Janko Mitrović

Janko Mitrović (; 1613–1659) was a harambaša (Ottoman for "bandit leader"), and the commander of the Morlach army, in the service of the Republic of Venice, from 1648 until his death in 1659. He participated in the Cretan War (1645–69), alongside Ilija Smiljanić, as the supreme commanders of the Venetian Morlach troops, of which he is enumerated in Croatian and Serb epic poetry (as Janko of Kotari, Јанко од Котара). His son, Stojan Janković, followed in his father's footsteps.

Life Janko was the son of Mitar (born c. 1585 ), whose family hailed from the villages of Zelengrad or Žegar in the area of Bukovica. Janko had brothers Jovan, Stjepan, Pavle, and Andrija, and probably was among the youngest brothers. In 1648, when the Ottoman army took their village, the Mitrovići and 70 other Žegar families settled in the small village of Budin near Posedarje, under Venetian control. According to one document, stating that they had many people of the same confession faithful to the Roman Church, it is argued that they were Roman Catholics. According to latest theory, based on tradition recorded by Andrija Kačić Miošić, Mitrovići were a branch of Kačić noble family, whose member Gašpar was a grandson of Mitar who lived in Vrana (branch called Kačić-Mitrović), and as Janković's family was related to the same place by Miošić, hence the branch was called Mitrovići. This theory is supported by the fact the area was mostly inhabited by a Catholic population, and the Mitrović's family was therefore declared Catholic by some sources. This is also backed up with the fact that the Mitrović family was Serbian Orthodox and Janko's son Stojan in 1675 commissioned the building of a Serbian Orthodox Church in the name of Saint George (Đurđevdan was slava of family of Stojan Janković). This church was built on the families estate in village Islam Grčki. According to another thought, Mitar and eponymous founder of the family, had come from the Dinara mountain, and therefor most probably was not Croatian.