Vidovdan (Видовдан, lit. "Saint Vitus Day") is a Serbian national and religious holiday, a slava (feast day) celebrated on 28 June (Gregorian calendar), or 15 June according to the Julian calendar. The Serbian Church designates it as the memorial day to Saint Prince Lazar and the Serbian holy martyrs who fell during the Battle of Kosovo against the Ottoman Empire on 15 June 1389 (according to the Julian calendar). It is an important part of Serb ethnic and Serbian national identity.
Vidovdan (Saint Vitus Day) is celebrated on June 28 and is considered a sacred holiday for Serbs as several important events are linked to the date.
The day became highly regarded by Serbs after the fourteenth century when the Battle of Kosovo took place on Saint Vitus Day in 1389. A Serb-led Christian coalition by Prince Lazar fought the Ottoman army on the Kosovo field. Although the battle itself was inconclusive, and both Sultan Murad and Prince Lazar were slain, it led to the Ottoman conquest of Serbian principalities. After the Great Migrations of the Serbs in 1690, Vidovdan became a day to honor those who fought in the battle and fell "for their faith and homeland". The holiday was institutionalized by the church in 1849 and politically and publicly first celebrated in 1851 as a representation of the struggle for Serbian freedom from Ottoman subjection. It slowly achieved popularity with the growth of national identities in Europe in the nineteenth century and came to be known as a day of remembrance for additional significant events which coincidentally or intentionally occurred on June 28:
Serbian declaration of war against the Ottoman Empire in 1876
Signing of the Austro–Serbian Alliance of 1881
Assassination of the Austro-Hungarian crown prince, Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip in 1914 which triggered the First World War
Signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919
The Serbian King Alexander I's proclamation of the new 1921 Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, known thereafter as the Vidovdan Constitution (Vidovdanski ustav).
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The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is considered one of the key events that led to World War I. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated on 28 June 1914 by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip. They were shot at close range while being driven through Sarajevo, the provincial capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, formally annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908.