His fief (and later state) was known as Oblast Brankovića (District of Branković) or simply as Vukova zemlja (Vuk's land), which he held with the title of gospodin (lord, sir), under Prince Lazar of Serbia.

[2] Vuk was a son of Branko Mladenović (died before 1365),[3] who received the high court title of sevastokrator from Emperor Stefan Dušan (r. 1331–1355) and served as governor of Ohrid (present-day North Macedonia).

[8] Vuk took advantage of the death of King Vukašin in the Battle of Maritsa (1371) and conquered Sjenica, Zvečan, and part of the Lim River valley.

[8] Vuk's marriage to Mara, the daughter of the most powerful Serbian magnate prince Lazar Hrebeljanović, brought him substantial lands in Kosovo.

Soon after the marriage, Lazar and King Tvrtko I of Bosnia attacked župan Nikola Altomanović, who ruled in the western part of Serbia, and conquered and divided his lands in 1373.

The most important cities in Vuk's province were Priština, Prizren, Peć, Skopje, and Ras, as well as the rich mining settlements of Trepča, Janjevo, Gluhavica, and others.

After initial Serbian successes at the battles of Dubravnica (1381), Pločnik (1386), and Bileća (1388), the Ottomans launched a full-scale attack on Serbia, aiming at the very heartland of Vuk's realm in central Kosovo.

[11] Unlike Lazar, who died in the battle along with most of his army, Vuk managed to survive and preserve his army, which later gave material for a popular Serbian folk tradition (represented in folk epic poems and tales) that he betrayed Lazar in order to become supreme ruler of Serbia, a theory that is rejected by modern-day Serbian historians but not by the Serb people.