Prilep (Прилеп) - a city in Macedonia, located in the northern part of the
Pelagonija Valley, in the southwestern part of the Republic of
Macedonia. It can be reached via the highway A 3. It has 69,704
inhabitants (2002) and is located 128 km southwest of the capital
Skopje.
Prilep is known as the "city under the Marko Towers"
because of its proximity to the towers of the legendary hero King
Marko (in Prilep called King Marko).
The city was awarded the
Order of the People's Hero of Yugoslavia on May 7, 1975 and is one
of the eight decorated cities in SFR Yugoslavia with this order. In
addition, holders of this order are 14 other people from Prilep and
Prilep region.
Prilep is the seat of the Municipality of
Prilep of the same name.
Origin of the name
There are several assumptions about the
origin of the name of the city of Prilep. According to a legend of
Marko Cepenkov, the people who started to move, built their houses
attached to Marko's fortress, so because of the attached houses the
city was named Prilep. The same legend mentions that the city was a
nearby place (a place where bread was produced).
According to
some researchers, the name has Old Slavic origin with the meaning of
swampy, swampy place, a place by the swamp. According to Blaze
Koneski, the name Prilep is formed from the personal names Prilep
and Prilepka, which are preserved in Russian anthroponymy.
History
Prehistory and the ancient period
The city of Prilep
and settlements in general in the area of the wider Prilep region,
date back to antiquity, such as the archeological site Stibera, near
the village Chepigovo. Near the city, traces of a prehistoric
settlement have been discovered on the Marko Towers.
In early
antiquity, the settlement of Ceramie grew here, restored in late
antiquity, which until the end of antiquity remained a rural
settlement and did not grow into a city and episcopate.
Medieval history
Today's location of the city of Prilep dates
back to the early Middle Ages, when Prilep was a very important
commercial and military-strategic city. Exactly in the city of
Prilep, after the catastrophic defeat of Samoil's army in the battle
of Belasica, in 1014, when he saw his blind soldiers, Tsar Samuel
died of a heart attack. After Samuel's death, the city fell under
Byzantine rule. In 1041 the Byzantine emperor Michael IV of
Paphlagon suppressed the uprising of Petar Deljan, and the local
duke Manuil Ivac tried to stop the Byzantine army at Prilep's
Pletvar with a wooden palisade, but without success. Dobromir Hrs
and his grandfather, Manuil Kamica, captured Prilep, but in 1202
Alexius III conquered the fortress again. The city remained under
Byzantine rule until 1204, when Constantinople was conquered by the
Crusaders. Throughout the 13th century, Prilep passed constantly
into the hands of new masters - twice to the despots of Epirus,
twice to Bulgaria, once to the emperor of Nicaea.
In 1334
Prilep together with the whole of Macedonia became part of the
Serbian Kingdom, headed by Stefan Dusan. Important sources in that
regard are the three Dusan charters - letters given to the monastery
Treskavec. It is learned from them that Prilep at that time was a
large and important city center and that Tsar Dusan had his own
palace here.
In 1371 Prilep became the capital of the
medieval Macedonian feudal ruler, Volkashin, who created the Kingdom
of Prilep, based in Prilep. After his death in the Battle of Maritsa
(1371), he was succeeded by his son, King Marko (in folklore and
stories, known for his supernatural powers and powers), who ruled
Prilep until the death of the Turks until his death in 1395. and the
wider region of western and southwestern Macedonia.
Ottoman
period
After the execution of King Marko at the Battle of Rovinj,
Romania in 1395, the Turks took the city. Since then, they settled
down and with their laws and decrees managed not only the population
from Prilep and the Prilep region, but also the whole of Macedonia.
This attitude of the Turkish government towards the local population
from the Prilep region (to which it was not at all inclined), can be
seen from a document issued in December 1565. This document notes
the bias of the Prilep court regarding the settlement of the dispute
between the villagers and a duke from the Hasas of Vizier Mustafa
Pasha. This attitude of the court caused a revolt among the
population, which will be the first major revolt of the Macedonian
people against the Turkish government, when the dissatisfied
Mariovci will make a big protest, followed by riots in front of the
court in Prilep.
With the arrival of the Turks, Prilep from a
highly developed trading city, reoriented to rural production,
especially of tobacco. In the first half of the 16th century,
Priille owned 321 houses, 300 of which belonged to Christians and
the rest to Muslims. According to the descriptions of the city by
the Turkish travel writer Evliya Çelebi, who visited Prilep in 1670,
the settlement consisted of nine neighborhoods with a thousand
houses built of solid material, while the city bazaar consisted of
200 shops.
In the XVIII and XIX century the city held a large fair, which
was one of the largest in Rumelia and lasted 25 days. Traders from
all over the Balkan Peninsula came to the fair, and the most traded
were: grain, tobacco, carpets, goods and others. In the 19th
century, the city had 2,800 houses, 1,100 shops, 26 inns, 10 mosques
and 5 madrasas. In the same period, the great Macedonian revivalist
and collector of folklore Dimitar Miladinov taught in Prilep,
together with his assistant Rajko Zinzifov and in this period in
contact with Miladinov, Marko Cepenkov (born in Prilep) will accept
the idea of the revivalist to collect the Macedonian folk art.
Other revivalists who taught in Prilep are: Jordan Hadzi
Konstantinov-Dzinot, Grigor Prlichev, Kuzman Shapkarev, Josif
Kovachev and others. During this period the city was divided into
Christian and Turkish parts. There were 17 Christian neighborhoods
and 10 Turkish ones. The military and administrative reforms that
the Turkish sultans began to implement in the early 19th century met
with resistance, especially from the feudal lords of Albania and
Bosnia. In 1830 Pasha Mustafa Rashid Bushatlija from Shkodra entered
Macedonia in order to conquer Bitola. However, in several battles
near Prilep and Mount Babuna, in April and May 1831 he was defeated
and retreated to Shkodra. In the middle of the XIX century in Prilep
there is a rapid development of handicrafts and trade. During this
period in Prilep were developed: the craft of Kazandzi, Kovac,
Abadzi and Kurcija, and a little later the tailoring craft began to
develop. In this period Prilep has three market days: Monday,
Thursday and Saturday. In the central part of the city was the
church "Holy Annunciation" or "Old Church", as the population called
it. It was built in 1383, probably with the help of guilds, rich
merchants and citizens of Prilep. Its master builders, masons were
Kosta Lauzo and Riste Taslamiche. The name Costa Lauzo is also
associated with the construction of the city clock, the clock tower
in 1858.
According to the structure of VMORO, Prilep during
the Ilinden period was part of the Prilep district of the Bitola
Revolutionary District. The Ilinden Uprising will have a strong echo
in the Prilep region, and the battles were led by the famous Prilep
dukes Petar Acev and Krsto Germov-Shaqir Vojvoda. On Ilinden, the
insurgents in the Prilep region cut the telegraph cables between
Prilep and Veles as well as between Prilep and Bitola, and some
wooden bridges on the roads to Gradsko, Kicevo, Krushevo and Veles
were destroyed.
Many people from Prilep actively participated
in the Young Turk Revolution. In September 1910, authorities
arrested more than 70 citizens during an operation to disarm the
Young Turks.
The Balkan and World Wars
During the First
(1912-1913) and the Second Balkan War (1913) fierce battles were
fought in and around Prilep. Such is the Battle of Prilep between
the armies of the Kingdom of Serbia and the Ottoman Empire, in which
the Ottoman army was defeated. The end of the wars was marked by the
Bucharest Agreement, by which Macedonia was divided, and Prilep was
utterly destroyed and devastated, as part of Vardar Macedonia will
enter the Kingdom of Serbia.
The spread of the ideas of the
October Revolution in Russia led to the formation of the Socialist
Workers' Party (Communists) in Belgrade in 1919, whose first local
organization in Prilep was formed the same year, by supporters of
socialist ideas.
In April 1941 Prilep fell under fascist
occupation. On April 8 of that year, the German fascist army entered
the city, and on April 26, the Bulgarian army entered. From the
first days of the occupation, there was resistance, and finally on
October 11, 1941, with the attack on the Bulgarian police station by
the Prilep partisan detachment "Goce Delchev", the anti-fascist
popular uprising against the occupying government began. During the
war, the population of the town and the surrounding villages became
actively involved in the fighting. The Union of Communist Youth of
Yugoslavia (SKOJ) and the Women's Anti-Fascist Front (AFZH) also
took part in the fighting. The city was liberated on September 9,
1944, and the final liberation is on November 3 of that year. The
last battles for the liberation of the city were fought at the place
Pesjo Brtce. During the National Liberation War from Prilep and
Prilep region of 8000 participants, active fighters with weapons in
hand were 2700. Of them 650 were killed, 15 were declared national
heroes (10 killed in the National Liberation War) and 154 bearers of
the "Partisan Memorial 1941". Due to the large number of fighters
and victims that Prilep gave in the Second World War, the city was
given the epithet "hero city" after the war. After the war, the city
began to develop and prosper in all spheres.