Užice

Užice lies in the narrow valley of the Đetinja in western Serbia, beneath a fortress on a steep rocky height. A medieval possession of Serbian nobles, it became an important Ottoman town of craftsmen and merchants. Traders from Dubrovnik established a community here, while the fortress guarded the town through the wars fought between the Ottoman and Habsburg empires.

In 1373 the forces of Prince Lazar and the Bosnian ruler Tvrtko captured the fortress from Nikola Altomanović, who was blinded after his defeat. Under Ottoman rule the town prospered, and by the seventeenth century its crafts, trade and public buildings impressed the traveller Evliya Çelebi. The fortress saw repeated fighting during the Austro-Ottoman wars. During the First Serbian Uprising, insurgents attacked the town in 1805 and took the fortress in 1807; Ottoman authority returned after the uprising was defeated in 1813.