Stefan Dušan

Stefan Uroš IV Dušan became King of Serbia on 8 September 1331 and spent fifteen years conquering southeast Europe, building what became the most powerful state in the region. On 16 April 1346 he took the title Emperor of the Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians and Albanians, ruling a multi-ethnic, Eastern Orthodox empire with its capital in Skopje. He enacted Dušan's Code, elevated the Serbian Church to a patriarchate, completed his father's mausoleum at Visoki Dečani Monastery, and founded the monastery of the Holy Archangels. As Ottoman Turks pressed into Europe, he worked to build a coalition with Venice to counter them. On 20 December 1355 he died suddenly at his court in Prizren, and the empire began to weaken almost immediately - after his successor Stefan Uroš V died, it fractured into independent states, a collapse known as the Fall of the Serbian Empire.