ABSTRACT
The Ottoman conquest of the Balkans was a prolonged process characterized by considerable regional variation. There was stiff resistance over decades and ensuing demographic disruption in some regions, and a relatively less contested establishment of Ottoman rule where warfare had been more limited in space and time in other regions. Ottoman conquest in Albania started in ca. 1385 and ended in 1479 when Venice had to cede its territory, after a protracted war (1463–79), around the fortress of Shkodra in northern Albania. The Republic of St Mark lost its last outposts in present-day Montenegro (Dulcigno/Ulcinj, Antivari/Bar) in 1570. Bulgaria (1393), Kosovo (1455), and Serbia (1459) had already been taken. With the Ottoman capture of Belgrade from the Hungarians in 1521, the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans was complete.
