What happened
In a dark, narrow gorge of the Rogačica river below Mount Povlen stands a wood-and-stone watermill known as the Jagodić mill. According to folk tradition it was the home of Sava Savanović, a vampire who killed the millers who came to grind their grain and drank their blood. The legend was popularised by the Serbian writer Milovan Glišić in his story “Ninety Years Later” and later by the horror film “Leptirica” (1973). The mill worked until the late 1950s and then fell into disrepair. In 2012, only a month after a new access road was built, its roof collapsed. The municipal authorities then issued a tongue-in-cheek warning that Sava had lost his home and might be looking for a new one – a story that went around the world. Zarožje and the town of Valjevo, which made him its mascot in 2010, even quarrelled over who the vampire belonged to.
Explanations and hypotheses
Sava Savanović is a literary and folkloric figure – there is no trace of a historical person of that name, and the tale owes its fame mainly to Glišić's story. The council's 2012 warning was a humorous publicity gesture, although journalists reported that some older residents took the story seriously. By 2018 the mill had been rebuilt as a tourist attraction.
Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.
Sources
- Politika – Srušila se vodenica vampira Save (2012)
- HuffPost UK – Vampire Sava Savanovic Is On The Loose, Serbian Village Council Warns (2012)
- Tamara Jurković, Balkan Vampire Myth: Urban Legends or a Publicity Tool? (Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brașov, Series IV, 2022)
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