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
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 assumed 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 analogy 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 Arsen 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
Passarowitz (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, Arsen 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 passed
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 passed 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 assume 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 asserted.
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 Arsen 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 participating 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 principality
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.
More
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