Rogozna Mountain
Rogozna Mountain /Monte Argentato/ is mountain located 12 km south-east of Novi Pazar in South-west Serbia. Rogozna Mountain range spreads along the south-west to north-east course in 20 km, dividing Raska area from the Kosovo and Metohija Province. Rogozna Mountain is situated in the triangle formed by the Raška River and the Upper and the Middle course of Ibar River, and makes the natural line of Serbia and its southern province of Kosovo and Metohija, belonging to the Municipalities of Novi Pazar, Zubin Potok, Kosovska Mitrovica, Zvečan and Leposavić. Rogozna Mountain is intersected into long slopes and steep sides by the valleys of tributaries of those rivers where deep erosion is present sporadically.
The highest summit of Rogozna Mountain is Crni Vrh which is 1504 meters high. Rogozna Mountain consists mostly of volcanic stones and at its north-east side of karst and limestone. Rogozna Mountain is covered with dense forests. The ancient caravan road that used to connect Bosnia and Skopje and Salonica /Thessaloníki/ passed across Rogozna Mountain. This road was used for trading goods until the construction of Ibar railway when small town of Raška became the central point for goods of Novi Pazar and Sandzak region. Occurrences of silver- and gold-bearing lead-zinc and copper and nickel and cobalt ore at Rogozna Mountain were subject of exploration and mining that dates back to Roman time. In the Medieval period of Serbian history there was Rogozno tiny mining center inhabited with Saxons and Dalmatian traders. Huge volcanoes eruptions made conditions for ore mining that were exploited in the Medieval time as about 40 million tons of copper and silver and gold ore deposits were found on Rogozna Mountain. Numerous mining traces are evidence of important mining activity on Rogozna Mountain.
On 14 November 1944 the soldiers of the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland /Jugoslovenska vojska u Otadzbini/ attacked the German line of the Army Group E that retreated from Greece via Skopje and Pristina and Kosovska Mitrovica. Then were liberated 11 members of the American air assault forces of the 48th Bombardment Group /part of air crew of the two B-24 brought down in Greece/ with the British intelligence officer John Lodwick and three British soldiers, and few unidentified Russian, Bulgarian and Italian soldiers. The liberated and rescued soldiers of the allied forces were first taken care in the Popovce village on the Rogozna Mountain, and further transferred to the Bulgarians who were settled in Leposavic. The released soldiers were evacuated via Nis and Sofia to the United States and Great Britain. After the war John Lodwick became the famous English writer of crimi and war novels, and had described details of this resque in his autobiography book “Bid the Soldiers Shoot”. Reports on resqued soldiers were documented in the Torretta Flyer in 1992 while the interview of John Lodwick was in 1946 published in the English Spectator Magazine. Dragisa Mijacic
The ruins of Medieval town of Jeleč which was possessed by the Queen Helen of Anjoy with related district of the same name and the school for orphanage girls were located on Rogozna Mountain in the Middle Ages. Close to this Medieval center is place where Kind Dragutin got his leg hurt in hunting and quick after had abdicated the throne in favor of his younger brother King Milutin. In the foothill of Rogozna Mountain there are numerous Serbian Medieval Monasteries worth of visiting: Bajska, Sopocani, Crna Reka, Duboki Potok Monasteries and Saint Nichola’s Monastery of Konculj and so on.
