Stephen the Great's Forty-Year War for Moldavia

Prince Stephen III of Moldavia ruled for 47 years, fought 36 battles, and lost only two. But behind the martial legend lies a more complicated figure: a prince who blinded allies, switched sides between Poland and Hungary, and built a chain of fortified monasteries that still stand today. This episode walks through Stephen's long game — holding a small principality between three great powers through a mix of battlefield brilliance, strategic patience, and sheer ruthlessness. We follow his career from the night attack at Vaslui in 1475, where he crushed an Ottoman army three times his size, through the devastating defeat at Valea Albă the following year, to his eventual accommodation with the sultan. Along the way we visit the painted churches of Voroneț and Moldovița, consider why Stephen is both a national saint and a controversial figure in his own time, and ask whether his famous 'forty-year war' was really one war or a series of pragmatic choices. The episode ends with a question: what does it mean to call Stephen 'the Great' when his legacy includes broken oaths and blinded prisoners?

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