The Balkans Part 4

15

_The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction of Serbian Independence_, 1168-1496

From 1168 the power of the Serbs, or rather of the central Serb state of Raska, and the extent of its territory gradually but steadily increased.

This was outwardly expressed in the firm establishment on the throne of the national Nemanja dynasty, which can claim the credit of having by its energy, skill, and good fortune fashioned the most imposing and formidable state the Serb race has ever known. This dynasty ruled the country uninterruptedly, but not without many quarrels, feuds, and rivalries amongst its various members, from 1168 until 1371, when it became extinct.

There were several external factors which at this time favoured the rise of the Serbian state. Byzantium and the Greek Empire, to which the Emperor Manuel Comnenus had by 1168 restored some measure of its former greatness and splendour, regaining temporary control, after a long war with Hungary, even over Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia, after this date began definitively to decline, and after the troublous times of the fourth crusade (1204), when for sixty years a Latin empire was established on the Bosphorus, never again recovered as a Christian state the position in the Balkan peninsula which it had so long enjoyed. Bulgaria, too, after the meteoric glory of its second empire under the Asen dynasty (1186-1258), quite went to pieces, the eastern and northern parts falling under Tartar, the southern under Greek influence, while the western districts fell to Serbia. In the north, on the other hand, Hungary was becoming a dangerous and ambitious neighbour. During the thirteenth century, it is true, the attention of the Magyars was diverted by the irruption into and devastation of their country by their unwelcome kinsmen from Asia, the Tartars, who wrought great havoc and even penetrated as far as the Adriatic coast. Nevertheless Hungary was always a menace to Serbia; Croatia, Slavonia, and the interior of Dalmatia, all purely Serb territories, belonged to the Hungarian crown, and Bosnia was under the supremacy of the Magyars, though nominally independent.

The objects of the Magyars were twofold--to attain the hegemony of the Balkan peninsula by conquering all the still independent Serb territories, and to bring the peninsula within the pale of Rome. They were not successful in either of these objects, partly because their wars with the Serbian rulers always failed to reach a decision, partly because their plans conflicted with those of the powerful Venetian republic. The relations between Venice and Serbia were always most cordial, as their ambitions did not clash; those of Venice were not continental, while those of Serbia were never maritime. The semi-independent Slavonic city-republic of Ragusa (called Dubrovnik in Serbian) played a very important part throughout this period. It was under Venetian supremacy, but was self-governing and had a large fleet of its own. It was the great place of exchange between Serbia and western Europe, and was really the meeting-place of East and West. Its relations with Serbia were by no means always peaceful; it was a Naboth's vineyard for the rulers and people of the inland kingdom, and it was never incorporated within their dominions.

Ragusa and the other cities of the Dalmatian coast were the home during the Middle Ages of a flourishing school of Serbian literature, which was inspired by that of Italy. The influence of Italian civilization and of the Italian Church was naturally strong in the Serb province, much of which was under Venetian rule; the reason for this was that communication by sea with Italy was easier and safer than that by land with Serbia. The long, formidable ranges of limestone mountains which divide the Serbian interior from the Adriatic in almost unbroken and parallel lines have always been a barrier to the extension of Serb power to the coast, and an obstacle to free commercial intercourse. Nevertheless Ragusa was a great trade centre, and one of the factors which most contributed to the economic strength of the Serbian Empire.

The first of the Nemanja dynasty was Stephen, whose t.i.tle was still only _Veliki ['Z]upan_; he extended Serb territory southwards at the expense of the Greeks, especially after the death of Manuel Comnenus in 1180. He also persecuted the Bogomils, who took refuge in large numbers in the adjacent Serb state of Bosnia. Like many other Serbian rulers, he abdicated in later life in favour of his younger son, Stephen, called Nemanjie (= Nemanya's son), and himself became a monk (1196), travelling for this purpose to Mount Athos, the great monastic centre and home of theological learning of the Eastern Church. There he saw his youngest son, who some years previously had also journeyed thither and entered a monastery, taking the name of Sava.

It was the custom for every Serbian ruler to found a sort of memorial church, for the welfare of his own soul, before his death, and to decorate and endow it lavishly. Stephen and his son together superintended the erection in this sense of the church and monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos, which became a famous centre of Serbian church life. Stephen died shortly after the completion of the building in 1199, and was buried in it, but in 1207 he was reinterred in the monastery of Studenica, in Serbia, also founded by him.

The reign of Stephen Nernanji['c] (1196-1223) opened with a quarrel between him and his elder brother, who not unnaturally felt he ought to have succeeded his father; the Bulgarians profited by this and seized a large part of eastern Serbia, including Belgrade, Nish, Prizren, and Skoplje. This, together with the fall of Constantinople and the establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204, alarmed the Serbs and brought about a reconciliation between the brothers, and in 1207 Sava returned to Serbia to organise the Church on national lines. In 1219 he journeyed to Nicaea and extracted from the Emperor Theodore Lascaris, who had fallen on evil days, the concession for the establishment of an autonomous national Serbian Church, independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Sava himself was at the head of the new inst.i.tution. In 1220 he solemnly crowned his brother King _(Kralj)_ of Serbia, the natural consequence of his activities in the previous year. For this reason Stephen Nemanji['c]

is called 'The First-Crowned'. He was succeeded in 1223 by his son Stephen Radoslav, and he in turn was deposed by his brother Stephen Vladislav in 1233. Both these were crowned by Sava, and Vladislav married the daughter of Tsar John Asen II, under whom Bulgaria was then at the height of her power. Sava journeyed to Palestine, and on his return paid a visit to the Bulgarian court at Tirnovo, where he died in 1236. His body was brought to Serbia and buried in the monastery of Mile[)s]evo, built by Vladislav.

This extremely able churchman and politician, who did a great deal for the peaceful development of his country, was canonized and is regarded as the patron saint of Serbia.

The reign of Vladislav's son and successor, Stephen Uro[)s] I (1242-76), was characterized by economic development and the strengthening of the internal administration. In external affairs he made no conquests, but defeated a combination of the Bulgarians with Ragusa against him, and after the war the Bulgarian ruler married his daughter. In his wars against Hungary he was unsuccessful, and the Magyars remained in possession of a large part of northern Serbia. In 1276 he was deposed by his son, Stephen Dragutin, who in his turn, after an unsuccessful war against the Greeks, again masters of Constantinople since 1261, was deposed and succeeded by his brother, Stephen Uro[)s] II, named Milutin, in 1282. This king ruled from 1282 till 1321, and during his reign the country made very great material progress; its mineral wealth especially, which included gold and silver mines, began to be exploited. He extended the boundaries of his kingdom in the north, making the Danube and the Save the frontier. The usual revolt against paternal authority was made by his son Stephen, but was unsuccessful, and the rebel was banished to Constantinople.

It was the custom of the Serbian kings to give appanages to their sons, and the inevitable consequence of this system was the series of provincial rebellions which occurred in almost every reign. When the revolt succeeded, the father (or brother) was granted in his turn a small appanage. In this case it was the son who was exiled, but he was recalled in 1319 and a reconciliation took place. Milutin died in 1321 and was succeeded by his son, Stephen Uro[)s] III, who reigned till 1331. He is known as Stephen De[)c]anski, after the memorial church which he built at De[)c]ani in western Serbia. His reign was signalized by a great defeat of the combined Bulgarians and Greeks at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330. The following year his son, Stephen Du[)s]an, rebelled against him and deposed him. Stephen Du[)s]an, who reigned from 1331 till 1355, was Serbia's greatest ruler, and under him the country reached its utmost limits.

Provincial and family revolts and petty local disputes with such places as Ragusa became a thing of the past, and he undertook conquest on a grand scale. Between 1331 and 1344 he subjected all Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, and Epirus. He was careful to keep on good terms with Ragusa and with Hungary, then under Charles Robert. He married the sister of the Bulgarian ruler, and during his reign Bulgaria was completely under Serbian supremacy. The anarchy and civil war which had become perennial at Constantinople, and the weakening of the Greek Empire in face of the growing power of the Turks, no doubt to some extent explain the facility and rapidity of his conquests; nevertheless his power was very formidable, and his success inspired considerable alarm in western Europe. This was increased when, in 1345, he proclaimed his country an empire. He first called together a special Church council, at which the Serbian Church, an archbishopric, whose centre was then at Pe['c] (in Montenegro, Ipek in Turkish), was proclaimed a Patriarchate, with Archbishop Joannice as Patriarch; then this prelate, together with the Bulgarian Patriarch, Simeon, and Nicholas, Archbishop of Okhrida, crowned Stephen Tsar of the Serbs, Bulgars, and Greeks. Upon this the Patriarch of Constantinople gave himself the vain satisfaction of anathematizing the whole of Serbia, as a punishment for this insubordination.

In 1353 the Pope, Innocent VI, persuaded King Louis of Hungary to undertake a crusade against Serbia in the name of Catholicism, but Stephen defeated him and re-established his frontier along the Save and Danube.

Later he conquered the southern half of Dalmatia, and extended his empire as far north as the river Cetina. In 1354 Stephen Du[)s]an himself approached the Pope, offering to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy, if he would support him against the Hungarians and the Turks. The Pope sent him an emba.s.sy, but eventually Stephen could not agree to the papal conditions, and concluded an alliance, of greater practical utility, with the Venetians. In 1355, however, he suddenly died, at the age of forty-six, and thus the further development and aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of his country was prematurely arrested.

Stephen Du[)s]an made a great impression on his contemporaries, both by his imposing personal appearance and by his undoubted wisdom and ability.

He was especially a great legislator, and his remarkable code of laws, compiled in 1349 and enlarged in 1354, is, outside his own country, his greatest t.i.tle to fame. During Stephen Du[)s]an's reign the political centre of Serbia, which had for many years gradually tended to shift southwards towards Macedonia, was at Skoplje (uskub in Turkish), which he made his capital. Stephen Du[)s]an's empire extended from the Adriatic in the west to the river Maritsa in the east, from the Save and Danube in the north to the Aegean; it included all the modern kingdoms of Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, and most of Greece, Dalmatia as far north as the river Cetina, as well as the fertile Morava valley, with Nish and Belgrade--the whole eastern part of Serbia, which had for long been under either Bulgar or Magyar control. It did not include the cities of Salonika or Ragusa, nor any considerable part of the modern kingdom of Bulgaria, nor Bosnia, Croatia, North Dalmatia, nor Slavonia (between the Save and Drave), ethnologically all purely Serb lands. From the point of view of nationality, therefore, its boundaries were far from ideal.

Stephen Du[)s]an was succeeded by his son, known as Tsar Uro[)s], but he was as weak as his father had been strong. Almost as soon as he succeeded to the throne, disorders, rebellions, and dissensions broke out and the empire rapidly fell to pieces. With Serbia, as with Bulgaria, the empire entirely hinged on the personality of one man, and when he was gone chaos returned. Such an event for Serbia at this juncture was fatal, as a far more formidable foe than the ruler's rebellious relations was advancing against it. The Turkish conquests were proceeding apace; they had taken Gallipoli in 1354 and Demotika and Adrianople in 1361. The Serbs, who had already had an unsuccessful brush with the advance guard of the new invaders near Demotika in 1351, met them again on the Maritsa river in 1371, and were completely defeated. Several of the upstart princes who had been pulling Stephen Du[)s]an's empire to pieces perished, and Tsar Uro[)s] only survived the battle of the Maritsa two months; he was unmarried, and with him died the Nemanja dynasty and the Serbian Empire.

After this disaster the unity of the Serbian state was completely destroyed, and it has never since been restored in the same measure.

That part of the country to the south of Skoplje fell completely under Turkish control; it was here that the famous national hero, Marko Kraljevi['c] (or King's son), renowned for his prowess, ruled as a va.s.sal prince and mercenary soldier of the Turks; his father was one of the rebel princes who fell at the battle of the river Maritsa in 1371. North of Skoplje, Serbia, with Kru[)s]evac as a new political centre, continued to lead an independent but precarious existence, much reduced in size and glory, under a native ruler, Prince Lazar; all the conquests of Stephen Du[)s]an were lost, and the important coastal province of Zeta, which later developed into Montenegro, had broken away and proclaimed its autonomy directly after the death of Tsar Uro[)s].

In 1375 a formal reconciliation was effected with the Patriarch of Constantinople; the ban placed on the Serbian Church in 1352 was removed and the independence of the Serbian Patriarchate of Pe['c] (Ipek) recognised. Meanwhile neither Greeks, Bulgars, nor Serbs were allowed any peace by the Turks.

In 1389 was fought the great battle of Kosovo Polje, or the Field of Blackbirds, a large plain in Old Serbia, at the southern end of which is Skoplje. At this battle Serbian armies from all the Serb lands, including Bosnia, joined together in defence of their country for the last time. The issue of the battle was for some time in doubt, but was decided by the treachery and flight at the critical moment of one of the Serb leaders, Vuk Brankovi['c], son-in-law of Prince Lazar, with a large number of troops. Another dramatic incident was the murder of Sultan Murad in his tent by another Serbian leader, Milo[)s] Obili['c], who, accused of treachery by his own countrymen, vowed he would prove his good faith, went over to the Turks and, pretending to be a traitor, gained admission to the Sultan's presence and proved his patriotism by killing him. The momentary dismay was put an end to by the energetic conduct of Bayezid, son of Murad, who rallied the Turkish troops and ultimately inflicted total defeat on the Serbians. From the effects of this battle Serbia never recovered; Prince Lazar was captured and executed; his wife, Princess Milica, had to give her daughter to Bayezid in marriage, whose son thus ultimately claimed possession of Serbia by right of inheritance. Princess Milica and her son Stephen continued to live at Kru[)s]evac, but Serbia was already a tributary of Turkey. In the north, Hungary profited by the course of events and occupied Belgrade and all northern Serbia, but in 1396 the Turks defeated the Magyars severely at the battle of Nikopolis, on the Danube, making the Serbs under Stephen fight on the Turkish side.

Stephen also had to help Sultan Bajazet against the Tartars, and fought at the battle of Angora, in 1402, when Tamerlane captured Bayezid.

After Stephen returned to Serbia he made an alliance with Hungary, which gave him back Belgrade and northern Serbia; it was at this time (1403) that Belgrade first became the capital, the political centre having in the course of fifty years moved from the Vardar to the Danube. The disorders which followed the defeat of Bayezid gave some respite to the Serbs, but Sultan Murad II (1421-51) again took up arms against him, and invaded Serbia as far as Kru[)s]evac.

At the death of Stephen (Lazarevi['c]), in 1427, he was succeeded as _Despot_ by his nephew, George Brankovi['c]; but the Sultan, claiming Serbia as his own, immediately declared war on him. The Serbian ruler had to abandon Belgrade to the Magyars, and Nish and Kru[)s]evac to the Turks.

He then built and fortified the town of Smederevo (or s.e.m.e.ndria) lower down on the Danube, in 1428, and made this his capital. He gave his daughter in marriage to the Sultan, but in spite of this war soon broke out again, and in 1441 the Turks were masters of nearly the whole of Serbia. Later George Brankovi['c] made another alliance with Hungary, and in 1444, with the help of John Hunyadi, defeated the Turks and liberated the whole of Serbia as far as the Adriatic, though he remained a tributary of the Sultan. The same year, however, the Magyars broke the treaty of peace just concluded with the Turks, and marched against them under their Polish king, Ladislas; this ended in the disastrous battle of Varna, on the Black Sea, where the king lost his life. In 1451 Sultan Murad II died and was succeeded by the Sultan Mohammed. In 1453 this sultan captured Constantinople (Adrianople had until then been the Turkish capital); in 1456 his armies were besieging Belgrade, but were defeated by John Hunyadi, who, unfortunately for the Serbs, died of the plague shortly afterwards. George Brankovi['c] died the same year, and at his death general disorder spread over the country. The Turks profited by this, overran the whole of Serbia, and in 1459 captured Smederevo, the last Serbian stronghold.

Meanwhile Bosnia had been for nearly a hundred years enjoying a false security as an independent Serb kingdom. Its rulers had hitherto been known by the t.i.tle of _Ban_, and were all va.s.sals of the King of Hungary; but in 1377 Ban Tvrtko profited by the embarra.s.sments of his suzerain in Poland and proclaimed himself king, the neighbouring kingdom of Serbia having, after 1371, ceased to exist, and was duly crowned in Saint Sava's monastery of Mile[)s]evo. The internal history of the kingdom was even more turbulent than had been that of Serbia. To the endemic troubles of succession and alternating alliances and wars with foreign powers were added those of confession. Bosnia was always a no man's land as regards religion; it was where the Eastern and Western Churches met, and consequently the rivalry between them there was always, as it is now, intense and bitter. The Bogomil heresy, too, early took root in Bosnia and became extremely popular; it was the obvious refuge for those who did not care to become involved in the strife of the Churches. One of the kings of Bosnia, Stephen Thomas, who reigned from 1444 till 1461, was himself a Bogomil, and when at the insistence of the Pope and of the King of Hungary, whose friendship he was anxious to retain, he renounced his heresy, became ostensibly a Roman Catholic, and began to persecute the Bogomils, he brought about a revolution. The rebels fled to the south of Bosnia, to the lands of one Stephen, who sheltered them, proclaimed his independence of Bosnia, and on the strength of the fact that Saint Sava's monastery of Mile[)s]evo was in his territory, announced himself Herzog, or Duke (in Serbian Herceg, though the real Serb equivalent is _Vojvoda_) of Saint Sava, ever since when (1448) that territory has been called Hercegovina. In spite of many promises, neither the Pope nor the King of Hungary did anything to help Bosnia when the Turks began to invade the country after their final subjection of Serbia in 1459. In 1463 they invaded Bosnia and pursued, captured, and slew the last king; their conquest of the country was complete and rapid. A great exodus of the Serb population took place to the south, west, and north; but large numbers, especially of the landowning cla.s.s, embraced the faith of their conquerors in order to retain possession of their property. In 1482 a similar fate befell Hercegovina. Albania had already been conquered after stubborn resistance in 1478. There remained only the mountainous coastal province of Zeta, which had been an independent princ.i.p.ality ever since 1371. Just as inland Serbia had perished between the Turkish hammer and the Hungarian anvil, so maritime Serbia was crushed between Turkey and Venice, only its insignificance and inaccessibility giving it a longer lease of independent life. Ivan Crnojevi['c], one of the last independent rulers of Zeta, who had to fly to Italy in 1480, abandoning his capital, [)Z]abljak, to the Turks, returned in 1481, when the death of Sultan Mohammed temporarily raised the hopes of the mountaineers, and founded Cetinje and made it his capital. His son George, who succeeded him and ruled from 1490 till 1496, is famous as having set up the first Serbian printing-press there. Its activities were naturally not encouraged by the Turkish conquest, but it was of great importance to the national Serbian Church, for which books were printed with it.

In 1496, Venice having wisely made peace with the Sultan some years previously, this last independent sc.r.a.p of Serb territory was finally incorporated in the Turkish dominions. At the end of the fifteenth century the Turks were masters of all the Serb lands except Croatia, Slavonia, and parts of Dalmatia, which belonged to Hungary, and the Dalmatian coast and islands, which were Venetian. The Turkish conquest of Serbia, which began in 1371 at the battle of the Maritsa, and was rendered inevitable by the battle of Kosovo Polje, in 1389, thus took a hundred and twenty-five years to complete.

16

_The Turkish Dominion_, 1496-1796

The lot of the Serbs under Turkish rule was different from that of their neighbours the Bulgars; and though it was certainly not enviable, it was undoubtedly better. The Turks for various reasons never succeeded in subduing Serbia and the various Serb lands as completely as they had subdued, or rather annihilated, Bulgaria. The Serbs were spread over a far larger extent of territory than were the Bulgars, they were further removed from the Turkish centre, and the wooded and mountainous nature of their country facilitated even more than in the case of Bulgaria the formation of bands of brigands and rebels and militated against its systematic policing by the Turks. The number of centres of national life, Serbia proper, Bosnia, Hercogovina, and Montenegro, to take them in the chronological order of their conquest by the Turks, had been notoriously a source of weakness to the Serbian state, as is still the case to-day, but at the same time made it more difficult for the Turks to stamp out the national consciousness. What still further contributed to this difficulty was the fact that many Serbs escaped the oppression of Turkish rule by emigrating to the neighbouring provinces, where they found people of their own race and language, even though of a different faith. The tide of emigration flowed in two directions, westwards into Dalmatia and northwards into Slavonia and Hungary. It had begun already after the final subjection of Serbia proper and Bosnia by the Turks in 1459 and 1463, but after the fall of Belgrade, which was the outpost of Hungary against the Turks, in 1521, and the battle of Mohacs, in 1526, when the Turks completely defeated the Magyars, it a.s.sumed great proportions. As the Turks pushed their conquests further north, the Serbs migrated before them; later on, as the Turks receded, large Serb colonies sprang up all over southern Hungary, in the Banat (the country north of the Danube and east of the Theiss), in Syrmia (or Srem, in Serbian, the extreme eastern part of Slavonia, between the Save and the Danube), in Ba[)c]ka (the country between the Theiss and Danube), and in Baranya (between the Danube and the Drave). All this part of southern Hungary and Croatia was formed by the Austrians into a military borderland against Turkey, and the Croats and immigrant Serbs were organized as military colonists with special privileges, on the a.n.a.logy of the Cossacks in southern Russia and Poland.

In Dalmatia the Serbs played a similar role in the service of Venice, which, like Austria-Hungary, was frequently at war with the Turks. During the sixteenth century Ragusa enjoyed its greatest prosperity; it paid tribute to the Sultan, was under his protection, and never rebelled. It had a quasi monopoly of the trade of the entire Balkan peninsula. It was a sanctuary both for Roman Catholic Croats and for Orthodox Serbs, and sometimes acted as intermediary on behalf of its co-religionists with the Turkish authorities, with whom it wielded great influence. Intellectually also it was a sort of Serb oasis, and the only place during the Middle Ages where Serbian literature was able to flourish.

Montenegro during the sixteenth century formed part of the Turkish province of Scutari. Here, as well as in Serbia proper, northern Macedonia (known after the removal northwards of the political centre, in the fourteenth century, as Old Serbia), Bosnia, and Hercegovina, the Turkish rule was firmest, but not harshest, during the first half of the sixteenth century, when the power of the Ottoman Empire was at its height. Soon after the fall of Smederevo, in 1459, the Patriarchate of Pe['c] (Ipek) was abolished, the Serbian Church lost its independence, was merged in the Greco-Bulgar Archbishopric of Okhrida (in southern Macedonia), and fell completely under the control of the Greeks. In 1557, however, through the influence of a Grand Vizier of Serb nationality, the Patriarchate of Pe['c] was revived. The revival of this centre of national life was momentous; through its agency the Serbian monasteries were restored, ecclesiastical books printed, and priests educated, and more fortunate than the Bulgarian national Church, which remained under Greek management, it was able to focus the national enthusiasms and aspirations and keep alive with hope the flame of nationality amongst those Serbs who had not emigrated.

Already, in the second half of the sixteenth century, people began to think that Turkey's days in Europe were numbered, and they were encouraged in this illusion by the battle of Lepanto (1571). But the seventeenth century saw a revival of Turkish power; Krete was added to their empire, and in 1683 they very nearly captured Vienna. In the war which followed their repulse, and in which the victorious Austrians penetrated as far south as Skoplje, the Serbs took part against the Turks; but when later the Austrians were obliged to retire, the Serbs, who had risen against the Turks at the bidding of their Patriarch a.r.s.en III, had to suffer terrible reprisals at their hands, with the result that another wholesale emigration, with the Patriarch at its head, took place into the Austro-Hungarian military borderland. This time it was the very heart of Serbia which was abandoned, namely, Old Serbia and northern Macedonia, including Pe['c] and Prizren. The vacant Patriarchate was for a time filled by a Greek, and the Albanians, many of whom were Mohammedans and therefore Turcophil, spread northwards and eastwards into lands that had been Serb since the seventh century. From the end of the seventeenth century, however, the Turkish power began unmistakably to wane. The Treaty of Carlowitz (1699) left the Turks still in possession of Syrmia (between the Danube and Save) and the Banat (north of the Danube), but during the reign of the Emperor Charles VI their retreat was accelerated. In 1717 Prince Eugen of Savoy captured Belgrade, then, as now, a bulwark of the Balkan peninsula against invasion from the north, and by the Treaty of Pa.s.sarowitz (Po[)z]arevac, on the Danube), in 1718, Turkey not only retreated definitively south of the Danube and the Save, but left a large part of northern Serbia in Austrian hands. By the same treaty Venice secured possession of the whole of Dalmatia, where it had already gained territory by the Treaty of Curlowitz in 1699.

But the Serbs soon found out that alien populations fare little better under Christian rule, when they are not of the same confession as their rulers, than under Mohammedan. The Orthodox Serbs in Dalmatia suffered thenceforward from relentless persecution at the hands of the Roman Catholics. In Austria-Hungary too, and in that part of Serbia occupied by the Austrians after 1718, the Serbs discovered that the Austrians, when they had beaten the Turks largely by the help of Serbian levies, were very different from the Austrians who had encouraged the Serbs to settle in their country and form military colonies on their frontiers to protect them from Turkish invasion. The privileges promised them when their help had been necessary were disregarded as soon as their services could be dispensed with. Austrian rule soon became more oppressive than Turkish, and to the Serbs' other woes was now added religious persecution. The result of all this was that a counter-emigration set in and the Serbs actually began to return to their old homes in Turkey. Another war between Austria-Hungary and Turkey broke out in 1737, in which the Austrians were unsuccessful. Prince Eugen no longer led them, and though the Serbs were again persuaded by their Patriarch, a.r.s.en IV, to rise against the Turks, they only did so half-heartedly. By the Treaty of Belgrade, in 1739, Austria had to withdraw north of the Save and Danube, evacuating all northern Serbia in favour of the Turks. From this time onwards the lot of the Serbs, both in Austria-Hungary and in Turkey, went rapidly from bad to worse. The Turks, as the power of their empire declined, and in return for the numerous Serb revolts, had recourse to measures of severe repression; amongst others was that of the final abolition of the Patriarchate of Pee in 1766, whereupon the control of the Serbian Church in Turkey pa.s.sed entirely into the hands of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The Austrian Government similarly, perceiving now for the first time the elements of danger which the resuscitation of the Serbian nationality would contain for the rule of the Hapsburgs, embarked on a systematic persecution of the Orthodox Serbs in southern Hungary and Slavonia. During the reign of Maria Theresa (1740-80), whose policy was to conciliate the Magyars, the military frontier zone was abolished, a series of repressive measures was pa.s.sed against those Serbs who refused to become Roman Catholics, and the Serbian nationality was refused official recognition.

The consequence of this persecution was a series of revolts which were all quelled with due severity, and finally the emigration of a hundred thousand Serbs to southern Russia, where they founded New Serbia in 1752-3.

During the reigns of Joseph II (1780-90) and Leopold II (1790-2) their treatment at the hands of the Magyars somewhat improved. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Montenegro began to a.s.sume greater importance in the extremely gradual revival of the national spirit of the Serbs. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had formed part of the Turkish dominions, though, thanks to the inaccessible nature of its mountain fastnesses, Turkish authority was never very forcibly a.s.serted.

It was ruled by a prince-bishop, and its religious independence thus connoted a certain secular freedom of thought if not of action. In the seventeenth century warlike encounters between the Turks and the Montenegrins increased in frequency, and the latter tried to enlist the help of Venice on their side but with indifferent success. The fighting in Montenegro was often rather civil in character, being caused by the ill-feeling which existed between the numerous Montenegrins who had become Mohammedans and those who remained faithful to their national Church. In the course of the eighteenth century the role which fell to Montenegro became more important. In all the other Serb countries the families which naturally took a leading part in affairs were either extinct or in exile, as in Serbia, or had become Mohammedan, and therefore to all intents and purposes Turkish, as in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Ragusa, since the great earthquake in 1667, had greatly declined in power and was no longer of international importance. In Montenegro, on the other hand, there had survived both a greater independence of spirit (Montenegro was, after all, the ancient Zeta, and had always been a centre of national life) and a number of at any rate eugenic if not exactly aristocratic Serb families; these families naturally looked on themselves and on their bishop as destined to play an important part in the resistance to and the eventual overthrow of the Turkish dominion. The prince-bishop had to be consecrated by the Patriarch of Pe['c], and in 1700 Patriarch a.r.s.en III consecrated one Daniel, of the house (which has been ever since then and is now still the reigning dynasty of Montenegro) of Petrovi['c]-Njego[)s], to this office, after he had been elected to it by the council of notables at Cetinje. Montenegro, isolated from the Serbs in the north, and precluded from partic.i.p.ating with them in the wars between Austria and Turkey by the intervening block of Bosnia, which though Serb by nationality was solidly Mohammedan and therefore pro-Turkish, carried on its feuds with the Turks independently of the other Serbs. But when Peter the Great initiated his anti-Turkish policy, and, in combination with the expansion of Russia to the south and west, began to champion the cause of the Balkan Christians, he developed intercourse with Montenegro and laid the foundation of that friendship between the vast Russian Empire and the tiny Serb princ.i.p.ality on the Adriatic which has been a quaint and persistent feature of eastern European politics ever since. This intimacy did not prevent the Turks giving Montenegro many hard blows whenever they had the time or energy to do so, and did not ensure any special protective clauses in favour of the mountain state whenever the various treaties between Russia and Turkey were concluded. Its effect was rather psychological and financial. From the time when the _Vladika_ (= Bishop) Daniel first visited Peter the Great, in 1714, the rulers of Montenegro often made pilgrimages to the Russian capital, and were always sure of finding sympathy as well as pecuniary if not armed support. Bishops in the Orthodox Church are compulsorily celibate, and the succession in Montenegro always descended from uncle to nephew. When Peter I Petrovi['c]-Njego[)s] succeeded, in 1782, the Patriarchate of Pe['c] was no more, so he had to get permission from the Austrian Emperor Joseph II to be consecrated by the Metropolitan of Karlovci (Carlowitz), who was then head of the Serbian national Church.

About the same time (1787) an alliance was made between Russia and Austria-Hungary to make war together on Turkey and divide the spoils between them. Although a great rising against Turkey was organised at the same time (1788) in the district of [)S]umadija, in Serbia, by a number of Serb patriots, of whom Kara-George was one and a certain Captain Ko[)c]a, after whom the whole war is called Ko[)c]ina Krajina (=Ko[)c]a's country), another, yet the Austrians were on the whole unsuccessful, and on the death of Joseph II, in 1790, a peace was concluded between Austria and Turkey at Svishtov, in Bulgaria, by which Turkey retained the whole of Bosnia and Serbia, and the Save and Danube remained the frontier between the two countries. Meanwhile the Serbs of Montenegro had joined in the fray and had fared better, inflicting some unpleasant defeats on the Turks under their bishop, Peter I. These culminated in two battles in 1796 (the Montenegrins, not being mentioned in the treaty of peace, had continued fighting), in which the Turks were driven back to Scutari. With this triumph, which the Emperor Paul of Russia signalized by decorating the Prince-Bishop Peter, the independence of the modern state of Montenegro, the first Serb people to recover its liberty, was _de facto_ established.

17

_The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George_ (1804-13) _and Milo[)s]

Obrenovi['c]_ (1815-30): 1796-1830

The liberation of Serbia from the Turkish dominion and its establishment as an independent state were matters of much slower and more arduous accomplishment than were the same processes in the other Balkan countries.

One reason for this was that Serbia by its peculiar geographical position was cut off from outside help. It was easy for the western powers to help Greece with their fleets, and for Russia to help Rumania and, later, Bulgaria directly with its army, because communication between them was easy. But Serbia on the one hand was separated from the sea, first by Dalmatia, which was always in foreign possession, and then by Bosnia, Hercegovina, and the _sandjak_ (or province) of Novi-Pazar, all of which territories, though ethnically Serb, were strongholds of Turkish influence owing to their large Mohammedan population. The energies of Montenegro, also cut off from the sea by Dalmatia and Turkey, were absorbed in self-defence, though it gave Serbia all the support which its size permitted. Communication, on the other hand, between Russia and Serbia was too difficult to permit of military help being rapidly and effectively brought to bear upon the Turks from that quarter. Bessarabia, Wallachia, and Moldavia were then still under Turkish control, and either they had to be traversed or the Danube had to be navigated from its mouth upwards through Turkish territory. The only country which could have helped Serbia was Austria, but as it was against their best interests to do so, the Austrians naturally did all they could not to advance, but to r.e.t.a.r.d the Serbian cause. As a result of all this Serbia, in her long struggle against the Turks, had to rely princ.i.p.ally on its own resources, though Russian diplomacy several times saved the renascent country from disaster.

Another reason for the slowness of the emanc.i.p.ation and development of modern Serbia has been the p.r.o.neness of its people to internal dissension.

There was no national dynasty on whom the leadership of the country would naturally devolve after the first successful revolution against Turkish rule, there was not even any aristocracy left, and no foreign ruler was ever asked for by the Serbs or was ever imposed on them by the other nations as in the case of Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria. On the other hand the rising against Turkey was a rising of the whole people, and it was almost inevitable that as soon as some measure of independence was gained the unity the Serbs had shown when fighting against their oppressors should dissolve and be replaced by bitter rivalries and disputes amongst the various local leaders who had become prominent during the rebellion.

These rivalries early in the nineteenth century resolved themselves into a blood-feud between two families, the Karagjorgjevi['c] and the Obrenovi['c], a quarrel that filled Serbian history and militated against the progress of the Serb people throughout the nineteenth century.

The same reasons which restricted the growth of the political independence of Serbia have also impeded, or rather made impossible, its economic development and material prosperity. Until recent years Austria-Hungary and Turkey between them held Serbia territorially in such a position that whenever Serbia either demurred at its neighbours' tariffs or wished to retaliate by means of its own, the screw was immediately applied and economic strangulation threatened. Rumania and Bulgaria economically could never be of help to Serbia, because the products and the requirements of all three are identical, and Rumania and Bulgaria cannot be expected to facilitate the sale of their neighbours' live stock and cereals, when their first business is to sell their own, while the cost of transit of imports from western Europe through those countries is prohibitive.

After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1788, already mentioned, Serbia remained in a state of pseudo-quiescence for some years. Meanwhile the authority of the Sultan in Serbia was growing ever weaker and the real power was wielded by local Turkish officials, who exploited the country, looked on it as their own property, and enjoyed semi-independence. Their exactions and cruelties were worse than had been those of the Turks in the old days, and it was against them and their troops, not against those of the Sultan, that the first battles in the Serbian war of independence were fought. It was during the year 1803 that the Serbian leaders first made definite plans for the rising which eventually took place in the following year. The ringleader was George Petrovi['c], known as Black George, or Kara-George, and amongst his confederates was Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c]. The centre of the conspiracy was at Topola, in the district of [)S]umadija in central Serbia (between the Morava and the Drina rivers), the native place of Kara-George. The first two years of fighting between the Serbians and, first, the provincial janissaries, and, later, the Sultan's forces, fully rewarded the bravery and energy of the insurgents. By the beginning of 1807 they had virtually freed all northern Serbia by their own unaided efforts and captured the towns of Po[)z]arevac, Smederevo, Belgrade, and [)S]abac. The year 1804 is also notable as the date of the formal opening of diplomatic relations directly between Serbia and Russia. At this time the Emperor Alexander I was too preoccupied with Napoleon to be able to threaten the Sultan (Austerlitz took place in November 1805), but he gave the Serbs financial a.s.sistance and commended their cause to the especial care of his amba.s.sador at Constantinople.

In 1807 war again broke out between Russia and Turkey, but after the Peace of Tilsit (June 1807) fighting ceased also between the Turks and the Russians and the Serbs, not before the Russians had won several successes against the Turks on the Lower Danube. It was during the two following years of peace that dissensions first broke out amongst the Serbian leaders; fighting the Turks was the sole condition of existence which prevented them fighting each other. In 1809-10 Russia and the Serbs again fought the Turks, at first without success, but later with better fortune.

In 1811 Kara-George was elected _Gospodar_, or sovereign, by a popular a.s.sembly, but Serbia still remained a Turkish province. At the end of that year the Russians completely defeated the Turks at Rustchuk in Bulgaria, and, if all had gone well, Serbia might there and then have achieved complete independence.