Împăratul Heraclius şi legenda originii slave a dinastiilor întemeietoare ale Țării Românești şi Moldovei în Cronica sârbească a lui Đorđe Branković
Emperor Heraclius and the Slavic Origin of the Founding Dynasties of Wallachia and Moldavia in the Serbian Chronicle of Đorđe Branković

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses several fragments of Đorđe Branković’s magnum opus, the Serbian Chronicle (Hronike slavenosrpske, c. 1693-1705), which describe the early political and institutional history of Wallachia and Moldavia. The paper aims to illustrate the significance of Wallachian and Moldavian history for the Serbian political and intellectual milieu of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, by analyzing Branković's reconstruction of the medieval history of Wallachia and Moldavia. The study focuses on Branković’s creation of a symbolic genealogy of Basarab I of Wallachia, descended from a legendary Slavic prince named Božirab, who had established a political alliance with Emperor Heraclius in the 7th century and married his daughter. Drawing upon Western geographical and historical literature, Branković describes a supposed period in the history of Wallachia and Moldavia when the two states had been united under a single crown, a political entity referred to as the ‘Vlach Kingdom’ (влахїиски кралѣвство). In his view, the voivodes of Moldavia were a branch of the Basarab dynasty that had separated from the main lineage of the family and settled in the area that would later become the medieval Moldavian state.

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