Battle of Vaslui

The Battle of Vaslui (also referred to as the Battle of Podul Înalt or the Battle of Racova) was fought on January 10, 1475, between Stephen III of Moldavia and the Ottoman governor of Rumelia, Hadım Suleiman Pasha. The battle took place at Podul Înalt (the High Bridge), near the town of Vaslui, in Moldavia (now part of eastern Romania). The Ottoman troops numbered up to 120,000, facing about 40,000 Moldavian troops, plus smaller numbers of allied and mercenary troops.

Stephen inflicted a decisive defeat on the Ottomans, described as "the greatest ever secured by the Cross against Islam," with casualties, according to Venetian and Polish records, reaching beyond 40,000 on the Ottoman side. Mara Brankovic (Mara Hatun), the former younger wife of Murad II, told a Venetian envoy that the invasion had been worst ever defeat for the Ottomans. Stephen was later awarded the title "Athleta Christi" (Champion of Christ) by Pope Sixtus IV, who referred to him as "verus christianae fidei athleta" ("the true defender of the Christian faith").

Vaslui

Vaslui (Romanian pronunciation: [vasˈluj]), a city in eastern Romania, is the seat of Vaslui County, in the historical region of Moldavia.

The city administers five villages: Bahnari, Brodoc, Moara Grecilor, Rediu and Viişoara.

History

Archaeological surveys indicate that the territory of Vaslui was inhabited since the Neolithic. From the 14th century onwards, it developed as the provincial town of Vaslui, with a population that fluctuated considerably in the following centuries. The name of Vaslui appears first in a Polish document from 1375, referring to Koriat's son Yuri Koriatovich. The name Vaslui was also mentioned in 1435, in connection with the accession of Prince Iliaş to the Moldavian throne. The town was burned to the ground in 1439 and 1440 when Tatars invaded Moldavia.

The peak of Vaslui's importance was in the 15th century, when it was a second-rank capital of Moldavia, during the reign of Stephen the Great (r. 1457-1504) and its population approached that of the neighbouring Iaşi. In 1475, Prince Stephen won his greatest battle against the Ottoman Empire in the Vaslui area. Once the Moldavian capital was moved from Suceava to Iaşi and the southern town of Bârlad became an administrative center of southern Moldavia, Vaslui declined for the next three centuries to eventually become a local borough (târg).