Katarina Ivanović
LIBERATION OF BELGRADE

Afanasij Šeloumov
THE BATTLE AT MISAR

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THE FIRST SERBIAN UPRISING

The First Serbian Uprising that broke out on 14 February 1804 was not like other frequent people’s revolts during the New age that used to break out throughout Europe, and which the Ottoman Empire was known for in the centuries of its decline. The First Serbian Uprising was a national and social revolution. The first writers of its history had noted the resemblance between the American War of Independence, the French Revolution, the Italian Carbonari, the wars for independence of the South American states and the Serbian Uprisings that dramatically changed the World from 1776 to 1815. By 1848 the Serbian Revolution was the furthest to the East bourgeois revolution in the World. It was a great turning point that marked the beginning of the struggle for liberation and independence of the Balkan peoples.

The First Serbian Uprising began after the so called “hacking of the headmen”, a great punitive expedition during which the Belgrade dahis executed about seventy village leaders of the Belgrade pashalik. Ever since 1791 and the Svistof peace treaty the Serbs in the Belgrade pashalik had a certain degree of autonomy, the so called “knezes” self-rule, which was abolished when janissaries led by four dahis rebelled against the Porta. But unlike the three wars against the Ottoman Empire that the Serbs took part in the 18th century, in 1804 the Serbian Uprisers set as their goal to establish the new Serbian state.

Djordje Petrovic – Karadjordje was chosen as the leader and commander of the Uprising, and the Uprisers established the Executive Council (both legislative and executive power institution). The Constitutional Act, with its ceremonial declaration titled “Serbian Freedom” that was a Serbian version of the French Declaration of Human and Civil Rights, was passed in 1808. Although constantly at war, Serbia continually developed, her population almost doubled, increasing from four hundred thousand to as many as seven hundred thousand in 1813. Beside arms manufacturing, various trades and crafts began to flourish in the country, and the education system was crowned by the establishment of the Great School, predecessor of the University.

The First Serbian Uprising was a great European event at the beginning of the 19th century. Compared to the “Great Army” of four hundred thousand soldiers, led by Napoleon to Russia, the Uprisers’ army of twenty five thousand men did not look significant. Nevertheless, in several turns, hundreds of thousands of soldiers attacked Serbia from the directions of Vidin, Nis and Travnik, and she successfully defended herself, without Russian help. In the battles of Ivankovac in 1805 and of Misar in 1806, the Uprisers’ army showed strategic capabilities equal to any Wellington’s or Blucher’s army, the successful siege of Belgrade that was liberated on the Day of St. Andrew the First Called in 1806 echoed throughout Europe, and the courage and sacrifice of Stevan Sindjelic in the battle of Cegar in 1809, of the Nedic brothers in the battle of Cokesina and of Hajduk Veljko Petrovic in the defense of Negotin, became a part of national folklore and a myth that lives on in our time. So evident and great was the success of the Uprising, that the first monument to it was erected as early as in September 1804, in the then Austrian town of Pancevo, and in 1813 the contemporaries thought that a huge and unequaled monument should be erected to the memory of the battle of Deligrad, the last trench that withstood after the fall of Belgrade to the Ottomans, in October that same year.

One of the greatest historians of the Balkans, Trajan Stojanovic noted how in 1804, after centuries of living under the Ottoman Empire, the inhabitants of Serbia were as a community closer to neolith than to the traditions of medieval Serbian state. However, the influence of educated Serbs from abroad like Dositej Obradovic, Bozidar Grujovic and Ivan Jugovic, made Serbia ready to join European nations.

The Uprisers’ delegations traveled to Istanbul, led by Petar Icko, to Sankt Petersburg led by Father Mateja Nenadovic, and to Paris. Everybody had heard of Serbia in those times, even The New York Times paid attention. Karadjordje himself was an inspiration to Alexander Sergeivich Pushkin and the most mentioned South Slav in the English popular literature and the press during the first half of the 19th century. Serbia strived for modernization, but also for the reestablishment of Serbian state.

The fact that the Napoleonic wars were going on at the time made Austria pressured by the defeats and partly occupied by the French army incapable of taking active part in the conflict and of disabling the establishment of Serbian state. It was a historical paradox that a national and social revolution was then supported by the Russian Empire, champion of conservatism in Europe. The plans for the reestablishment of Serbia were written as soon as 1806 and 1808, by the Russian consul Rodofinikin and the Professor at the Great School Ivan Jugovic. Russian armies waged war against the Ottoman Empire on the banks of the Danube until 1809, providing not only survival, but also the spreading of the Uprising.

Although the First Serbian Uprising was suppressed, Serbian self-rule was soon restored, and after the Second Serbian Uprising of 1815, semi-autonomy was established. These were the foundations of the Principality of Serbia, which by 1878 gradually gained her full autonomy and then independence.

Cedomir Antic