Stefan Dušan
emperor of Serbia 1331–1355
Stefan Uroš IV Dušan (Serbian Cyrillic: Стефан Урош IV Душан), also known as Dušan the Mighty (Serbian Cyrillic: Душан Силни; c. 1308 – 20 December 1355), was the King of Serbia from 8 September 1331 and Emperor of the Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians and Albanians from 16 April 1346 until his death in 1355. Dušan is considered one of the greatest medieval Balkan conquerors.
Dušan conquered a large part of Southeast Europe, becoming one of the most powerful monarchs of the era. Under Dušan's rule, Serbia was the most powerful state in Southeast Europe and one of the most powerful European states. At the time, Serbia was an Eastern Orthodox, multi-ethnic, and multilingual empire that stretched from the Danube in the north to the Gulf of Corinth in the south, with its capital in Skopje. He enacted the constitution of the Serbian Empire, known as Dušan's Code, perhaps the most important literary work of medieval Serbia. Dušan promoted the Serbian Church from an archbishopric to a patriarchate, completed his father's mausoleum Visoki Dečani Monastery (now a UNESCO site), and founded the monastery of the Holy Archangels, among others. Under his rule, Serbia reached its territorial, political, economic, and cultural peak.
Stefan Dušan worked to forge a coalition with Venice to address the advancing threat of the Ottoman Turks into Europe. However, his efforts were interrupted by his sudden death in December 1355 at his court in Prizren.
The public source identifies “Stefan Dušan” as emperor of Serbia 1331–1355. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Stefan, Dušan and emperor.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q207303. VIAF identifies the subject as 45661996. The Library of Congress control number is n82223820. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1308, 1355, 1331 and 1346.
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This entry incorporates text from “Stefan Dušan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.