Biography
Marko Miljanov Popović Kuč was born into a distinguished family in the village of Medun, in Podgorica municipality. He had a Serbian Orthodox Christian father (Kuči clan) and Albanian Catholic Christian mother (Koja e Kuçit clan). Like all of his countrymen, in his youth, he took part in attacks on Turks.
In 1856, he came to the Montenegrin capital Cetinje and entered the service of Prince Danilo in his guards unit called perjanici. For his bravery and successes in raids on Turkish territory and as a man of confidence, he was awarded in 1862 the position of judge and head of Bratonožići clan. For his work on unification of Kuči with Montenegro in 1874, he had a price set on his head by the Turks. The same year saw his appointment to the Montenegrin Senate (from 1879 transformed into a State Council). In the 1876-78 war against the Turks, he victoriously commanded Montenegrin forces in the Battle of Fundina. After a fierce disagreement with Prince Nikola in 1882, he had to leave the State Council and decided to retire from public life to his native Medun.
Although he was 50 years old, Marko Miljanov, who was illiterate like the most of his countrymen, decided to learn to write. Though much younger than Petar II Petrović Njegoš, Marko Miljanov was closer to the people by virtue of his lack of learning, and thus he expressed more directly and in less altered form what he found among the people. He states explicitly that man is governed by higher powers of good and evil: This is not permitted by nature, this is not permitted by the blood which contains some divine force which rules over man's good will and bad. Putting quotations aside, Miljanov is lost in admiration for the good, for humanity and reason as the higher imperatives over man.
He explained his urge in a foreword to the lost manuscript of his epic songs with the words: Dear Serb brother, if you had the chance to see the heroes that I have seen, your heart would give you no peace until you have responded to the heroes who die merrily for their own and rights of all of us.
He died at Herceg Novi in 1901.
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