Soko Grad (Ljubovija)
Soko Grad is a former town and medieval fortification near the village of Sokolac, east of Ljubovija, western Serbia. The fortress was notable for never being conquered by an army.
History
The fortress complex is dated to medieval Serbia, however the original fort was built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, much like Soko Grad in Sokobanja. It was first recorded in 1176 as a fort of Stefan Nemanja.During the Ottoman occupation, the town became infamous for the notorious torture, persecution and conversion policy of the local orthodox population. There are documents from 1476 that mention that the administrator Sokol Kemal refortified and expanded the town's walls. For a long time, Sokol was a synonym for the Sultan's invincibility in the region; just like before, the fortress was never taken by an enemy army, getting the nickname Sultan's Bride.
It was one of the last bastions of the Turkish dominance in the region, and was one of the last fortifications in Serbia to remain in Ottoman possession. The Ottomans handed the fortified settlement and the surrounding area to Prince Mihailo Obrenović in accordance with the 1862 Kanlıca Conference. The local Muslim Slavic population was forced to either convert or leave the country. Most of them ended up in villages not far away in the Podrinje region of northeastern Bosnian eyalet, for example in Kozluk. The arrangement required the Serbs to demolish Sokol and many other major fortresses that had come under their control. Captain Petar Radojlović mined it.
The Soko Monastery was built at the foot of the town in 1994. In 2000, a large 13,6 metre cross was put on the highest point of Soko Grad with a helicopter of the Army of FR Yugoslavia.