THE SERBS, MATHEMATICIANS, AND JUNE 28
- Peter Radan
- Jun 28, 2019
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 24, 2019
Peter Radan (28 June 2019)
The Serbs and June 28
June 28 (St Vitus' Day - patron saint of dancers and other entertainers - or Vidovdan in Serbian) has been an important date for Serbs for over six centuries. The most famous single event in Serbian history - the Battle of Kosovo - took place on that date in 1389. For many years it was argued that the Battle of Kosovo marked the end of the Serbian Medieval Empire and the beginning of a five century occupation at the hands of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.[1]
However, historians now agree that the Battle of Kosovo did not have such a significant geo-political impact.[2] Rather, the beginning of the end of the Serbian Medieval Empire started with the defeat of Serbian forces at the hands of the Ottoman Empire's forces, led by Sultan Murad I, at the Battle of Marica River in 1371. It was not until the capture by the Ottoman Turks of the then Serbian capital of Smederevo in 1459 - 70 years after the Battle of Kosovo - that the Serbs were completely subjugated. The Battle of Kosovo did not change the course of Serbian history. Its significance is, according to Hugh Thomas, that it was the first time that the canon was used as a weapon in battles of this kind.[3]
Although the evidence about the course and outcome of the Battle of Kosovo is scant, the view that it was, as L S Stavrianos claims, 'an irretrievable disaster for the Slavs' has now been discredited. Thomas Emmert's exhaustive research on the battle led him to conclude that 'it is not ... possible to know with certainty ... whether one or the other side was victorious on the field' and that 'there is little to indicate that it was a great Serbian defeat'.[4] Indeed, the fact that Sultan Murad was killed in the battle led to some contemporary accounts viewing the Battle of Kosovo as an Ottoman defeat, as is evidenced by an anonymous French chronicler who, in 1395, wrote that the French King ordered the celebration of a solemn mass at Notre Dame Cathedral to mark a great Christian victory.[5]
The significance of the Battle of Kosovo for the Serbs is to be found, not in the historical outcome of the battle, but rather in the legend that it inspired. The legend is founded in the personality of Prince Lazar, the leader of the Serbian forces. Prior to the Battle of Kosovo, Lazar had brought a measure of stability to Serbia and was also a great patron and protector of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Lazar's death during the Battle of Kosovo, provided Serbs with the raw material with which to preserve their national consciousness during the long period of Turkish occupation. In that process, the Battle of Kosovo attained a mythical and legendary status. The battle was interpreted as a catastrophic military defeat marking the end of Serbia's medieval greatness and the commencement of subjugation by the Turks. Prince Lazar became 'Emperor' Lazar so as to confirm the existence of the empire right up to 1389. Vuk Branković, the commander of Serbian reserve forces for the Battle of Kosovo who had withdrawn them from engaging in the battle, was marked as a traitor, thereby making the loss as one of tragic proportions.
Presented in this way, the Battle of Kosovo established Lazar as a martyr who died so that Serbia may live. The parallels with Jesus Christ were clear, with Vuk Branković assigned the role of Judas Isacriot. Just as Jesus Christ was glorified through His crucifixion, so too was the Serbian nation glorified in the calamitous defeat at Kosovo and the death of the soon to be sainted Prince Lazar.
As such the Battle of Kosovo became a symbol of Serbia's future liberation or resurrection. Lazar's death and Serbia's loss of independence had to be revenged. It was during the period of Turkish occupation that the ethic of Kosovo - the willingness to lay down one's life in defending the national, cultural, and religious ideals of the Serbs - became an entrenched feature of Serbian culture. However, it was not until 1804 that the process of liberation from Turkish occupation began with the First Serbian Uprising against the Turks. The process was completed with the emergence of an independent Serbian state in 1878 that recovered the territory of Kosovo from the, by then, declining Ottoman Empire during the two Balkan Wars of 1912-1913.
Although Serbia was now independent and the 'calamitous' defeat of 1389 had then been avenged, June 28 continued to be a date when significant events affecting Serbs took place. The most significant of these was June 28, 1914, when the Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in Sarajevo, thereby lighting the fuse that ignited what one historian called the Third Balkan War,[6] but what is generally now known as World War I.
Five years later, the Treaty of Versailles, which marked the end of the war that was sparked by the bullets from Princip's gun, was signed on June 28, 1919. One of the outcomes of the peace treaties that wound up World War I was the creation and recognition of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929), in which Serbia played the pivotal role. Yugoslavia's first Constitution - the so-called Vidovdan Constitution - was proclaimed on June 28, 1921.
On June 28, 1948, the communist Yugoslavia that emerged from the first dismemberment of Yugoslavia during World War II, and in which Serbs were the most devoted communists, was expelled from Cominform. On June 28, 2001, Slobodan Milošević, the last of the Serbian communist strongmen, was extradited from Serbia to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes he was alleged to have committed during the second and final dismemberment of Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
It may be stretch, but perhaps it is also worth adding to this list of significant June 28s, June 28, 1971. Why? Because Elon Musk was born on that day. The pioneering electric motor vehicle that Musk designed and developed was the Tesla, named in honour of the eccentric Serbian scientific genius, Nikola Tesla.[7]
Mathematicians and June 28
The significance of June 28 for mathematicians is steeped in controversy. That controversy can be traced to 12 March 2009, when the United States House of Representatives designated March 14 as the day for the annual celebration of the mathematical constant Pi which represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
National Pi Day is celebrated on March 14 (3/14 in the month/day format) because 3, 1, and 4 are the first three digits of the decimal approximation - to two decimal points - of Pi, that is 3.14.
Having a pie has become the traditional way of celebrating Pi Day.
However, some mathematicians vehemently reject March 14 as being the correct day to honour this important mathematical constant. Instead, they argue that June 28 is the correct date and that it should be referred to as Two Pi Day. Presumably, the traditional way to celebrate Two Pi Day would be to scoff two pies.
These mathematicians argue that, because Pi creates unnecessary complications in many formulas, the more appropriate number to work with, when it comes to circles, is 2Pi, the decimal approximation of which is 6.28, which translates to (on the month/day format) June 28. The inspiration for Two Pi Day comes from an article written by Bob Palais, which commenced with the following paragraph:
"I know it will be called blasphemy by some, but I believe that Pi is wrong. For centuries Pi has received unlimited praise; mathematicians have waxed rhapsodic about its mysteries, used it as a symbol for mathematics societies and mathematics in general, and built it into calculators and programming languages. ... I am not questioning its irrationality, transcendence, or numerical calculation, but the choice of the number on which we bestow a symbol conveying deep geometric significance. The proper value, which does deserve all of the reverence and adulation bestowed upon the current impostor, is the number now ... known as 2Pi".[8]
Whether or not Pi Day is formally supplanted by Two Pi Day is, perhaps, not of any great importance to Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and Polish mathematicians. This is because June 28 is the day to celebrate (with or without two pies) Constitution Day in Ukraine, Family Day in Vietnam, and Poznan Day in Poland.
Footnotes
[1] L S Stavrianos, The Balkans Since 1453, Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1958, p 454. See also Peter F Sugar, Southeastern Europe Under Ottoman Rule, 1354-18094, University of Washington Press, 1977, p 21.
[2] Rade Mihaljčić, The Battle of Kosovo in History and Popular Tradition, BIGZ, 1989, pp 49-51; Thomas A Emmert, 'The Battle of Kosovo: Early Reports of Victory and Defeat' in Wayne S Vucinich & Thomas A Emmert (eds), Kosovo: Legacy of a Medieval Battle, Minnesota Mediterranean & East European Monographs, 1991, 19-40, pp 34-36; Sima M Ćirković, The Serbs, Blackwell Publishing, 2004, pp 84-85.
[3] Hugh Thomas,An Unfinished History of the World, Pan Books Ltd, 1981, p 266.
[4] Thomas A Emmert, 'The Battle of Kosovo: Early Reports of Victory and Defeat', note 2 above, p 22.
[5] Thomas A Emmert, Serbian Golgotha: Kosovo, 1389, East European Monographs, 1990, pp 52-53.
[6] Joachim Remak, '1914 - The Third Balkan War: Origins Reconsidered' (1971) 43 Journal of Modern History 353-366, p 365.
[7] On Tesla see Richard Munson, Tesla: Inventor of the Modern, W W Norton & Co, 2018.
[8] Bob Palais, 'Pi is Wrong!' (2001) 23(3) Mathematical Intelligencer 7-8, p 7.