Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T05:35:07.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

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.

2. Stavrianos, L. S., The Balkans since 1453 (New York, 1958), p. 1958 Google Scholar.

3. Charles, and Jelavich, Barbara, The Balkans (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1965), p. 48 Google Scholar.

4. Pantelić, Dušan, Beogradski Pašaluk posle svištovskog mira, 1791-1794 (Belgrade, 1927)Google Scholar ; Pantelić, Dušan Beogradski Pašaluk pred prvi srpski ustanak (Belgrade, 1949)Google Scholar ; Novaković, Stojan, Ustanak na dahije (Belgrade, 1904)Google Scholar ; Miroslav Djordjević, Politička istorija Srbije XIX i XX veka, vol. 1: 1804-1813 (Belgrade, 1956), pp. 25-54; Matija Nenadović, The Memoirs of Prota Matija Nenadović, ed. and trans. Lovett F. Edwards (London, 1969), pp. 55-59; Ranke, , The History of Servia, pp. 66–71Google Scholar.

5. Janković, Dragoslav, ed., Francuska štatnpa o prvotn srpskom ustanku (Belgrade, 1959), pp. 23–24, 40-41Google Scholar; Novaković, Stojan, Vaskrs države srpske (Belgrade, 1904), p. 34 Google Scholar; Novaković, , Ustanak na dahije, pp. 203–5Google Scholar; Jakšić, Grgur, Evropa i vaskrs Srbije, 1804-1834 (Belgrade, 1963), pp. 28–29 Google Scholar; Vukićević, Milenko, Karadjordje, vol. 2 (Belgrade, 1912), pp. 24, 305-7Google Scholar.

6. Sergeant-Major Johann Wittanovitch to the General Command in Temesvá;r, March 11, 1804, in Spisi bečkih arhiva o prvom srpskom ustanku, 5 vols., ed. Aleksa Ivić (Subotica, 1935-39), 1: 34 (hereafter cited as SBA); Karadjordje, Janko Katić, and others to Colonel G. Tomerlin, March 19, 1804, ibid., p. 56; Jakov Nenadović and Karadjordje to Stevan Stratimirović, March 23, 1804, ibid., p. 69; Jakov Nenadović and Karadjordje to General G. Geneyne, March 23, 1804, ibid.; copy of a report to Francis I regarding the Serbian uprising, May 24, 1804, in Valtazar, Bogishich, ed., Razbor sochineniia N. A. Popova “Rossiia i Serbiia” (St. Petersburg, 1872), pp. 34–35 Google Scholar; Adolph, Beer, Die orientalische Politik Oesterreichs seit 1774 (Prague, 1883), pp. 183–84, 188Google Scholar.

7. General G. Geneyne to the Serbian insurgents, April 1804, SBA, 1: 85-86; memorandum, Vienna, May 25, 1804, ibid., pp. 154-60; Beer, Die orientalische Politik Oesterreichs, pp. 189-90, 196.

8. Quoted in Nenadović, The Memoirs of Prota Matija Nenadović, p. 114.

9. Referring to the Treaty of Campo Formio, Bernard Lewis writes: “France, the traditional ally of the Ottoman Empire, had become her neighbor and ancient friendship could not stand the shock” ( Bernard, Lewis, The Emergence of Modem Turkey [Oxford and London, 1961], p. 65 Google Scholar).

10. Saul, Norman E., Russia and the Mediterranean, 1797-1807 (Chicago, 1970), pp. 196–202 Google Scholar.

11. For the complete text of the treaty, see Vneshniaia politika Rossii XIX i nachala XX veka, ed. A. L. Narochnitskii (Moscow, 1960- ), 2: 584-94 (hereafter cited as VPR).

12. V. G. Sirotkin, “Franko-russkaia diplomaticheskaia bor'ba na Balkanakh i plany sozdaniia Slaviano-Serbskogo gosudarstva v 1806-1807 gg.,” Uchenye zapiski Institute Slavianovedeniia, 25 (1962): 175.

13. Shupp, Paul F., The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, 1806-1807 (New York, 1931), pp. 51–52 Google Scholar; Stanislavskaia, A. M., Russko-angliiskie otnosheniia i problemy Sredisemnomor'ia, 1798-1807 (Moscow, 1962), p. 435 Google Scholar; Saul, , Russia and the Mediterranean, p. 212 Google Scholar.

14. Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, pp. 73–74Google Scholar

15. Puryear, Vernon J., Napoleon and the Dardanelles (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1951), p. 90 Google Scholar.

16. Sirotkin, “Franko-russkaia diplomaticheskaia bor'ba na Balkanakh,” p. 176; Stanislavskaia, , Russko-angliiskie otnosheniia, p. 446 Google Scholar.

17. Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, p. 74 Google Scholar.

18. Ibid., p. 63; Benjamin, Kallay, Die Geschichte des serbischen Aufstandes, 1807-1810 (Vienna, 1910), p. 14 Google Scholar.

19. Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, p. 74 Google Scholar.

20. Karadjordje to Emperor Francis I, January 24, 1806, SB A, 3: 16-19; Karadjordje to Baron Sturmer, January 24, 1806, ibid., pp. 14-15; Vukicevic, , Karadjordje, pp. 305–9, 315-16Google Scholar; Karadjordje and Matija Nenadovic to Alexander I, December 12, 1805, VPR, 3: 666, n. 70; O. M, Bodianskii, “Predstavlenie serbskoi deputatsii k russkomu imperatoru, v fevrale 1806 v Ven,” in Chteniia v imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete, no. 3 (1871), pp. 122-29.

21. Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, pp. 34–35Google Scholar.

22. Francis I to Selim III, March 12, 1806, SB A, 3: 69-71; Beer, Die orientalische Politik Oesterreichs, p. 194.

23. Selim III to Francis I, April 25, 1806, SB A, 3: 120-21.

24. Novichev, A. D., Istoriia Turtsii, part 2, vol. 1 (Leningrad, 1968), pp. 78–79 Google Scholar; Saul, , Russia and the Mediterranean, pp. 211–16Google Scholar; Vukicevic, , Karadjordje, pp. 337–40Google Scholar.

25. Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, p. 21 Google Scholar.

26. Sirotkin, “Franko-russkaia diplomaticheskaia bor'ba na Balkanakh,” p. 177.

27. A. la. Budberg to I. I. Michelson, September 24, 1806, in V. N. Avtokratov and R. E. Al'tshuller, eds., “Iz istorii pomoshchi Rossii serbskomu narodu v period pervogo narodnogo vosstaniia,” Istoricheskii arkhiv, 1960, no. 1-6, p. 119; Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, pp. 252–53Google Scholar.

28. Driault, J. E., Napoleon en Italie, 1801-1812 (Paris, 1900), pp. 644–50 Google Scholar.

29. Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, pp. 183–84Google Scholar.

30. Shaw, Stanford J., Between the Old and the New: The Ottoman Empire under Selim III, 1789-1807 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), p. 335 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31. Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, p. 55 Google Scholar; Boris, Mouravieff, L'Alliance Russo-Turquie an milieu des guerres Napoleonnes (Neuchatel, 1954), pp. 205–6 Google Scholar.

32. Andrei la. Italinskii to Budberg, August 23, 1806, VPR, 3: 263-69.

33. Alexander I to Italinskii, March 8, 1806, Sbornik Imperatorskago russkago istoricheskago obshchestva, 148 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1867-1916), 82: 325-28 (hereafter cited as SI RIO).

34. Italinskii to Alexander I, October 18, 1806, VPR, 3: 713, n. 247.

35. Alexander I to General I. I. Michelson, November 4, 1806, in Petrov, A. N., Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, 1806-1812, 3 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1885-87), 1: 380–81 Google Scholar; Alexander I to General M. F. Kamenskii, December 27, 1806, VPR, 3: 439-42.

36. Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, pp. 364–91Google Scholar.

37. Alexander I to Michelson, December 4, 1806, in Kallay, Die Geschichte des serbischen Aufstandes, p. 15.

38. Miroslav, Djordjevic, Oslobodilacki rat srpskih ustanika, 1804-1806 (Belgrade, 1967), pp. 372–75 Google Scholar.

39. Vukićević, , Karadjordje, pp. 457–58Google Scholar; Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, pp. 459–60Google Scholar.

40. Michelson to Karadjordje, January 23, 1807, VPR, 3: 378-79.

41. Vukićević, , Karadjordje, p. 418 Google Scholar; Shaw, , Between the Old and the New, pp. 350–51Google ScholarPubMed; Mittesser to General G. Geneyne, September 25, 1806, and Stevan Stratimirović's observations on the Serbian insurrection, November 1, 1806, SB A, 3: 359-61; Report of Franz Klezl, March 10, 1807, SB A, 4: 257-59; Janković, Francuska štampa, pp. 187, 211-12.

42. Metropolitan Leontije to C. Ipsilanti, April 16, 1807, Milenko Vukićević, “Pisma iz prvog i drugog ustanka,” Spomenik, 37 (1900): 136-37; Vukićević, Karadjordje, p. 474; Janković, Francuska štampa, p. 218.

43. N. P. Rumiantsev to General M. I. Kamenskii, February 19, 1810, VPR, 5: 361-67.

44. For the entire text of the Treaty of Tilsit, see VPR, 3: 631-49; for analyses of the impact of the treaty on the Ottoman Empire, see Puryear, , Napoleon and the Dardanelles, pp. 191–95Google Scholar, and Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, pp. 545–46Google Scholar.

45. Petroy, , Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, 2: 405–8Google Scholar; Stürmer to Stadion, August 25, 1807, SBA, 4: 776-78; Puryear, , Napoleon and the Dardanelles, pp. 213–14Google Scholar; Shupp, , The European Powers and the Near Eastern Question, pp. 555–56Google Scholar.

46. Serge, Tatistcheff, Alexander Ier et Napoleon: D'après leur correspondence inédite, 1801-1812 (Paris, 1891), pp. 303–78 Google Scholar; Puryear, , Napoleon and the Dardanelles, pp. 281–305Google Scholar.

47. Articles 8 and 9 of the Erfurt Convention relate to the transfer of the Danubian Principalities to Russia, while article 11 guarantees the integrity of all other Ottoman territories. For the full text of the convention, see VPR, 4: 359-63.

48. Rumiantsev to General I. I. Prozorovskii, December 6, 1808, ibid., pp. 367-68; see also two dispatches from Rumiantsev to Alexander I, December 27, 1808, and January 8, 1809, ibid., pp. 439-40, 456-58.

49. C. Rodofinikin to Prozorovskii, June 16, 1809, in Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, 2: 274.

50. Janković, , Francuska stampa, pp. 301–3Google Scholar.

51. Jakšić, , Ewopa i vaskrs Srbije, p. 149 Google Scholar.

52. Popović, Vasilj, Meternihova politika na bliskom istoku (Belgrade, 1931), pp. 24–25 Google Scholar.

53. Popović, Vasilj, “Trgovina i promet Bosne u Napoleonovo doba,” Spomenik, 68 (1929): 83–91Google Scholar.

54. Ibid.

55. Beer, Die orientalische Politik Oesterreichs, p. 232.

56. See Popović, , Metemihova politika, pp. 11–12Google Scholar.

57. Metternich to Francis I, July 28, 1810, in Richard, Metternich, ed., The Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773-1859, vol. 2 (New York, 1880), pp. 439–40 Google Scholar.

58. Ibid.

59. Kraehe, Enno E., Metternich's German Policy, vol. 1 (Princeton, N. J., 1963), p. 136 Google Scholar.

60. Karadjordje to Stevan Jevtić, September 21, 1810, in R., Krones, Josef Freiherr von Simbschen und die Stellung, Oesterreichs zur serbische Frage (Vienna, 1890), pp. 128–31 Google Scholar.

61. Stürmer to Stratford Canning, n.d., in Čeda Mijatović, ed., “Prepisi iz zvaničnih i poverljivih izveštaja engleske ambasade u Carigradu od 1804-1814,” Spomenik, 54 (1922): 82-83.

62. Grgur Jakšić and Vučković, Vojislav, eds., Francuski dokumenti o prvom i drugom ustanku, 1804-1830 (Belgrade, 1959), p. 71 Google Scholar.

63. Demelitsch, Feodor von, Metternich und seine auswärtige Politik, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1898), pp. 133–34 Google Scholar.

64. See Robert, Adair, Negotiations for the Peace of the Dardanelles, 2 vols. (London, 1845)Google Scholar.

65. Canning to Richard Wellesley, October 4, 1810, in Mijatović, “Prepisi,” pp. 80-82; Jakšić, Evropa i vaskrs Srbije, p. 160.

66. Otto to Maret, March 6, 1811, in Jakšić, and Vučcković, , Francuski dokumenti, pp. 72–73Google Scholar.

67. Beer, Die orientalische Politik Oesterreichs, p. 254; as early as 1807 General F. M. Radetzky had proposed expanding Austria's frontiers in the Balkans to encompass the entire area between the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea (ibid., p. 226).

68. Ibid.

69. P. N. Shuvalov to Rumiantsev, February 9, 1811, VPR, 6: 44-48.

70. Ibid.

71. Adair to Wellesley, June 8, 1810, in Mijatović, “Prepisi,” p. 76.

72. Milenko Vukićević, “Odnosi Rusije prema Srbiji u vreme prvog ustanka od kraja 1808 do kraja 1813 godine,” Delo, 24 (1902): 67. 73. Martens, Feodor F., ed., Sobranie traktatov i konventsii sakliuchennykh Rossieiu s inostrannymi derehavami, vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1876), pp. 76–79 Google Scholar.

74. Ibid., pp. 78-79.

75. Karadjordje to Ledoulx, August 16, 1809, in Ogist Bop’ [August Boppe], ed., “Karadjordje i Francuska: Dokumenti o dogadjajima Srbije sa Napoleonom (1809-1814),” Otadžbine, 19 (1888): 118-20.

76. Ibid.

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.

79. For a summary of Serbo-French relations during the Serbian insurrection, see Jakšić, and Vučković, , Francuski dokumenti, pp. 83–86Google Scholar.

80. Kamenskii to P. A. Fonton, February 9, 1811, VPR, 6: 48-50.

81. Fonton to Kamenskii, February 17, 1811, ibid., pp. 692-93.

82. Petrov, , Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, 3: 346 Google Scholar; M. I. Kutuzov to Rumiantsev, November 10, 1811, in Beskrovnyi, L. G., M. I. Kutuzov: Sbornik dokumentov, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1956), pp. 684–85 Google Scholar.

83. Rumiantsev to Kutuzov, October 12, 1811, VPR, 6: 181-82; Kutuzov to Barclay de Tolly, November 10, 1811, in Beskrovnyi, , M. I. Kutuzov, pp. 687–88Google Scholar.

84. Alexander I to Kutuzov, April 3, 1812, in Beskrovnyi, , M. I. Kutusov, pp. 850–52Google Scholar; Kutuzov's instructions to the Russian plenipotentiaries, April 30, 1812, VPR, 6: 381-82.

85. Alexander I to Admiral P. V. Chichagov, May 14, 1812, SIRIO, 6: 67-73.

86. Text of the Treaty of Bucharest, May 28, 1812, VPR, 6: 406-17; Gabriel, Noradounghian, ed., Recueil d'actes internationaux de I'Empire Ottoman, vol. 3 (Paris, 1901), pp. 86–92 Google Scholar.

87. Alexander I to Chichagov, July 30, 1812, in Gorianov, S. M., 1812 Dokumenty Gosudarstvennogo i S. Peterburgskogo glavnogo arkhivov (St. Petersburg, 1912), pp. 89–90 Google Scholar.