Lazar Mutap
Lazar Mutap Čačanin (1756 - 1815) was a hero of the First Serbian Uprising.[1] He was the first voivode of Rudnik. He is credited with the liberation of Čačak, hence the nickname "Čačanin" in 1804. He also took part in the battles of Osat, Drina, and Deligrad, and others before and after. After the second uprising broke out, he remained in Serbia. As an associate of Miloš Obrenović, he participated in the raising of the second Serbian Revolution. He died from wounds received in the battle for Čačak in 1815.[2] He is hailed as one of the bravest heroes of the Serbian revolution in Serbian ballads of the period.[3][4]
Lazar Mutap-Čačanin's real name was Lazar Ćušajić. He was born at Prislonica, halfway between Gornji Milanovac and Čačak. He held the title of voivode of Morava in the First Serbian Uprising.[5]
At the beginning of the First Serbian Uprising in 1804, together with his brother, in the village of Budjevo, he set the log cabins of commander Ganić and his 20 policemen ablaze while they were all asleep. This act of revenge was done because Ganić turned out to be a Serbian traitor who did all the dirty work for the Turks at the expense of his people. Fearing retaliation, Lazar moved to the village of Prislonica, near Čačak.[6][7]
The First Serbian Uprising
When the uprising broke out, he was among the first to join the ranks of the elders of the Rudnik nahiye. He was the first Boluk-bashi with Duke Milan Obrenović. In the first year of the uprising, he received the greatest credit for the conquest of Čačak.
During the uprising, he took part in the fights against Turkey from the Drina River to Deligrad. In 1805, he fought for the liberation of Karanovac and Užice, and a year later he distinguished himself in the battles of the Drina and Mišar.
In the critical year of 1809, he took part in Karađrđe's offensive on the Novi Pazar Sandzak, fighting in the area of Prijepolje and Sjenica, and the next year he was again on the Drina in the battles near Baurić and Loznica. When, together with Karađorđe, he temporarily liberated Sjenica in May 1809, and after the battle of Suhodol, he also briefly liberated Pešter, where he hosted Karađorđe there. Preparing to spend the night at Ćušajić's house, Karađorđe jokingly said to Lazar: "Lazar, will you set me on fire like Ganić if I spend the night here?"
Karađorđe said about the battle of Loznica that it lasted eight hours of an uninterrupted see-saw between Serbs and Turks, that lasted for two bloody hours with naked sword clashes, and that there had been no such battles in Serbia until then. In those battles on the Lower Drina, Laza Mutap was wounded in the arm (1810), and a year later Karađorđe proclaimed him voivode (duke).
In the last years of the First Serbian Uprising (1813), Mutap fought in Deligrad and Morava. He and his army were first in the trenches on Mozgovo, where the insurgents were catastrophically defeated. Some 2,000 Serbs perished there, and the defeat forced Mutap and Vujica Vulićević to leave the trenches and retreat to Deligrad. When Karađorđe found out, he told them from the Drina battlefield that it would be better for everyone to die, than to leave the trenches.
Unlike many Serbian insurgent elders, Mutap remained in Serbia after the uprising was crushed in 1813 by Hurshid Pasha. Karađorđe, on the other hand, decided to go into exile in Wallachia instead of surrendering. He was accompanied by a few voivodes.
Another Serbian uprising
As a sincere associate of Miloš Obrenović, he was in the narrowest circle of people for the organization and raising of the Second Serbian Uprising. He participated in two secret meetings of national champions in the village of Rudovci, in the house of priest Ranko, in the dense forest under Milićevo brdo and Vreoci.
It was then decided to respond to Turkish oppression with weapons. It took only a year and Miloš Obrenović raised the Second Serbian Uprising at the Takovo rallying place.
The Rudnik, Čačak, and Kragujevac nahiye, relying on the Rudnik massif, formed the territorial basis of the uprising.
Wounding and death
At the Battle of Ljubić, where Karađorđe's flag bearer Tanasko Rajić was also killed, the Turks suffered heavy losses in further battles in the region of Čačak, where Imšir Ćaja paša was killed. Lazar Mutap was also killed in that battle in 1815, attacking the trenches where the Turks were around the mosque in Čačak. Mutap's forces had outnumbered the captured Turks, but it so happened that the Turkish soldiers, who were retreating from Konjević Polje, withdrew to Čačak, right behind Mutap, and pressed him between the two fires. Mutap was wounded and from there he went to his village Prislonica, and then to Gornja Trepča, where he was further injured.[8] He died in Čačak.
He was originally buried in Gornja Trepča, and later his bones were transferred to the Vujan Monastery, where his voivodship standard is kept to this day.[9]
After the capture of Čačak, the insurgents set off in violent pursuit of the Turks who set out for the Novi Pazar Sandžak. Many Turks perished in that refuge on the Jelica mountain, and the rest were beaten by the old Vlach hajduks.
After this defeat, the hajduks held a meeting and said that they had avenged the head of Duke Lazar Mutap.
Sources
- Morison, W. A. (2012) [1942]. The Revolt of the Serbs Against the Turks: (1804-1813). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-67606-0. Search this book on
- Petrovich, Michael Boro (1976). A history of modern Serbia, 1804-1918. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Search this book on
- Ranke, Leopold von (1847). History of Servia, and the Servian Revolution: From Original Mss. and Documents. J. Murray. Search this book on
References
- Translated and adapted from Serbian Wikipedia: Лазар Мутап
- ↑ name="auto">Cite web|url=https://www.ozonpress.net/hronika/lazar-mutap-sivi-soko-sa-vujan-planine/%7Ctitle=Lazar Mutap: Sivi soko sa Vujan planine|date=December 13, 2016|website=Ozonpress :: internet portal
- ↑ name="auto"
- ↑ Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GjU9AAAAIAAJ&q=%22Lazar+Mutap%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA169%7Ctitle = The Revolt of the Serbs Against the Turks (1804-1813)|year = 1942
- ↑ Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4203546?seq=1%7Cjstor=4203546%7Clast1=Morison%7Cfirst1=Walter%7Ctitle=Ballads of Serbian Liberation|journal=The Slavonic and East European Review|year=1939|volume=18|issue=52|pages=1–17
- ↑ name="auto"
- ↑ name=jm>Jovan Mišković, Опис Рудничког округа.{{page|year=|isbn=978-86-86351-01-2|pages=
- ↑ name=jm>Јован Мишковић, Опис Рудничког округа. {{page|year=|isbn=978-86-86351-01-2|pages=
- ↑ name=jm
- ↑ name="auto"
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