Ilija Birčanin

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Ilija Birčanin (Serbian Cyrillic: Илија Бирчанин) (born 1764– died January 1804, in Valjevo, Serbia) was a Serbian knez (or duke) who was killed during the Slaughter of the Dukes (seca knezova).

As was the case with most of the prominent 19th-century Serbian families who migrated from other Serbian lands to Serbia, the Birčanin family came from the Banjani Serbian tribe from Herzegovinian Birč near Nikšić (Old Herzegovina).

Ilija Birčanin is particularly famous in Serbia because of his appearance in the epic poem "Почетак буне против дахија" ("Onset of the uprising against the dahije"). In this poem, while the Turkish governors (or dahije) are organising the Slaughter of the Dukes, they say how particularly glad they will be to kill Ilija Birčanin because of his cynical behavior. Although he was subject to the Turks and had to collect taxes for them, Birčanin used to act as if he were the chief and the Turks were his servants. Ilija Birčanin is described in the poem as "wearing his moustache under his hat".

Birčanin and the Serb chieftain Aleksandar Nenadovic were brought before a large crowd of Christian and Muslim onlookers in Valjevo, where Nenadovic was publicly accused of conspiring with Germans against the sultan. The two were then publicly decapitated and their bodies were dumped in an open meadow by the Kolubara River, causing the residents to panic and flee.