Uroš I (Serbian: Урош I) was the Grand Prince (Veliki Župan) of the Grand Principality of Serbia from about 1112 to 1145.
Biography
Origin
Uroš I was the son of Marko, who was a son of Petrislav of Rascia and brother of Grand Prince Vukan, who had sworn an oath of loyalty to Constantine Bodin, the Grand Prince of Duklja, becoming his vassals. Marko, as the subordinate ruler, would have had his appanage in lands north of Rascia, bordering the Kingdom of Hungary. The name Uroš itself, is most likely derived from the Hungarian word úr meaning "dominus" or "princeps", which is translated into the Slavic name 'Prvoslav', or 'Primislav', as seen in the case of Uroš II in Slavic sources. It is a possibility that Marko married a Hungarian wife.
War with Byzantium
In 1092, the Serb Army defeated the Byzantine Army led by the governor of Durazzo, sent by Alexius Comnenus. In 1093, Alexius himself led a larger Byzantine Army and marched towards Rascia, but Vukan heard of this and immediately sought peace, which Alexius quickly accepted as new problems arose in the east where the Cumans penetrated as far as Adrianople. As soon as the Emperor had departed, Vukan broke the treaty, conquering the Vardar and taking the cities of Vranje, Skoplje and Tetovo. In 1094 or 1095, the Emperor once again marched to the Serbs, capturing Lipljan. This time Vukan met with him in his tent and gave him some twenty hostages, including Uroš I and Stefan Vukan, as an oath of peace. Uroš was first mentioned in the contemporary Alexiad of Anna Komnene, a written account of the reign of her father Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos.
Raška (Serbian Cyrillic: Рашка) or Old Raška (Стара Рашка) is a region in south-central Serbia, Kosovo and northern Montenegro. In Serbia, the Raška District, Zlatibor District and Moravica District.
In the Middle Ages, the region was a center of the Serbian Principality and of the Serbian Kingdom whose capital was once the city of Ras (a World Heritage Site) until 1265. In the Early Middle Ages, it had parts of present-day southern Serbia, Kosovo, northern Montenegro, eastern Herzegovina. It has given its name to the Raška municipality and town and Raška District.