Tešan Podrugović

Tešan Podrugović
Born	Тешан Подруговић 1775 Kazanci, Gacko, Herzegovina, Ottoman Empire
Died	1815 Sremski Karlovci, Austrian Empire
Nationality	Ottoman, Austrian
Occupation	Serbian hayduk, storyteller and gusle player

Tešan Podrugović (Serbian: Тешан Подруговић) (Kazanci, Gacko, Herzegovina, Ottoman Empire 1775 — Sremski Karlovci, Austrian Empire 1815) was Serbian hayduk, storyteller and gusle player (Serbian: guslar) who participated in the First Serbian Uprising and Second Serbian Uprising. He was one of the most important sources for Serbian epic poetry recorded by Vuk Karadžić. Podrugović did not sing but used to 'speak' his poems; he understood and felt the poems and thought about what he said.

Podrugović's family was from the village of Kazanci in the municipality of Gacko. Tešan Podrugović was about forty years old when he first began collaborating with Vuk Karadžić. As a youth in Bosnia, Podrugović killed a Muslim who had raped a girl in his family. He fled to become a hajduk, then joined the first Serbian uprising under Karađorđe in 1804. He fought bravely, but quarreled with his commanding officer and left the army to cross the Danube into Austrian-occupied Srem after the Ottomans recaptured Belgrade. He made his living as a guslar reciting epic poems and, as soon as the Second Serbian Uprising broke out in 1815, he joined the forces of Miloš Obrenović. Podrugović considered fighting to be more important than reciting poetry at the time.

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