Stevan Sindjelic (?-May 19th 1809) was a commander of the First Serbian Uprising, his name becoming the synonym for "courage" among Serbs.

On the day of Holy Trinity 1809 (at the time of the First Serbian uprising), the Turks marched out of Nis and headed towards Sindjelic's trenches with cavalry and two cannons. First the prayer to Allah and then, the positioning of the cannons, followed by a slow approach to the trenches on Cegar . The fist volley over, the Turks charge on the trenches. When Sindjelic saw that the trenches were filled with Turkish bodies and that they were still charging in over the dead and fighting his men with rifle butts, he opened the trench gate and told his soldiers to save them selves if they wished. His words were: "Save yourselves brothers, who wants and who can! Who stays will die!" He himself took a position in the middle of the trench where the gunpowder was stored. He took his handgun from his belt and reloaded it, he then took a looked around what was happening. There was panic in the trenches; around Sindjelic men were chocking and dropping dead or wounded, both Serbs and Turks. When the Turks swarmed the trench from all sides and headed for him Sindjelic fired his handgun into the gunpowder container. An awesome explosion shook the surrounding fields and hills. Thick smoke engulfed the trench and billowed skyward, the Serbs that were still in the trench with Sindjelic and the attacking Turks were all blown into the air and killed; this explosion ended the life of "the falcon of Cegar", the commander of Resava , Stevan Sindjelic.

Source

• This article is originally based on a text which has been published on freesrpska.org. Note that some of the contents of the site might be propagandistic, wrong and/or biased.