Darman and Kudelin

The two brothers used the weakened state of centralized administration in the region to become independent from the Kingdom of Hungary[5][6][3] or the Second Bulgarian Empire[7] in 1273.

Relying on auxiliary troops that consisted mostly of Tatar and Cuman mercenaries,[5][2][8] the brothers were “very independent-minded and afraid of no one”, according to Serbian archbishop Danilo II.

[5] They regularly attacked their western neighbour, the Hungarian vassal Stefan Dragutin's Syrmian Kingdom, in Mačva, an area previously under the sovereignty of Elizabeth of Hungary.

The Hungarian queen had sent troops to claim Braničevo in 1282–1284, but her forces were repelled and her vassal lands plundered in retaliation.

In 1292, after the Hungarians inflicted a defeat on the Tatars in the brothers' service on the banks of the Sava river during the winter, a joint force of Dragutin and his brother, the Serbian king Stefan Uroš II Milutin, managed to defeat Darman and Kudelin and conquered their region,[8] which came for the first time under the rule of a Serb.