he was descended from the Byzantine Greek Palaiologos dynasty based on unnamed Western sources Yinanç claimed to have access to. Later research in the Ottoman archives of Vranje (southeastern Serbia) by Aleksandar Stojanovski established that Gedik Ahmed Pasha was a member of the local Serbian feudal families of the area and was born in the village Punoševce.

The Pčinja District (Serbian: Пчињски округ, romanized: Pčinjski okrug, pronounced [ptʃǐɲskiː ôkruːɡ]) is one of administrative districts of Serbia. It occupies the southernmost part of the country. According to the 2022 census, it has a population of 193,802 inhabitants. The administrative center of the Pčinja District is the city of Vranje.

The House of Dejanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Дејановић, pl. Dejanovići / Дејановићи) or House of Dragaš (Serbian Cyrillic: Драгаш, pl. Dragaši / Драгаши) originates from a medieval noble family that served the Serbian Empire of Dušan the Mighty (r. 1331–1355) and Uroš the Weak (r. 1355–1371), and during the fall of the Serbian Empire, after the Battle of Maritsa (1371), it became an Ottoman vassal. The family was one of the most prominent during these periods. The Dejanović/Dragaš held a region roughly centered where the borders of Serbia, Bulgaria and North Macedonia meet. The last two Byzantine Emperors were maternal descendants of this house.

The progenitor, sevastokrator Dejan, was a magnate in the service of Emperor Dušan, and also the Emperor's brother-in-law through his marriage with Teodora-Evdokija. Dejan held the župe (counties) of Žegligovo and Preševo under Dušan, and later received the title of despot during the rule of Dušan's son, Emperor Uroš V, when he was appointed the administration Upper Struma with Velbužd, after the death of powerful despot Jovan Oliver. After Dejan's death between 1358 and 1365, most of his province was given to Vlatko Paskačić, besides the initial counties of Žegligovo and Preševo, which were left to his two sons, Jovan and Konstantin. The brothers, who ruled jointly, managed to double the extent of their province during the Fall of the Serbian Empire following Emperor Uroš V's death, chiefly to the south; the lands now covered from Vranje and Preševo to Radomir, in the south to Štip, Radovište and Strumica. In 1373, two years after the devastating Battle of Maritsa, the brothers became vassals to the Ottoman Empire. After the death of Jovan in 1377, Konstantin continued to rule under Ottoman overlordship. Konstantin and his provincial neighbour and fellow Ottoman vassal, Prince Marko, fell at the Battle of Rovine in 1395.

The Serbian–Ottoman Wars (Serbian: Српско-османски ратови, romanized: Srpsko-osmanski ratovi), also known as the Serbian–Turkish Wars or Serbian Wars for Independence (Српски ратови за независност, Srpski ratovi za nezavisnost), were two consequent wars (1876–1877 and 1877–1878), fought between the Principality of Serbia and the Ottoman Empire. In conjunction with the Principality of Montenegro, Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 30 June 1876. By the intervention of major European powers, ceasefire was concluded in autumn, and the Constantinople Conference was organized. Peace was signed on 28 February 1877 on the basis of status quo ante bellum. After a brief period of formal peace, Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 13 December 1877. Renewed hostilities lasted until February 1878.

At the beginning of the conflict, the Serbian army was poorly trained and ill-equipped, unlike the troops of the Ottoman Empire. The offensive objectives the Serbian army sought to accomplish were overly ambitious for such a force, and they suffered a number of defeats that resulted from poor planning and chronically being spread too thin. This allowed Ottoman forces to repel the initial attacks of the Serbian army and drive them back. During the autumn of 1876, the Ottoman Empire continued their successful offensive which culminated in a victory on the heights above Đunis. During the second conflict, between 13 December 1877 and 5 February 1878, Serbian troops regrouped with help from Imperial Russia, who fought their own Russo-Turkish War. The Serbs formed five corps and attacked Ottoman troops to the south, taking the cities of Niš, Pirot, Leskovac and Vranje one after another. The war coincided with the Bulgarian uprising, the Montenegrin–Ottoman War and the Russo-Turkish War, which together are known as the Great Eastern Crisis of the Ottoman Empire.