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The First Serbian Uprising (1804-1813) and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Eastern Question

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Lawrence P. Meriage
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Extract

Throughout the nineteenth century a major international issue facing the Great Powers of Europe was the volatile “Eastern Question.” As the Ottoman Empire grew steadily weaker, the question of the future disposition of its extensive territories (some 238,000 square miles in Europe alone in 1800) provoked an intense and prolonged rivalry among those European states with vested political and economic interests in the Near East. With its military power in decline and its frontiers menaced by powerful neighbors, the Ottoman Empire seemed on the verge of collapse at the beginning of the nineteenth century despite its imposing imperial edifice.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , September 1978 , pp. 421 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1978

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References

1. The failure of Western scholars to recognize some of the ramifications of the Serbian revolt can be ascribed in part to the paucity of monographic literature on the subject in Western languages. Until very recently, the only study to deal with the revolt in its entirety was written by the great German historian Leopold, Ranke, The History of Servia and the Servian Revolution, trans. Mrs. Alexander Kerr (London, 1853)Google Scholar. A newly published work by Michael, Petrovich, History of Modern Serbia, 1804-1918 (New York, 1976)Google Scholar, was unavailable for this study.

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77. Karadjordje's instructions to Rado Vučinić, n.d., ibid., pp. 122-24.

78. Colonel A. Meriage to Champagny, February 21, 1810, ibid., pp. 336-38.

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