МАНАСТИР МРКШИНА ЦРКВА ПОСЛЕДЊА СТАРА СРПСКА ШТАМПАРИЈA
MRKŠINA CRKVA MONASTERY THE LAST OLD SERBIAN PRINTING WORKS

Summary/Abstract: The last old Serbian printing works operated in the Mrkšina Crkva monastery. Hieromonk Mardarije, one of the best known Serbian printers, prepared for press two books there: the Gospel in 1562 and the Pentecostarion in 1566. Very few topics in Serbian historiography were for such a long time in the focus of the professional public as it was the case with the search for the location of the Mrkšina Crkva monastery. The only thing known about the monastery was that it had been located under Crna Gora mountain and dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord. Since 1858 to date, numerous researchers have associated the monastery with Užička Crna Gora, proposing several locations in Kosjerić and the environs, where two futile archaeological excavations were carried out. Once, the immediate environs of Valjevo were connected with Crna Gora. The Mrkšinac monastery in the Pambukovica village in Tamnava of Valjevo was also stated as a possible location, in analogy with the feast to which the monastery was dedicated – the Ascension of the Lord. Based on Ottoman sources, it was established that the Mrkšina Crkva monastery had not existed in the environs of Kosjerić. On the other hand, the Mrkšina Crkva village was found in the Vlach census of the Valjevo nahiye from 1528. The analysis of sources has shown that the village was created or restored after the conquest of Belgrade and Šabac in 1521 and that it was located in Parlog, in the area of today’s village of Pambukovica. After the abolition of the Vlach status, in the early 1530s, the Mrkšina Crkva village was joined to the neighbouring, larger village of Donja Bukovica. With the subsequent addition of the hamlet of Paun, the village was given another name – Paunova Bukovica (Pambukovica). In this village, in the late 1530s or early 1540s, the church built by Mrkša was transformed into the Mrkšina Crkva monastery and was mentioned under that name in later Ottoman censuses. The Mrkšina Crkva monastery later changed its name and in 1741 was entered in its shorter form of Mrkšinac, which it still carries. It has also been determined in the paper that Crna Gora was the old name of Vlašić mountain and its eastern slopes, in whose foothills the Mrkšinac monastery and the Pambukovica village are located.

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