Constantine of Kostenets
[3][4] After the Despot's death in 1427, Constantine left Belgrade and entered into the service of kesar Uglješa Vlatković, in the area of Vranje, where he later died.His frequent citing of ancient philosophers and comparisons of the Despot in the Biography caused many to consider him a precursor to the Renaissance which, due to the Ottoman conquest, never occurred in Serbian culture.The Biography of Despot Stefan Lazarević (Житија деспота Стефана Лазаревића) begins with a geographic description of Serbia's natural beauties, going on to describe its residents, praising their character but also mourning their forthcoming fall to the Turks.[5][4][6][7] Constantine of Kostenets, Pachomius the Serb, Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kiev, and Gregory Tsamblak were able to continue their literary activities virtually unhampered by any linguistic barrier when moving from the Balkans to Imperial Russia, no different than the role of Latin literature in the Roman Catholic part of medieval Europe.Therefore, it was only natural for medieval Serbian biographers to turn for models to the body of existing vitae written in either Slavonic-Serbian or Church Slavonic language.