Pavle Nestorović
| Pavle Nestorović | |
|---|---|
| Native name | Павле Несторовић |
| Nickname(s) | Deak |
| Allegiance |
 Holy Roman Empire
|
| Commands held |
|
| Battles/wars | |
Pavle Nestorović (Serbian Cyrillic: Павле Несторовић), known as Dejak (Дејак) or Deak (Деак), was an Archduchy of Austria military officer of Serbian ethnicity. He was most notable as commander of the Serbian Militia during Great Turkish War.
The Slavic language word deak (English: student) was used by Hungarians to denote Serbs who studied at schools with Latin-script textbooks. Pavle Nestorović was among them.
The Ottomans captured Nestorović and handed him over to their ally Imre Thököly who put him in prison in Veliki Varadin (modern-day Oradea in Romania). He was ransomed in June 1688.
In 1688, after the successful siege of Belgrade, Nestorović was appointed as commander of Smederevo with the rank of captain. He had under his command 400 Austrian musketeers and 600 Serbs. He was then appointed as commander of the Serbian Militia.
Count Đorđe Branković had no military experience and tried to engage Nestorović to command units of Serbs he would mobilize to join the Army of the Holy Roman Empire. Branković may have had the intention to marry Nestorović's sister to establish closer ties with him.
Since the beginning of 1689, according to instructions from Vienna, Nestorović organized anti-Ottoman uprisings of Serbs in Sanjak of Smederevo. He was strongly disappointed because the rebels were not immediately supported by the Habsburg imperial army. The rebels left their homes and field works expecting a quick advance by the army; which however continued its invasion into Ottoman Serbia only in July 1689.
On 29 August 1689 the Serbian Militia under the command of Dejak as a vanguard unit of the Habsburg army were victorious against a vanguard unit of the Ottoman army during the Battle of Batočina.
...
Wikipedia