1. Prince Marko is known as Prince Marko and King Marko in South Slavic oral tradition, in which he has become a major character during the period of Ottoman rule over the Balkans.
67 Facts About Prince Marko
1. 2.
Prince Marko funded the construction of the Monastery of Saint Demetrius near Skopje, which was completed in 1376.
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Prince Marko is venerated as a national hero by the Serbs, Macedonians and Bulgarians, remembered in Balkan folklore as a fearless and powerful protector of the weak, who fought against injustice and confronted the Turks during the Ottoman occupation.
4.
Prince Marko was born about 1335 as the first son of Vukasin Mrnjavcevic and his wife Alena.
5.
Prince Marko was supposed to be raised and married by Tvrtko's mother Jelena.
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When his father died, "young king" Prince Marko became king and co-ruler with Emperor Uros.
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Lords around Prince Marko exploited the opportunity to seize significant parts of his patrimony.
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Prince Marko was one of Serbian noblemen from Zachlumia and Travunia who received lands in the newly conquered parts of Macedonia during Emperor Dusan's reign.
9.
The only sizable town kept by Prince Marko was Prilep, from which his father rose.
10.
King Marko became a petty prince ruling a relatively small territory in western Macedonia, bordered in the north by the Sar mountains and Skopje; in the east by the Vardar and the Crna Reka rivers, and in the west by Ohrid.
11.
Prince Marko shared his rule with his younger brother, Andrijas, who had his own land.
12.
When Prince Marko became an Ottoman vassal is uncertain, but it was probably not immediately after the Battle of Maritsa.
13.
At some point, Prince Marko separated from Jelena and lived with Todora, the wife of a man named Grgur, and Jelena returned to her father in Veria.
14.
Prince Marko later sought to reconcile with Jelena but he had to send Todora to his father-in-law.
15.
Prince Marko was ktetor of the Church of Saint Sunday in Prizren, which was finished in 1371, shortly before the Battle of Maritsa.
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Prince Marko is an austere-looking man in purple clothes, wearing a crown decorated with pearls.
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Prince Marko is said to be shown here as the king chosen by God to lead his people through the crisis following the Battle of Maritsa.
18.
Prince Marko minted his own money, in common with his father and other Serbian nobles of the time.
19.
Prince Marko omitted a territorial designation from his title, probably in tacit acknowledgement of his limited power.
20.
Poems about Kraljevic Prince Marko do not follow a storyline; what binds them into a poetic cycle is the hero himself, with his adventures illuminating his character and personality.
21.
The epic Prince Marko had a 300-year lifespan; 14th- to 16th-century heroes appearing as his companions include Milos Obilic, Relja Krilatica, Vuk the Fiery Dragon and Sibinjanin Janko and his nephew, Banovic Sekula.
22.
Prince Marko took Jevrosima from Pirlitor to his capital city, Skadar, and married her according to the advice of the dying Momcilo.
23.
Prince Marko grew up into a large, strong man, with a terrifying appearance, which was somewhat comical.
24.
Prince Marko wore a wolf-skin cap pulled low over his dark eyes, his black moustache was the size of a six-month-old lamb and his cloak was a shaggy wolf-pelt.
25.
Prince Marko's grip was strong enough to squeeze drops of water from a piece of dry cornel wood.
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The hero's inseparable companion was his powerful, talking piebald horse Sarac; Prince Marko always gave him an equal share of his wine.
27.
Prince Marko became his blood sister, promising to help him in dire straits.
28.
When Ravijojla helped him kill the monstrous, three-hearted Musa Kesedzija, Prince Marko grieved because he had slain a better man than himself.
29.
Prince Marko is portrayed as a protector of the weak and helpless, a fighter against Turkish bullies and injustice in general.
30.
Prince Marko was an idealised keeper of patriarchal and natural norms: in a Turkish military camp, he beheaded the Turk who dishonourably killed his father.
31.
Prince Marko abolished the marriage tax by killing the tyrant who imposed it on the people of Kosovo.
32.
Prince Marko saved the sultan's daughter from an unwanted marriage after she entreated him, as her blood brother, to help her.
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Prince Marko rescued three Serbian voivodes from a dungeon and helped animals in distress.
34.
Marko was a rescuer and benefactor of people, and a promoter of life; "Prince Marko is remembered like a fair day in the year".
35.
Characteristic of Prince Marko was his reverence and love for his mother, Jevrosima; he often sought her advice, following it even when it contradicted his own desires.
36.
Prince Marko lived with Marko at his mansion in Prilep, his lodestar guiding him away from evil and toward good on the path of moral improvement and Christian virtues.
37.
Prince Marko said truthfully that Dusan appointed his son, Uros, heir to the Serbian throne.
38.
Prince Marko is represented as a loyal vassal of the Ottoman sultan, fighting to protect the potentate and his empire from outlaws.
39.
Prince Marko occasionally made the sultan uneasy, and meetings between them usually ended like this:.
40.
Prince Marko's fealty was combined with the notion that the servant was greater than his lord, as Serbian poets turned the tables on their conquerors.
41.
In battle, Prince Marko used not only his strength and prowess but cunning and trickery.
42.
Prince Marko was occasionally capricious, short-tempered or cruel, but his predominant traits were honesty, loyalty and fundamental goodness.
43.
Prince Marko obeyed in a grimly humorous way, ploughing the sultan's highway instead of the fields.
44.
Prince Marko warned them to keep off the furrows, but quickly wearied of arguing:.
45.
Prince Marko then leaned over a well and saw no reflection of his face on the water; hydromancy confirmed the vilas words.
46.
Prince Marko killed Sarac so the Turks would not use him for menial labor, and gave his beloved companion an elaborate burial.
47.
Prince Marko broke his sword and spear, throwing his mace far out to sea before lying down to die.
48.
Prince Marko's body was found seven days later by Abbot Vaso and his deacon, Isaija.
49.
Prince Marko has a winged horse named Sharkolia and a stepsister, the samodiva Gyura.
50.
Bulgarian folklorists who collected stories about Prince Marko included educator Trayko Kitanchev and Prince Marko Cepenkov of Prilep.
51.
Prince Marko was said to have helped God shape the earth, and created the river gorge in Demir Kapija with a stroke of his sabre.
52.
God took it away by leaving a bag as heavy as the earth on a road; when Prince Marko tried to lift it, he lost his strength and became an ordinary man.
53.
Legend has it that Prince Marko acquired his strength after he was suckled by a vila.
54.
In other accounts, Prince Marko was a shepherd who found a vilas children lost in a mountain and shaded them against the sun.
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An Istrian version has Prince Marko making a shade for two snakes, instead of the children.
56.
Prince Marko was associated with large, solitary boulders and indentations in rocks; the boulders were said to be thrown by him from a hill, and the indentations were his footprints.
57.
Prince Marko was connected with geographic features such as hills, glens, cliffs, caves, rivers, brooks and groves, which he created or at which he did something memorable.
58.
In Bulgarian and Macedonian stories, Prince Marko had an equally strong sister who competed with him in throwing boulders.
59.
In some legends, Prince Marko's wonder horse was a gift from a vila.
60.
Prince Marko became an enormously powerful horse and Marko's inseparable companion.
61.
Macedonian legend has it that Prince Marko, following a vilas advice, captured a sick horse on a mountain and cured him.
62.
When it falls on the ground and Sarac finishes the moss, Prince Marko will awaken and reenter the world.
63.
Prince Marko's oldest known depictions are 14th-century frescoes from Marko's Monastery and Prilep.
64.
An 18th-century drawing of Prince Marko is found in the Cajnice Gospels, a medieval parchment manuscript belonging to a Serbian Orthodox church in Cajnice in eastern Bosnia.
65.
Vuk Karadzic wrote that during his late-18th-century childhood he saw a painting of Prince Marko carrying an ox on his back.
66.
Nineteenth-century lithographs of Prince Marko were made by Anastas Jovanovic, Ferdo Kikerec and others.
67.
Also, several artists have tried to produce a realistic portrait of Prince Marko based on his frescoes.