...My mountain reaches the stars
dawns are first born on it
soft clouds ride across it
and thunder is first heard up there
above Mokra Gora...
by Mihailo Cupovic
...And there, in this light, Mokrogorci have been living from ancient times.
Honest highlanders, noble poeple, generous heads of their households,
whose heart and the door are open to everybody today as well as they used to be in
the past.
...Mokra Gora is one village but three mountains, one village but two churches-one in Krsanj, another in the centre of Mokra Gora.The first had been burnt down
three times by the Turkes and people of Mokra Gora persistently erected it from
the ashes.According to oral tradition the church of Sveto Vaznesenje had been
built at the end of 17th century, before the great migration of the
Serbs, on a very hidden spot near the river Beli Rzav, surrounded by very high rocks on both
sides. After the three burnings of the church in Krsanj, people of this village
built a stone church that still exsist and there is a veluable iconostasis from
the year 1849 with the icones painted in the same year. It's the icone of Jesus
Christ, the big archpriest on the throne and the icone of Mother of God with
Christ on the throne. People of Mokra Gora had been trying to build a church in Mokra Gora since 1876.
It is reported that the icone of Holly Mother of God had been brought from
Krsanje to Mokra Gora three times, but all over again it returned by itself to
Krsanje to the site of a fire, and not until 1945 Mokrogorci built the church
and erected the paris home.
Mokra Gora had been inhabited in a very early period owing to the riches of the
woods and rivers as well as other natural values. We can follow the trails of
these early settlements by burial mounds at the foot of Sargan in Karasalija,
while we can come upon the trails of Roman culture in the reminders of the old
road over Sargan, in Roman tombs, in old cobblestones road and in the famous
Roman inscription.
The origins of nawadays Mokra Gora'sfamilies are people who migrated from
Monte Negro, Hercegovina, Bosnia, and Sjenica region.
Favourable traffic-geographical position of Mokra Gora enabled it to be a
migration doorframe and so it was in the position to change the etnic structure
of population.
Migrations were going on from the direction of Visegrad by the river Rzav,
towards Sargan on the way to Uzice, and from the foot of the Zlatibor towards
Tara and on this direction.
Nowadays there are about 1000 inhabitiants in the village 500 households.
Due to geographical and historical factors, agriculture became the main branch
of economy. More then 50 % of population earns the living by agriculture.However,
each year the number of people whose basic incomes are besed on agriculture,
either farming or cattle breeding, in decreesing.
Front side and back side of a Roman coin with the
figure of Tiberije (year 28),
found in a hollow tree trunk "kisela voda"("mineral
water").
...In 1999. the experts of Belgrade Archeological Institut and Uzice National Museum researched the necropolis more in details. At this occasion, at the place of the present graveyard 28 tombstone marks were evidented and the scientists estimate their origin from the period of the end of 14 th and the first half of 15 th century, the period that anticipated Turkish conquers.
The first who noticed and described the necropolis in the eastern part of Markovo Polje, todey's Mokra Gora, was Feliks Kanic, who had been in this region in the eighties of 19 th century. According to his writing then there were about " 30 sarcophagus " or tombstones mostly decorated with relief swords and circles.
Since end of the 19 th century necropolis has been damaged twice by the
constraction of a modern road and by widening the present cemetery, so, regarding to the state described by Kanic, only one third of necropolis approximately has remained preserved.
...By researching 28 grave marks were discovered in 1999. wnich makes seven less than in 1968. The dominant shape of these gravestones are frecvently these are rudely trimmed stone blocks, while the board with some work on themare not so often. Some of them stand out because of their thickness, coming close to the form of tombstones. An insedted stone with a piramidal ending represents a newer occurence on necropolis tombstones and it can show continuity of burrying also in Turkish period in the second half of 15 th and the first half of 16 th century.
Tombstones that seemed to be in the middle part of necropolis, belong to a representative group of gravestones. Nine among them distinguish themselves having monolite pedestals, and two of them in the shape of arectangular coffin with a flat upper surface. On some of them there is a relief decoration in the shape of a half-moon, as well as a relief circle, while a cross is being sculptured on the side surface of two of the tambstones. On two of the ridgepoles there is a two-hended sword, while on one side of one tumbstone there is a spear with a flag.
According to the sciantists description, first of all of Marko Popovic from
the Archeological Institut from Belgrade, the relief ornaments on the gravestones of Mokra Gora necropolis are within the usual repertoire of simbols on the tombstones from the wider region of Hercegovina, Monte Negro, Bosnia, serbian Podrinje and Dalmatian hinterland.
During the research work on necropolis and thanks to the information given by the citizens, the remnants of quarry from which most of the stone on tombstones had come from, were found. It's the locality of Suvi Potok, 1500 metres away from the necropolis, it is confirmed by morphological characteristics of stone from this region, which coinsided with the stone on these medieval tombstones.
Vitasi -- forest railway -- railway station Jatare -- railway links