Serbian Revolution
gigatos | January 2, 2022
Summary
The Serbian Revolution (1804-1815) consisted of two uprisings of the Serbian population under Ottoman rule, first against the local Ayan and Jančar, and finally against Porta itself, which led to the creation of the autonomous Principality of Serbia over time. The first Serbian uprising was led by George the Black and the second by Milos Obrenović.
The Serbian national movement began to take shape as early as the end of the 17th century, and was generally centered in the Smederev Sandžak (Belgrade Pashalik). This was possible largely due to the existence of a strongly developed local administration in Serbian lands, as in other Balkan regions of the Ottoman Empire. However, the main factor that made this possible was the activity of the Orthodox metropolis in Peci, which maintained contact with the Russian Orthodox Church, and its authority extended to Buda, Arad, Komarom, Dalmatia, Bosnia with Herzegovina and the lands where Serbs were in the majority. It was the Orthodox Church that nurtured the memory of the heritage of the medieval Kingdom of Serbia, the role of the holy Nemanich dynasty beginning with St. Sava.
Initially, the main line of the Serbian national movement was cooperation with the Habsburg Monarchy begun during the Ottoman Empire”s war with the Holy League. In 1688, coalition troops entered Belgrade, to which Patriarch Arsenius III responded with a call to fight alongside the Christians. They were successful already in 1689 when they took Niš, Skopje, Prizren and Stip, but a year later the Turkish army took control of them again and started to march north. Arsenije III, expecting massacres by the Ottoman army against the Serbian population in retaliation, led about 30,000 families to the border with the Habsburg Empire to settle in Vojvodina. This was the first wave of the event that went down in history as the Great Serbian Migration (sr. Velika seoba Srba). The next wave was soon set in motion when Leopold I called upon the Balkan peoples to rise with a guarantee of religious freedom and lower taxes. It must be stressed, however, that the emigration was to be only temporary in view of the emigrants” hope that after the war and the takeover of Serbian lands by Austria they would be able to return to their homes.
However, the peace of Karlovice did not satisfy the Serbs, which did not discourage them from future cooperation with Vienna. Serbian participation led to a decline in the Port”s confidence in the metropolitan see of Peci, which was initially staffed with fanariots and completely abolished in 1766.
As a result of the 6th Austro-Turkish War in 1716-1718, the Peace of Požarevec was signed, which brought the main part of Serbian lands under Habsburg rule. There was a transfer of power to the Council of the House of Manor and a partial introduction of Austrian officials into the structures of local administration, which had an impact on the deterioration of Serbian relations with Vienna.
During the Seventh Austro-Turkish War of 1736-1739, after the capture of Niš by Habsburg forces, the Metropolitan of Peci Arsenius IV called on the Serbs to cooperate. However, as a result of Austria”s final defeat, the civilian population was again forced to move behind the retreating Habsburg troops and a second wave of large-scale Serbian emigration ensued. The Peace of Belgrade ceded to the Ottoman Empire the Serbian and Romanian territories acquired in 1718, but Austria retained the Banat.
There was a long period of peace between the 7th and 8th Austro-Turkish Wars. When the peace was broken in 1787, the Austrians decided to form a formation of Serbs to operate in Serbia, Bosnia and the Banat under the name Freicorps. Despite the occupation of Belgrade in 1789, the Habsburg Monarchy was forced to sign the Peace of Svištvo in 1789 due to the situation in Europe after the outbreak of the Great French Revolution, assuming the status quo. After Porta declared an amnesty for the Serbs, many of the emigrants decided to return to the Ottoman Empire. After 1791 there was a collapse of Serbian confidence in cooperating with Vienna.
After 1791 Serbian leaders were focused on restoring security in the region and forcing the Porta to expand local self-government rights. Acutely, Selim III, who was facing a weakening of his position, both against the powers and the rebellious Ayans, was ready to make some concessions. By virtue of the phirmanes of 1791, 1792, and 1794, Serbia was granted a number of privileges, such as the right to collect taxes by local notables, the assurance of interference in the case of abuses occurring in the chiflins, and the prohibition of the return of the Janissaries to Belgrade after its liberation from Austrian occupation. This met with fierce opposition from the Belgrade Janissaries, who were sent from the capital to the provinces as a result of threatening the position and even the life of the sultan, as some of Selim III”s predecessors could see. However, the anarchy associated with the Janissaries being removed from the capital moved to the place where they were exiled. They were led by a rebellious ayan from Vidin, Osman Pasvanoglu, who led an attack on Belgrade in 1797. The Porta in order to alleviate the situation sent to Serbia Haji Mustafa Pasha, who pursued a policy of respect for Serbian rights and formed a 15,000-strong Serbian militia. His policy resulted in the expulsion of Pasvanoglu from Belgrade in 1798 at Vidin, where he was besieged.
Meanwhile, there was an invasion of Egypt by French troops led by General Napoleon Bonaparte, which was formally part of the Ottoman Empire. Selim III was forced to withdraw his forces from the Balkans to focus on the defense of the region, hence he was forced to sign an agreement with Pasvanoglu. He recognized him as governor of Vidin, while the Janissaries were allowed to return to Belgrade. Haji Mustafa Pasha was assassinated, and there was internal fighting in the Pashalik of Belgrade, from which the four leaders of the Janissaries called dahi, from their rank in the corps, emerged victorious. There was a wave of terror against the Serbian leaders. In January and February 1804, local leaders were massacred to the tune of about 150 people.
The response to the massacre was an uprising that was initially spontaneous in nature. The aim of the uprising was to oust the Janissaries from the Belgrade pashalik and to implement the provisions of the firman of the 1890s, hence the movement gained the initial acceptance of the Porta. In February 1804 the assembly at Orascu, in central Shumadija, elected George the Black as supreme governor at the head of 30,000 troops. Selim III, approving of the uprising against the disobedient Janissaries, sent the vizier of Bosnia, Abu Bekir, to Serbia, whom he appointed pasha of Belgrade. The Dahi forces were defeated in August 1804, but already in the winter and spring of 1805 the Janissaries ravaged the region and exiled Abu Bekir back to Bosnia. It is worth mentioning that George the Black tried to seek support in St. Petersburg and Vienna for his activities already at this point.
Selim III, however, changed his attitude toward the insurgents in 1805, aware of the danger posed by a Christian uprising that could draw in other Balkan nations. So he sent a regular Ottoman army to Serbia, which clashed with the Black in August. This marked the beginning of the Serbian struggle against the Ottoman Empire, rather than against the Janissaries as before. In November the insurgents captured Smederevo, which became the capital of the revolutionaries, while in December Belgrade was captured, which meant the capture of the entire Pashalik.
When the 7th Russo-Turkish War broke out in the summer of 1806, the Serbian situation improved in the face of efforts by both sides to gain Serbian support. The Ports agreed to a Serbian program that included withdrawing the Janissaries from Belgrade, manning the Pashalik fortresses and borders with local troops, and autonomy within the Ottoman Empire. For Russia, Serbia”s support was of strategic importance, as the area linked Montenegro, which had been an ally of St. Petersburg during the war, conducting offensive operations in the Kotor and Budva areas, with the Danube principalities in whose territory the Russians were fighting. Eventually George the Black made a pact with Marquis Philip Osipovich Paulucci in June 1807, which provided material aid to the rebels, the extension of Russian influence into Serbia, and the possibility of promulgating a constitution in the name of Emperor Alexander I, who would appoint a governor. The problem was that Paulucci was not authorized to make such agreements and did not have the support of St. Petersburg. This coincided with the Peace of Tilsit between France and Russia, during which Emperor Napoleon I initiated negotiations between St. Petersburg and Porta. In August the Russo-Turkish truce was signed at Slobozia, which ruled out any Russian assistance to the Serbian insurgents.
At the same time, there was a split among the leaders of the uprising. Against George the Black came local leaders who were sensitive to any attempts to undermine their position in favor of the central power. This was in response to attempts by the great governor to organize taxes and judicial power. To appease the leaders in 1805 a Government Council was appointed to represent them, but George the Black staffed it exclusively with his own supporters. The final consolidation of George the Black”s power was to declare himself hereditary supreme leader in 1808.
The year 1808 saw further changes on the European international scene. The meetings between Napoleon I and Alexander I at Erfurt only illustrated the impasse over the Eastern question. Meanwhile, there was a coup at the court in Constantinople, as a result of which Selim III and his successor Mustafa IV were overthrown, and Mahmud II became sultan. The new monarch began negotiations with George the Black, but they ended in a disagreement over the delimitation of Serbian autonomy. In 1809 hostilities resumed and in August Ottoman forces attacked Belgrade. A mass migration of the Serbian population beyond the Danube occurred and the rebels were put on the defensive.
However, the Russian Empire also resumed hostilities. In 1810 a Russian-Serbian agreement on military cooperation was signed, under which aid in the form of arms, ammunition, medicines and money began to flow to Serbia, and General Mikhail Kutuzov was put in charge of the campaign against the Ottoman Empire. However, the French invasion of Russia in 1812 was followed by the signing of the Peace of Bucharest. Article VIII of the treaty allowed for the occupation of Serbia by the Ottoman Empire, which was obliged to grant amnesty to the rebels and establish limited autonomy, but also the return of Turkish garrisons to the Belgrade pashalik area.
The insurgent authorities, however, were not informed of these resolutions, which they learned about only in the course of their implementation by the Ottoman army. In October 1813 the Turkish army occupied Belgrade and George the Black and the Metropolitan of Belgrade Leontius were forced to leave the country. This marked the fall of the First Serbian Uprising.
The Porta, in accordance with Article VIII of the Treaty of Bucharest, declared a general amnesty, which resulted in the return of some emigrants from Austrian lands who had crossed the Danube in 1809. The new Pasha of Belgrade, Suleiman Uskupulu, after the army left the province, moved to subjugate local notables, including Milosz Obrenovic, the oberkness of Rudnik. This led to the outbreak of a local revolt in April 1814, which was initially met with reluctance also by a significant number of Serbian notables aware of the bleeding of human resources during the First Serbian Uprising. Miłosz was among their number. However, it soon became apparent that Uskupulu had no intention of fulfilling all the commitments agreed upon in Bucharest, especially those related to autonomy. It was then that the local rebellion turned into an uprising that once again encompassed the entire Belgrade pashalik, and was led by Milosz Obrenović.
Unlike the First Serbian Uprising, this uprising broke out in a convenient international situation for the Serbs. The Porta did not want to attract the attention of Europe, where the Napoleonic Wars had ended. Besides, Milosz announced that he was acting against Suleiman Uskupulu and not the Port, expecting Mehmed III to be conciliatory. Added to this was pressure from St. Petersburg to implement Article VIII of the Treaty of Bucharest.
And the leader of the Second Serbian Uprising, and Port were anxious to maintain peace in the region. Negotiations with Milosz Obrenovic were led by the vizier of Rumelia, Marashli Ali Pasha, which ended in November 1815 and were confirmed by the Sultan”s firman.
A semi-autonomous state creation was created under the name of the Principality of Serbia closely linked to the Ottoman Empire. The prince did not hold hereditary power, which was further weakened by the Turkish governor and other Ottoman officials and judges in Belgrade. Additionally, the Turks manned most of the Serbian strongholds. The Principality of Serbia was completely restrained in matters of foreign policy and was not granted complete autonomy in internal affairs. Already in 1817 Milosz Obrenović proclaimed himself hereditary monarch, which can be considered as the de facto end of the Serbian Revolution, although without the approval of any of the powers or the Port it was a completely meaningless act.
However, a great deal was achieved, starting with the main objectives of the First Serbian Uprising with the prohibition of the entry of the Janissaries into the Pashalik of Belgrade at the head. The Serbs gained more privileges than they had gained under the firman of Sultan Selim III in the 1890s. Serbia”s gain of a native prince was also not insignificant. The backward country was finally able to focus on its own development under the capable, albeit autocratic, Milosz Obrenovic, who was able to begin establishing a central administration.
It is also worth noting that the Serbian Revolution was the first successful national uprising on the Balkan Peninsula under Turkish rule. However, the course of the revolution was entirely dependent on the international politics of Europe, including the mood of the superpowers headed by the Habsburg Monarchy and Russia. However, Belgrade Pashalyk was a territory located on the periphery of Europe with little strategic value. Hence, St. Petersburg could leave its ally at any time without major losses, as long as Russian interests spoke for it. The Serbian Revolution was a secondary event in the history of Europe, of regional importance. It was not until another revolution within the Ottoman Empire, the Greek uprising, that the Serbian revolution gained European coverage, attracting international public opinion and crossing the interests of European powers.
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