Luka Vukalović

Luka Vukalović (Bogojevići in Zupci, in the present municipality of Trebinje, Eastern Herzegovina, 18 October 1823 - Saltakča, Odessa, Imperial Russia, 6 July 1873) was the leader of the Serbian uprising in Herzegovina in 1852-1862.
==Biography==
Vukalović studied gunsmithing in Trebinje and practiced it in Herceg Novi for some time. At the time of Omer Pasha's action against Montenegro, he returned to his homeland in 1852, where he was elected tribal chief and captain. When Omer Pasha ordered the confiscation of weapons from the Herzegovinians in March 1852, the areas in which Vukalović was the leader resisted.
Resistance against the surrender of weapons led to minor conflicts between Herzegovinians and Turks, which meant the introduction to the uprising, behind which Vukalović stood from the beginning.
The Herzegovinian uprising took place in the winter of 1852 (led by Luka Vukalović) when the people of Grahovo, Banjani and Drobnjaci refused to pay the Turks the exorbitant taxes. As the action of the Turks against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro took place at the same time, the East Herzegovinian tribes fought alongside the Montenegrins. Although there were no major insurgent actions in the period from 1853 to 1857, the uprising did not subside. Austria obviously obstructed the action of Luka Vukalović, knowing that Montenegro was helping, and at the same time, Austria followed the work of the French consular representatives.
The uprising flared up in December 1857,when Prince Danilo Petrović-Njegoš also began to support the insurgents, indignant at the Sublime Porte because of her statement at the Congress of Paris (1856) in 1856 that she considered Montenegro part of Turkey territory.
After the battle of Grahovac on 1 May 1858, when the Montenegrins and Herzegovinian insurgents defeated the Turks, Prince Danilo appointed Vukalović duke of Zubac, Kruševica, Dračevica, and Sutorina, where he formed a kind of autonomous administration.
Forced by this defeat, Sublime Porte gave in to the demarcation with Montenegro, and thus recognized the independence of Montenegro.As a large part of eastern Herzegovina, except Grahovo, a part of Banija, Drobnjak, Župa, and Nikšići (tribe)|Nikšički Rudini, remained under Turkish rule, Vukalović continued the insurgent action.
This resonated strongly in Bosnia, especially in the large-scale riots in Bosnian Krajina and Posavina in 1858. Fearing that the uprising would spread to its territory, Austria began to hinder Vukalović even more, helping in various ways themselves and the Turks.
In his demands, Vukalović did not limit himself only to solving the economic problems of the Herzegovinian paradise, but he gave the uprising the stamp of the struggle for national liberation, demanding that Herzegovina join Montenegro.
Such a character of the uprising also aroused the interest of the European great powers, whose consular representatives worked on making Vukalović submit to the Turkish authorities. Vukalović continued the fight against the Turks even after the violent death of Prince Danilo (1860), encouraged by the examples of the struggle for unification that Garibaldi led in Italy. At the same time, in diplomatic circles Alexander Gorchakov let it be known to all European nations, particularly the Austrian Empire's ambassador, that Russia stood on the side of the Serbs when the question of Herzegovina and Montenegro was concerned.
From 1861, Omar Pasha tried to quell the uprising with various promises and concessions, in which he was unsuccessful. But when Montenegro, after the defeat in the war with Turkey in August 1862, pledged in writing not to help the insurgent portrait in Herzegovina, Vukalović, believing that the people there were left in the lurch, agreed in writing with Omar Pasha, who promised autonomy as well as amnesty to all insurgents, that eventually caused a rift between the rebels and Prince Nicholas I of Montenegro in 1864.Omar Pasha promised Vukalović that he would appoint him duke of Zubac and also Kruševica (river), Dračevica (župa), and Sutorina, but he did not keep that promise instead he appointed him a bimbaša to lead 500 militiamen with the task of maintaining order and peace at the border.
When he saw that the Turks were not fulfilling the promises given to the people regarding the relief of feudal duties and the reduction of taxes, he tried to start an uprising once again in 1865, but without any support from either side, he failed.
After that, he left his homeland and moved to Imperial Russia, where he died in 1873.
The commemoration of Duke Luka Vukalović and the battle of the Serbs with the Turks are described in the poem of Duke Mirko Petrović Njegoš "Battle on the Teeth" (collection Heroic Monument, Cetinje in 1864).
==Literature==
* Vladimir Ćorović: Luka Vukalović i hercegovački ustanci od 1852-1862, 1923;
* Grga Martić: Osvetnici: Luka Vukalović i boj na Grahovcu na Spasovdan, 1862;
* Jovan Nakićenović: Luka Vukalović hercegovački veliki vojvoda, 1970;
* Jorjo Tadić: Ten Years of Yugoslav Historiography, 1945-1955, Yugoslav National Committee for Historical Studies, 1955.
Category:1823 births
Category:1873 deaths