² The only complete, critical edition of the various documents which collectively form the “Serbian privileges” is Radonić, Jovan and Kostić, Mita (eds.), Srpske privilegije od 1690 do 1792 [The Serbian Privileges from 1690 to 1792]. In Posebna Izdanja, No. 225 (Belgrade: Srpska Akademija Nauka, 1954)Google Scholar.

The emperor's appeal to the Serbs (literae invitatoriae) was issued on April 6, 1690, after General Piccolomini's death had created a crisis in the leadership of the Austrian forces in the Balkans. Patriarch Arsenije III Črnojević of Peć, already compromised in Turkish eyes, sent Bishop Isaija Djaković to the imperial officials to work out the status of the Orthodox Christians under Habsburg rule. On the basis of these negotiations, the Privilegium of August 21, 1690, was issued to the Patriarch as “Archi-Episcopo Orientalis Ecclesiae Ritus Graeci,” to the bishops and priests, “capitani et vice-capitani,” and to all communities of the Greek Rite of the “natio Rascianorum.” The texts of the two documents are in Radonić and Kostić, Srpske privilegije od 1690 do 1792, pp. 23–25, and appendix.

³ The original privilege was confirmed in a patent dated August 20, 1691, which extended the patriarch's authority to all secular matters that concerned his flock. Radonić and Kostić, Srpske privilegije od 1690 do 1792, p. 48. The patriarch and his successors were thus to have complete control over the dogma, ritual, finances, and administration of the Church members and, “in accord with ancient practice,” to exercise judicial authority over both lay and clerical persons. A vice-voivod (Jovan Monasterli) was appointed by the court early in the 1690's. He was to be under the direct supervision of the Aulic War Council. After his death no further efforts were made to fill the post, apparently with the tacit agreement of Patriarch Arsenije III and his immediate successors.

⁴ Very little can be found in the archives about the court's long-range plans for the Serbs. The language of the Privileges and their confirmations during the reign of Joseph I (1705–1711) seems to indicate that the crown did not intend to allow the majority of the recent immigrants to settle permanently in the monarchy but planned to encourage them to move south when and if the Turks were driven out of Hungarian territory.

⁵ Joseph confirmed the Privileges on August 7, 1706. A month later this confirmation patent was promulgated by the Aulic Hungarian Chancellery. The strong support given the Habsburgs by the Serbs during the kuruc rebellion was responsible for much of the bad feeling that later existed between the Magyars and the Serbs.

⁶ The number has been extrapolated from the first reliable census figure for Hungary, which was gathered in 1785–1787. At that time 962,939 adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church lived in Hungary (including Croatia-Slavonia, but excluding Transylvania and the Military Frontiers). The majority of them were probably Romanians living in the Banat of Temesvár. See Király, Béla K., Hungary in the Late Eighteenth Century: The Decline of Enlightened Despotism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), Appendix C.Google Scholar

⁷ See the “Einrichtungswerk des Königreiches Hungarn in Sachen des status politici-camaralis et bellici unter Leitung von Bischof Kollonitsch,” presented to Emperor Leopold 1 in 1688. This plan formed the basis of imperial strategy in Hungary for a long time.

⁸ The Commission was subordinated to the Treasury in 1714. It continued to be the unit of the Treasury particularly responsible for affairs in the Banat of Temesvár until it was replaced in 1749 by a special provincial administrative office (Landesadministration) in Temesvár.

⁹ Since 1714 the Metropolitanate had been located in Sremski Karlovci in Syrmia. The title of Patriarch had been refused to Arsenije III's successors, since it was considered contrary to the crown's interests as long as Austria and Turkey were at peace. Moreover, many of the Orthodox clergy felt that there should be no second Serbian prelate with that title as long as the Peć Patriarchate existed. When Arsenije IV emigrated from the Ottoman lands in 1737 he was permitted to retain his patriarchal title only ad personam.

¹⁰ Emperor Charles VI's patent was dated August 2, 1713, and promulgated through the Hungarian Chancellery on October 8. The text can be found in Radonić and Kostić, Srpske privilegije od 1690 do 1792, pp. 33–45.

¹¹ The duties of the Consilium are described in Király, Hungary in the Late Eighteenth Century, pp. 93–98. This work fills a distinct gap in English historical literature by presenting a clear picture of the origins and modus operandi of the organs of the Hungarian government in the eighteenth century.

¹² By its composition the Consilium was more responsive to the lesser nobility in the counties and more reflective of their parochialism than was the Chancellery, although both were led by the upper aristocracy.

¹³ The question of “Inarticulatio” (i. e., the naturalization of the Serbs as citizens of the realm of Hungary) was at the heart of the dispute between the Metropolitanate and the Magyar officials until 1792. The Orthodox hierarchy, on the one hand, wished to see this procedure carried out on the basis of the corporate nature of Serbian society, as contemplated by the Privileges. The Magyars, on the other hand, were willing to grant citizenship only on an individual basis, as was done when foreign nobles were naturalized, without recognition of the exemptions granted by the Privileges to the Serbs as a body.

¹⁴ The most notable of these incidents occurred in 1735, when some of the Orthodox Grenzer mutinied against pressures brought to bear on them by Croatian Catholic authorities. The Aulic War Council had to assure the Serbian regiments that this was a strictly local occurrence and to remove the guilty parties before quiet was restored.

¹⁵ For these and other early eighteenth-century complaints about violations of the letter and sense of the Leopoldine Privileges, see Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, pp. 58–72. The protests began as early as 1707, when the first sabor meeting was held on Austrian soil after the death of Patriarch Arsenije III.

¹⁶ Charles VI had already officially limited the Metropolitan's authority in secular affairs in 1729 in an imperial declaration in which he stated: “Die serbische Nation scheint die Macht des Erzbischofs in geistlichen Dingen auch auf weltliche Gegenstände ausdehnen zu wollen; da diese Herrschaft aber dem Kaiser als unmittelbaren Herrn zukommt, so hat sich der Erzbischof in zeitlichen Dingen nicht zu mischen. Die Oberherrschaft in geistlichen Sachen bleibt ihm wie bisher.” As quoted in Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, p. 60.

¹⁷ Some 40,000 immigrants led by Arsenije IV, the Patriarch at Peć, fled northwards to safety in 1737. Arsenije had actively plotted against the Turks in collusion with the Austrians during the early, and successful, stage of the war and had to flee when the Turks drove the poorly-led and miserably supplied Habsburg troops back into Austrian territory.

¹⁸ In a rescript dated April 24, 1743, which was promulgated on May 18. See the text in Radonić and Kostić, Srpske privilegije od 1690 do 1792, pp. 76–78.

¹⁹ Patriarch Arsenije's relations with the crown were strained, partly because he believed that Vienna had abandoned his co-religionists at Belgrade in 1739. His imperious nature and his deep distrust of the Roman faith impelled him to try to reverse the trend of the past twenty years by demanding a return to the letter of the original Privilegium and complete freedom of action for the hierarchy.

²⁰ The “Inarticulatio” question had been raised by the Serbs in 1709, 1715, 1723, and 1740 in petitions to the crown for transmittal to the diet. It had actually been presented to the diet for consideration in 1723, but it was rejected without serious discussion.

²¹ For a good discussion of the sabor's petition and its consideration by the Mixed Court Commission, see Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, pp. 85–95.

²² von Arneth's, Alfred Maria Theresia (9 vols., Vienna: W. Braumüller, 1863–1979)Google Scholar is still the basic study of the empress' policy. More recent works include Guglia, Eugen, Maria Theresia, ihr Leben und ihre Regierung (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1917)Google Scholar; Kretschmayr, Heinrich, Maria Theresia. In Die deutschen Führer, Vol. III (Gotha: Flamberg, 1925)Google Scholar; Kallbrunner, Josef, Kaiserin Maria Theresias politisches Testament (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1952)Google Scholar; and Walter, Friedrich, Die theresianische Staatsreform 1749 (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1958)Google Scholar. Relevant documents with helpful commentaries can be found in Kretschmayr, Heinrich and Walter, Friedrich (eds.), Die österreichische Zentralverwaltung, Vol. II, Pt. 1 (Vienna: A. Holzhausens Nachf., 1938).Google Scholar

²³ Kolowrat, along with Count Josef Philipp Kinský and Baron Johann Christoph von Bartenstein, was one of Maria Theresa's foremost advisers in internal matters during the difficult early years of her reign. Until his death in 1751 he occupied positions of great authority, particularly in financial matters.

²⁴ At this time Maria Theresa was primarily occupied with foreign affairs. Her interest in the Serbs was dictated by their military importance. About one-half of the Grenzer were Serbs, and the Grenzer, with 120,000 able-bodied soldiers, constituted by far the largest single manpower reserve in the empire. The Aulic War Council and the Hungarian Chancellery frequently found themselves at odds over the correct policy to be followed in dealing with the Greek Orthodox inhabitants. The empress presumably hoped that a permanent forum for the airing of their differences would contribute to a workable consensus.

²⁵ For a brief discussion of the establishment of this Commission, see Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, pp. 102–109. For a more detailed discussion, see the compilation by Stefan Simeonović-Čokić in Voivodina, Vol. II, pp. 71–77.

²⁶ The minutes of the meetings of the Commission are housed in the Illyrian Commission collection in the Voivodina Archive, Doc. Nos. 331 (1751–1754), 1362 and 1363 (1766–1776), and particularly 322 (1768–1771).

²⁷ The Literae invitatoriae of 1690 was addressed to all Christian peoples under Ottoman rule. The Privilegium of the same year, as well as that of 1691, was given to Orthodox Rascians (Rascianos) of Greece, Bulgaria, Rascia, Hercegovina, Dalmatia, Podgorje, Jenopolje, and “other associated places.” There was no mention of restrictions based on date of immigration or place of residence.

²⁸ It is, of course, impossible to make accurate statements about whether the delegates of the Aulic War Council and the Treasury were consistently pro- or anti-Magyar during the entire thirty-year period the Commission was in existence. Few, if any, Magyars were in key positions in both offices, but in the eighteenth century the bonds of Catholicism and the self-interest of the nobility were still more important than national affiliation. Innumerable consultations with other central offices were necessary before any final action could be taken on important matters. At these ministerial conferences and sessions of the state council the Magyar point of view frequently received considerable support from other agencies of the central government.

²⁹ This paragraph and the ones that immediately follow are based on the account given in Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, pp. 110–120. Schwicker cites Staatsrat and Hungarian Chancellery archives which were not available to me.

³⁰ It should be noted that the first explicit mention of the crown's right to approve or disapprove the election of the bishops and the Metropolitan was made at the 1748 session of the sabor. This was a fundamental innovation which the Orthodox hierarchy resisted until the succeeding sabor meeting of 1769.

³¹ The transfer of the supervision of economic, civil, and judicial affairs to other central offices was done in accord with current practice. It applied only to civil Hungary and to the Banat. Königsegg-Erps was a staunch advocate of centralization and contributed substantially to the implementation of the administrative reforms of Count Friedrich Wilhelm Haugwitz. He held several important posts in the central offices in Vienna in the 1740's and 50's. Johann Christoph von Bartenstein (1697– 1767) was one of the few high-ranking officials of Charles VI who remained in high office in Maria Theresa's reign. His forthrightness and devotion to the crown made him especially valued by the empress, who used him as one of the principal tutors of Crown Prince Joseph. His ability to command the monarch's respect was a substantial advantage to the commission's status at the court and of great help to the Serbs.

³² Königsegg-Erps' short tenure as chairman seems to have been less due to Magyar pressures than to the empress' need for reliable officials in other posts. As vice-chairman, Bartenstein had presided during Königsegg-Erp's frequent absences since 1753. He was elevated to the chairmanship on March 1, 1755.

³³ For a good summary of Bartenstein's memorandum, see Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, pp. 174–182. The original copy is in the Illyrian Commission Archive, Fasc. I, A, No. 1267. Other Bartenstein memoranda on the Serbs can be found in Alte Kabinettsakten, Fasc. I, B, Nos. 22, 31, and 37 (1754–1755). All are in the Voivodina Archive.

³⁴ This was an oblique reference to the efforts of several Metropolitans, notably Arsenije IV, to obtain jurisdiction over the Romanians of Transylvania, where they were exposed to intense Uniate proselytization. Catholic and Uniate authorities at court and in Hungary had frustrated these initiatives and were continuing to do so.

³⁵ For a summary of Koller's report on the Bartenstein memorandum, see Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, pp. 193–207. The original can be found in the Illyrian Commission Archive, Fasc. I, A, No. 1267.

³⁶ Kurzer Bericht von der Beschaffenheit der zarstreuten zahlreichen Illyrischen Nation in k. k. Erblanden. Bartenstein's manuscript was printed under this title in Frankfurt in 1802.

³⁷ An imperial decree of February, 1763, in reply to Metropolitan Pavel Nenadović's appeal for recognition of the Privileges at the forthcoming Magyar diet, called attention to the fact that the Serbs had never been admitted to the comitia regni in Hungary because they were always under the direct protection of the crown. Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, p. 225; Voivodina, Vol. II, pp. 78–79. In 1763 the government thus definitely took a tougher position than it had in 1744, when the question of the diet's jurisdiction was still open.

³⁸ In regard to what Koller did for the Serbs, see Kostić, Grof Koler kao kulturnoprosvetni reformator kod Srba u Ugarskoj. Despite his two decades of service in the Chancellery, or perhaps because of it, Koller was highly suspect to the Magyar gentry. See ibid., pp. 41–43, for an account of his position when he began serving on the Commission. For a biographical sketch, see von Wurzbach, Constantin, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, enhaltend die Lebensskizzen derjenigen Personen, welche seit 1750 in den österreichischen Kronländern gelebt und gewirkt haben (60 vols., Vienna: Universitäts-Buchdruckerei von Zamarski, 1856–1991), Vol. XII, p. 349.Google Scholar

³⁹ The instructions to the imperial commissioner were reviewed and frequently inspired by the empress, who at this juncture began devoting considerable attention to Orthodox affairs. That Maria Theresa herself decided that the time had arrived to restrict the Metropolitanate's powers and duties to purely ecclesiastical matters was made clear by the numerous revisions of and notations on the Commission's drafts in her own handwriting. Most of the specific items concerned the elimination of certain abuses in the handling of financial affairs by the bishops, the reduction of the excessive number of Orthodox holidays, and the reduction of the large number of itinerant monks and pops. The instructions can be found in Alte Kabinettsakten, Fasc. B 1396 d, Nos. 9, 78, 211, 212, 223, and 252 of 1769.

⁴⁰ The net result of the reforms approved by the sabor was largely to abolish the bishops' control over the non-ecclesiastical community in judicial and fiscal matters and to make the bishops responsible to the state in their capacity as clerical administrators.

⁴¹ The General Regulation was promulgated on September 27, 1770. For a reliable summary, see Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, pp. 280–285. In ten chapters and an appendix, the General Regulation went into every detail of the Serbian ecclesiastical organization and powers and prerogatives. It was based on, but not limited to, the reforms desired by the state which Hadik had induced the 1769 sabor to approve.

⁴² The views of the Commission's staff are fairly described in the comprehensive and perceptive work by its chief secretary, von Taube, Friedrich Wilhelm: Historische und geographische Beschreibung des Königreiches Slavonien und des Herzogthums Syrmien (2 vols., Leipzig, 1777).Google Scholar Taube had attended the Orthodox synod of 1776 and made an extensive trip through the Serbian settlements at that time. Treating every aspect of communal life among the Orthodox, Taube's book, which was dedicated to Koller, was reasonably sympathetic to the existing conditions of the Serbs (except their alleged laziness). Taube was very hopeful that they would enjoy a more prosperous and enlightened future.

⁴³ Cited in Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, pp. 292–294. Koller maintained that the 1690 Privilegium had been intended by Emperor Leopold to be only a temporary accommodation; consequently, the crown did not need to feel guilty over the recent changes made in interpreting it.

⁴⁴ Once elected, Joanović-Vidak immediately showed himself more truculent in defending the Church's autonomy than the Commission had expected him to be. He made persistent efforts to revoke or revise the General Regulation of 1770. Documents concerning the 1774 sabor and the empress' instructions are in Alte Kabinettsakten, Fasc. B 1396 d, Nos. 44, 104, 109, and 216 of 1774.

⁴⁵ Apparently in an effort to obviate the difficulties resulting from the manner in which the first Regulation was circulated, only a very limited number of copies of the second Regulation were printed and distributed to the appropriate provincial offices and to the bishops. The 1770 document had been distributed in two languages (German and Serbian) and in two forms. A complete text was sent to the bishops and civil authorities, and only an excerpt of the complete text was distributed to the lower clergy. As Schwicker noted, this resulted in “eine unglückliche Halbheit … mit sehr unangenehmen Folgen” among the Serbian populace, which was left uninformed as to the true extent of the changes. See Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, p. 277. Documents on the 1776 synod are in Alte Kabinettsakten, Fasc. B 1396 e, Nos. 299, 346, 347, and 368 of 1776. See also Illyrian Commission Archive, Doc. Nos. 1354 and 1355 of 1776.

⁴⁶ Included were restrictions on the number of holidays, a further reduction of the number of monasteries, the limitation of the number of monks, stipulations about who could become a monk, the expanded powers of the diocesan consistories, the dropping of the first Regulation's proposal to create diocesan seminaries, and regulations about making the installation of the Metropolitan dependent on the crown's approval.

⁴⁷ For the background of the Novi Sad and Vršac disturbances, see Kostić, Grof Koler kao kulturnoprosvetni reformator kod Srba u Ugarskoj, pp. 162–168. Koller's polemic with the Chancellery is summarized in Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, pp. 320–328.

⁴⁸ There was curiously little adverse reaction to the abolition of the Commission in Sremski Karlovci. My examination of the Metropolitanate's archives revealed only passing reference to this action in the correspondence of Metropolitan Vidak with court officials. The Serbs were not really consulted about the abolition of the Commission. They were simply informed about it by the Hungarian Chancellery.

⁴⁹ In somewhat belated fulfillment of a promise made by the monarch to the diet of 1741, the Banat of Temesvár was divided into three counties: Krassó, Torontal, and Temesvár. The multilateral Commission met infrequently in the early 1780's, when Joseph's reforms and reorganizational activities made it superfluous.

⁵⁰ Benignum Rescriptum Declaratorium Nationis Illyricae. Reprinted in Radonić and Kostić, Srpske privilegije od 1690 do 1792, pp. 97–125. Issued in Latin and German texts for civil Hungary and the Military Frontiers, respectively, it remained the basic instrument of government for the Serbs until the Bach era in the 1850's. In the first paragraph it declared that the previous Privileges and their confirmations would henceforth be understood according to the present document: “juxta intellectum huius benigni Rescripti Nostri Declaratorii.” In the third, the claim of the Metropolitans to authority in secular affairs was explicitly rejected: “Archi-Episcopus et Metropolita in Ecclesiasticis duntaxat rebus supremus Antistes, neutiquam vero in profanis sive saecularibus negotiis Nationis Illyricae Caput est.”

⁵¹ The so-called “Voivodina” was arbitrarily created after the suppression of the Magyar revolution in 1849 by Felix zu Schwarzenberg and Alexander von Bach, who never bothered to consult the Serbs when they established it. The Serbs were never accorded any real power in this supposedly autonomous crown land, in which they constituted only a minority of the population, until it was dissolved in 1861.

⁵² Primary sources on the results of the Temesvár meeting of the sabor can be found in the Akta sobora naroda srpskog u Temisvar [Acts of the Serbian National Sabor in Temesvár] (Zemun, 1861) and in digest form in Schwicker, Politische Geschichte der Serben in Ungarn, pp. 376–378. A demand for a separate territory with wide-ranging autonomy was actually presented to Emperor Leopold II by the sabor and was referred by him to a study commission just before his death. After Francis II's accession to the throne nothing more was heard about the matter.

⁵³ The Archive of the Illyrian Court Chancellery, which is now located in the Voivodina Archive at Sremski Karlovci, contains a considerable amount of valuable material pertaining to Serbian ecclesiastical, cultural, and administrative affairs between 1778 and 1792.

⁵⁴ “Inarticulatio” was provided for by Law 27 of the diet of 1791. It granted the Serbs the same rights as other Hungarian subjects and allowed them to retain those privileges “which do not stand in contradiction to the fundamentals of the national constitution” (i. e., a very limited ecclesiastical and cultural self-government under the supervision of the Consilium in Budapest). Diet articles 17 and 26 assured adherents of the Orthodox faith both complete religious freedom and exemption from paying the tithe to Catholic authorities.

⁵⁵ The first serious Serbian effort to use the Hungarian Constitutional Party as an ally against the crown was made at the sabor meeting at Temesvár in 1790 by a small minority of Serbian nobles and burghers led by Sava Tekelija. Their efforts were opposed by the majority of the members of the sabor, under the leadership of General Pavle Papilla and the Orthodox hierarchy.