Russia And The Balkans (1804): A Program About Slavonic-Serbian State Under The Russian Protectorate (I)

The goal of this article is to consider and analyze the text of a critical but heretofore neglected, document and historical source on the question of Serbian liberation from Ottoman rule and its national unification. The document was written in 1804 during the first months of the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman oppression.[1]

The Serbian nation was divided at the dawn of the 19^th century by the borders of Ottoman pashaliks and by the state frontiers that separated the lands under Ottoman control from those under the Habsburg Empire. The beginning of the 19^th century was a turning point in the history of the Serbs. From that time the modern history of the Serbs and Serbia begins. The birth of modern Serbian history begins with the First Serbian Uprising (1804−1813) when, after three hundred and fifty years of Ottoman rule the Serbs in central Serbia (i. e., from the area of the Beogradski pašaluk)[2]  rose against the Turks. This uprising was the most important, biggest, and most glorious national revolt in Serbian history. However, this historical event was meaningful not only for the Serbs who lived within the Beogradski pašaluk but for the entire Serbian population who lived outside of the pashalik and the Ottoman Empire (i.e., in the Habsburg Monarchy). They had a significant interest in the fate of the insurrection. All Serbs, either from the Ottoman Empire or the Habsburg Monarchy, saw the insurrection as a pivotal event in the process of national liberation and unification within the borders of a single national state.[3]

Stevan Stratimirović, the Karlovci Metropolitan from 1790 to 1836, and the head of the Serbian church in the Habsburg Monarchy was one of those Serbs dreaming about national freedom, independence, and unification. His crucial and most influential political discourse on national emancipation and political consolidation is contained in Memorandum, written in June 1804. However, his central political idea of bringing together all Serbs into a single united national state was not ever realized.

This article proposes answers to four important questions connected with Sratimirović’s plan to liberate and unite all Serbs:

1. Under which political-diplomatic circumstances of international relations and historical conditions was Memorandum written?
2. Which specific territory had to be included into the borders of an autonomous Serbian state under Ottoman suzerainty and Russian protectorate?
3. Who was to rule over this state?
4. How important was the Memorandum to the further development of Serbian political ideology and thought?

To date, the most distinguished examination of the topic of this article was that of protojerej St. M. Dimitrijević in his 1926 book.[4] However, except for the fact that the book contains the text of the original Memorandum its value to the topic and main problems discussed in this article is limited. In other words, Dimitrijević did not attempt to provide answers to any questions responsive to the topic of this article. Moreover, he did not address the importance of the Memorandum to Serbian secular national ideology since Stratimirović’s plan was seen by Dimitrijević only as a contribution to the development of Serbian church ideology. However, Dimitrijević’s work inspired Serbian historian Đoko M. Slijepčević to write in 1936 the book about Stevan Stratimirović.[5] Nevertheless, it was primarily Stratimirović’s personality as a head of Serbian national church in the Habsburg Monarchy that was described in this work. Slijepčević dealt very little with Stratimirović’s political ideas. Shortly thereafter, Slijepčević wrote a reliable biography of Stratimirović but his intention was not to deal with the Metropolitan’s political thought. Finally, another Serbian historian, Dimitrije Ruvarac, wrote his account on Stratimirović’s work. But, unfortunately, it was only a report on Stratimirović’s geographic notes apropos Turkey written in 1803 and 1804.[6]

International politics and historical circumstances in which the Serbs lived at the turn of the 19^th century

At the beginning of the 19^th century, after centuries of Ottoman rule, relations between Turks and Serbs remained unchanged. The population of the Beogradski pašaluk was sharply divided into Muslim and Christian. The Muslims, composed of converted domestic Slavs and ethnic Turks, were landlords while all non-Muslims were serfs-peasants (reaya). The Serbs were second class citizens economically, politically and ethnically subjugated and religiously and socially discriminated. The Serbs and the Muslims were religiously exclusive and in permanent conflict with each other.[7] The Orthodox Serbs, unlike the ethnic Turks or the Slavic Muslims, did not accept the Sultan’s policy of Ottomanization of all citizens of the Ottoman Empire. For the Serbs, it was an alien, oppressive and burdensome state because the Ottoman Empire and its social organization were created and functioned according to Islamic religious law.[8] The mind of the Serbs was preoccupied with the re-creation of the medieval national empire which was dismantled by the Turks in the years of 1371−1459.[9]

The last two decades of the 18^th century marked the period of Serbian national revival, the era of the creation of national awareness.[10] Political, economic, and cultural developments of the Austrian Serbs influenced their fellow citizens in the Ottoman Empire. The national political ideology created by the Serbian religious intelligentsia in southern Hungary tremendously influenced the Serbs of the Beogradski pašaluk mainly through the church propaganda.[11] The role of the Serbian Orthodox church in the creation of cultural and national identity during the time of the Ottoman occupation and its contribution to national liberation was of inestimable importance.[12] The Serbian Orthodox church, however, identified the fate of the Serbian people with that of their church and presented itself as the principal savior of the nation. The Serbian church organization in the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire was intimately linked with the Russian Orthodox church. Russian cultural and religious influence among the Austrian and Ottoman Serbs was consequently very high particularly in the matter of the Serbian literal language.[13] The Serbian Metropolitanate of Sremski Karlovci represented a key link between the Patriarchate in Moscow and the Serbian Orthodox believers in the Balkans.

The leading and most influential representative of the Metropolitanate of Sremski Karlovci was its Metropolitan Stevan Stratimirović. In the early years of his church career, he was a bishop of Buda until the Timisoara’s Council of the Serbian church in the Habsburg Monarchy in 1790. In this council, he became not only the Metropolitan of the Serbian church in Austria but the leader of the entire Serbian population inside the Habsburg Monarchy.[14] Stratimirović was not interested only in church affairs; Serbian national problems occupied his mind even before the First Serbian Uprising broke up. Thinking about Serbia’s liberation and national unification he wrote a letter addressed to the Habsburg Emperor Joseph II on July 1^st, 1786. This document contains the Metropolitan’s personal proposal on how to resolve Serbian national problems inside the Ottoman Empire.[15] To the Emperor, Stratimirović proposed that the Austrian army intervene against the Turks and liberate the Serbs inside the Beogradski pašaluk.[16]

During the Austro-Turkish War of 1788−1791 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1787−1792, the Serbian patriots and public workers from the Habsburg Monarchy undertook serious diplomatic activities in order to attract the support of foreign powers in the liberation of Serbia.[17] In July 1791 Stevan Jovanović, Vasilije Radovanović, and Jovan Milović sent а special petition regarding the living conditions of the Serbs in the Beogradski pašaluk to Stevan Stratimirović. The letter was for the Austrian Emperor. They appealed for amnesty for all Serbs who had fought against the Turks on the Austrian side after the end of the war between Austria and Turkey. Amnesty was to be acquired from the Turkish Sultan by the Austrian authorities during the peace negotiations in 1791 in the town of Svishtov. The Karlovci Metropolitan handed over this petition to the Habsburg sovereign probably after insertion of his own corrections to the document.[18] Stevan Stratimirović actually became a representative of all Serbs either from Austria or Turkey to the Habsburg court. He was very well informed about the Serbs from the Ottoman Empire because he maintained connections with the well-known church’s representatives and national leaders from Serbia. Stratimirović, for instance, had a very long talk in Sremski Karlovci with the Serbian émigrés from Turkey connected with the question of Serbian autonomy and the self-government inside the Ottoman Empire. This conversation was held just before the Austro-Turkish war ended in 1791. Stratimirović’s conversation with the Serbians about the “Serbian question” became subsequently the substructure for his Memorandum of 1804.

Several projects connected with the reconstruction of the Serbian state were drafted during the 18^th century by:

1. Serbian Patriarch Arsenije IV Jovanović-Šakabenta (1736/1737).
2. Austrian Count Waldemar Schmetau (1774).
3. Serb from Austria David Narandžić (1785, 1788).
4. Another Austrian Serb Dimitrije Vujić (1797/1798).
5. Montenegrin Metropolitan Petar I Petrović-Njegoš (1798).

All of these projects influenced the Karlovci Metropolitan to design his own plan for autonomous Serbia. The idea of the semi-independent an autonomous Serbian Duchy inside the Ottoman Empire, however, did not occupy only Stratimirović’s mind. The Serbs from Austria like archimandrite Stevan Jovanović, archimandrite Arsenije Gagović and nobleman Sava Tekelija were inspired with the same political concept. Tekelija, for instance, submitted his own Memorandum to the German-Austrian Emperor Francis II in 1805 suggesting that the Austrian army help the Serbs to re-establish their national medieval empire.[19] In 1802 a Serbian nobleman from Arad, Sava Tekelija, realized that support of some mighty European country was indispensable to Serbian national liberation and the re-making of the Serbian national state. In contrast to Stratimirović, Tekelija saw Austria as a protector of the Serbs and Serbia. The leader of the First Serbian Uprising Đorđe Petrović-Karađorđe (Карагеоргије, i.e., Black George) during the initial months of the rebellion also belonged to the circle of the Serbian national workers who turned their eyes towards the Habsburg Monarchy.[20] The Serbian Russophiles, on the other hand, were represented by the Herzegovinian archimandrite Arsenije Gagović. He traveled just before the beginning of the uprising in 1803 to Russia on a diplomatic mission undoubtedly on Stratimirović’s initiative. The purpose of the mission was to engage the Tsar in the issue of the “Serbian question”. Gagović specifically suggested to the Russian monarch that the freeing of the Ottoman Serbs be accomplished with the help of the Russian army.[21] Jovan Jovanović, the Serbian bishop from Bačka, as well as archimandrite Gagović and Metropolitan Stratimirović, belonged to the group of Serbian intellectuals who saw imperial Russia as a natural protector of the Serbs.[22] Jovanović’s political ideas were expressed in the letter sent to the Russian Metropolitan of St. Petersburg (on January 14^th, 1804) in which the bishop of Bačka proposed that the brother of the Russian Tsar, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, be crowned as the Serbian Emperor after Serbia’s liberation from the Ottoman rule.[23]

All of those proposals point to the fact that the unification of the entire Serbian nation, independent of both Austria and Turkey into a single national state was not yet being considered. According to the proposals, liberated Serbia would become a vassal state either within the Habsburg Monarchy or the Ottoman Empire under Austrian or Russian political and military protectorate. The only difference between the Serbian Austrophiles and Russophiles was on the question of on which empire the Serbs should depend. The first group relied on the Habsburgs since Austria was closer to Serbia then Russia and could intervene more rapidly, militarily.[24] The economic reasons also played a considerable role in their political plans because the Austrian Serbs and the Ottoman Serbs were in close economic relations. For them, it was economically much more beneficial if all Serbs were to live inside Austria. In contrast, Serbian Russophiles relied on the Romanovs as they were the rulers of the Orthodox faith. For them, Serbian Orthodoxy, as a crucial indicator of national determination, could be protected only by the support of the Russian Orthodox ruling dynasty. The Roman-Catholic Habsburgs were perceived as the “unnatural” allies. The majority of the pro-Austrian Serbs belonged to the social strata of merchants, craftsmen and secular intelligentsia who were focused primarily on the economic benefits of the Austrian protectorate over all Serbs. Their pro-Russian opponents, however, were composed essentially of the Serbian Orthodox clergy either from the Habsburg Monarchy or the Ottoman Empire who tried at first to emancipate the Serbian religious-national identity.[25]

The essential role of the Balkans in international politics at the turn of the 19^th century was as the focus of the Austrian and Russian competition and struggle for control over the region. After the liberation of Hungary in 1686/1699, and in the course of driving back the Turks towards the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea, the Habsburg Monarchy secured supremacy in the north-western Balkans. After freeing some Balkan territories from the Ottoman control, Austria organized the defense of the frontier areas against Turkey. They introduced a special system which turned out to be a keystone of its political and military strategy in Southeastern Europe. This Austrian defensive military frontier zone (“Militärgrenze”) was originally organized in 1576 as a bulwark against the Ottoman assaults but also as a bridgehead for its own attacks on Turkish territories (in Bosnia and Serbia). This military zone was settled by a large number of Serbian emigrants from Turkey who became professional soldiers, i.e., the frontiersmen.[26] One of the turning points of the Austro-Turkish War from 1788 to 1791 was the establishment of a Serbian free fighting corps and the emergence of a Serbian political leadership that formulated Serbia’s national goals more energetically than had been the case previously.[27]

The Russo-Turkish War 1768−1774 ended with the peace of Kuchuk-Kainarji in 1774. It gave Russia Azov and secured Russian political influence in tributary Principalities of Moldavia and Walachia. However, the Ottoman authorities gave Austria the northern part of Moldavia, which was named Bukovina, in 1775 in return for the diplomatic support of Austria gave in the settling of problems with Russia. According to the Treaty of Jassy signed in January 1792, Russia received from Turkey the former Crimean Khanate. The Russo-Turkish border was established on the Dniester River. The Serbs within the Beogradski pašaluk received political autonomy which became the foundation for Stratimirović’s plan of Serbia’s political semi-independence in the Ottoman Empire. With the Peace of Jassy, the Russo-Austrian rivalry over the Balkans was resolved in favor of Russia.[28] In addition, Russia’s gradual forcing of the Ottoman Empire out of the Crimea and Moldavia in the 18^th century resulted in limitation on the Polish-Lithuanian (i.e., the Roman-Catholic) sphere of influence in the region of southeast Ukraine and the north Black Sea littoral and in strengthening of Russian (i.e., the Orthodox) influence and prestige in the same area.

With Russia’s drawing nearer to the Danube and to Constantinople the popularity of imperial Russia gradually grew among the Serbs. The 18^th –century Russian-Ottoman conflict reinforced among the Serbs the idea of Romanov Russia as the principal bulwark of Orthodox Christendom. It can be concluded that in the year of Stratimirović’s Memorandum Russian influence had already pushed back that of Austria among the Balkan Orthodox subjects of the Sultan. This Russian approach towards Serbian lands directly influenced Stratimirović to write his document in which he supported the idea of the Russian protectorate over the Balkan Orthodox population drafted in the “Greek Project” by the Russian Empress Catherine II (the “Great”). In 1782 the Empress proposed to the Austrian Emperor Joseph II that Bessarabia, Moldavia, and Walachia be united into the independent state of “Dacia” under the Russian protectorate. In addition, the Greek (i.e., Byzantine) Empire with Constantinople as a capital was to be re-established on the eastern portion of the Balkans and placed under the Russian patronage. Consequently, the real aim of Stratimirović’s Memorandum was to convince the Russian Tsar to extend Russian patronage over an autonomous Serbia as well. Similarly, he believed that the recent example of the establishment of the Russian protectorate over the autonomous territory of the Ottoman Christian Orthodox subjects of the Ionian Islands (Leucas, Cephalonia, Ithaca, Zante, Cythera) in 1799 could be replicated in the case of the Serbs and Serbia as well.

 Diplomatic activities of Metropolitan Stratimirović

The role of Metropolitan Stratimirović in the First Serbian Uprising has not yet been effectively explained in Serbian historiography. Stratimirović was surely very well informed in regard to the political situation in Serbia and political wishes of the Serbs within the Ottoman Empire. Prota Mateja Nenadović, one of the most outstanding leaders of the Uprising and military commander of western Serbia, submitted to Stratimirović the first written statement on the political concerns and goals of Serbia’s military leadership. The proposal was drafted by the most eminent leaders of the Uprising at the end of February 1804. Stratimirović’s answer with personal comments on the statement reached Prota Mateja Nenadović on March 29^th of the same year. Nenadović delivered Stratimirović’s answer directly to the leader of the Uprising, Đorđe Petrović-Karađorđe.[29] This prompts two conclusions:

1. It clearly confirms that the Karlovci Metropolitan established and maintained uninterrupted political relations with the supreme military headquarters of the Serbian insurgents already at the very beginning of the Uprising.
2. It documents that he was very well informed on the political wishes, plans, and ideology of Serbia’s supreme military authority.

Stratimirović, inspired and reinforced by the first written statement about the political wishes of Serbia’s military leadership, started to work to obtain political and military support for Serbian insurgents by the Habsburg’s court. In the same year, he wrote three letters to the Austrian Archduke Carl, on May 31^st, June 29^th and August 16^th.[30] In these letters, Stratimirović presented himself as the principal political ambassador of the Serbs from both the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire to the imperial court in Vienna. He strongly believed that a peace in rebellious Serbia would be re-established only if Serbia’s military authorities’ political demands were accepted by the Ottoman government. Stratimirović at the same time advocated the idea of establishing tolerable Turkish system of government in Serbia which would replace the anarchy and violence of the local Turkish authorities. Finally, at this point, the Karlovci Metropolitan saw the house of Habsburgs as a key guarantor of peace in Serbia. In the other words, Serbia needed to be put under the Habsburg’s protectorate.

Stratimirović, the head of Serbian church in the Habsburg Monarchy, however, simultaneously suggested to Serbia’s military leaders they send a political deputation to the Russian imperial court to convey their political wishes and requirements. His ultimate aim, in fact, was to convince the Russian Emperor to become the real protector of the Ottoman and Austrian Serbs and the peace-keeper in a united Serbia. Consequently, Stratimirović established the road to St. Petersburg for the first Serbian deputation sent to the Russian Emperor during the Uprising. The deputation, joined by Prota Mateja Nenadović, Petar Novaković Čardaklija and Jovan Protić, departed for Russia on September 13^th, 1804. They submitted on November 15^th, 1804 to the Russian Emperor Alexander I the Serbian petition “for safekeeping and salvation” asking him to take Serbia under the Russian protectorate.[31] The petition was certainly based on Stratimirović’s political ideas contained in his Memorandum. It turned out that the Serbian deputation in St. Petersburg reiterated exactly what Stratimirović had proposed in his Memorandum: the re-establishment of a Serbian state (Сербское правление) and official expression of Serbia’s loyalty to the Turkish Sultan. The Russian imperial court accepted Stratimirović’s idea of an autonomous Serbian state within the Ottoman Empire but under Russian political-military protectorate, similar to the status of the Danube principalities of Moldavia and Walachia in the Ottoman Empire.[32]

 Stratimirović had already formed his idea of Serbian liberation from Austrian and Ottoman control before the beginning of the First Serbian Uprising. His political ideas about Serbian and all South-Slavic liberation and the re-establishment of Serbian and South-Slavic medieval statehood were expressed by Stratimirović’s deputy, archimandrite Arsenije Gagović, to the Russian Emperor in St. Petersburg on November 2^nd, 1803. Gagović, following the instructions of the Karlovci Metropolitan, proposed to Alexander I that Russia support the liberation and political unification of South-Slavic peoples into the Slavonic−Serbian Empire. Gagović also recommended that one Russian Grand Duke is going to be appointed by the Russian monarch as the Emperor of this Empire.[33]

Тhe crucial question with respect to the diplomatic activities of the Karlovci Metropolitan that arises is: Why did Stratimirović look upon Russia as the only ingenuous liberator and political-military protector of the Serbs and, moreover, the rest of the South-Slavs?  Stratimirović obviously thought that Russia was the only European country with a genuine affinity towards the South-Slavs especially the Serbs. The main fosterer of such an opinion among the Serbs was the Serbian Orthodox clergy headed by Stratimirović. Imperial Russia as an Orthodox country and the country with the largest Slavic population gradually inspired the spiritual-political leader of the Serbian nation during the Habsburg and Ottoman lordships, (i.e. the Serbian Orthodox church, since the end of 17^th century) to believe that only the Romanovs could be real liberators and protectors of the Serbs and the rest of the South-Slavs, especially the Orthodox ones.[34] The Serbian Orthodox clergy welcomed the Romanovs’ Panslavism – the official course of the Russian foreign policy in Europe.

The Serbian Orthodox Church moved more closely towards Russia during the 18^th century when, as a consequence of the Habsburgs’ military victories over the Turks, Roman-Catholic influence in the Balkans significantly increased.[35] The Serbian priests, in order to prevent Roman-Catholic dominance in the region, urged Russia to put all South-Slavic populations under its political protection. As a consequence of the Serbian Orthodox Church’s propaganda in favor of the Russians, the reputation of the Russian Emperor in Serbian eyes significantly increased at the end of the 18^th century. Subsequently, Sava Tekelija, a Serbian nobleman from Arad, advised that in the case of the new Russo-Ottoman war the Serbs, as well as the Bulgarians, would welcome Russia as their liberator.[36] In return, the Serbian clergy always reminded the Serbs of the connections which linked them to the Russians: “divine, natural and eternal bonds of the blood, language, and faith” (“Божанска, природна и вечна веза крви, језика и вере“).[37] The historical role of shared Orthodoxy and language were especially emphasized in this pro-Russian propaganda. Clearly, Orthodoxy became for the majority of ethnolinguistic Serbs the main symbol of the national struggle against the Ottoman authorities. At the turn of the 19^th century, the myth of Orthodoxy became the foremost instrument in the hands of the Serbian clergy in their combat against Austrian (i.e., Roman-Catholic) political supremacy in the Balkans. They at the same time supported the Russian concept of united Orthodox nations as the crucial step towards the realization of the Russian policy of Panslavism. The Serbian spiritual leaders came to view Orthodox-Slavic Russia as the only sincere liberator and protector of both the Southeast European Orthodox population (Romanians, Serbs, Macedonian Slavs, Montenegrins, Bulgarians, and Greeks) and the South-Slavs (Yugoslavs and Bulgarians).[38]

Finally, for the Orthodox Serbs and Russians, anything that was bad for the Turks and the Ottoman Empire was good for them. Many Serbs unequivocally welcomed Russian military victory over the Turks in 1774, especially the article of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji which established a Russian protectorate over Moldavia and Walachia with the Russian right of guardianship of all Balkan Orthodox populations in the Ottoman Empire. Stratimirović, unconditionally culturally and politically oriented toward Russia, saw in this article of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji a very timely and appropriate legal opportunity for extension of a Russian protection over both Austrian and Ottoman Serbs.

To be continued

References:

[1] About the uprising see in M. B. Petrovich, A History of Modern Serbia 1804−1918, I, (New York, London, 1976); W. S. Vucinich, The First Serbian Uprising 1804–1813 (New York, 1982); V. H. W. Temperley, History of Serbia (New York, 1969); М. Ђорђевић, Политичка историја Србије, I, 1804−1813 (Београд, 1956).

[2] Pašaluk is Serbian version of the biggest Ottoman administrative province – pashalik. The governor of pashalik had the title of Pasha (in Serbian, Paša).

[3] For a discussion of the Beogradski pašaluk see: Д. Пантелић, Београдски пашалук пред први српски устанак (1794−1804) (Београд, 1949).

[4] Ст. Т. Димитријевић, Стевана Стратимировића, Митрополита Карловачког План за ослобођење српског народа (Београд, 1926).

[5] Ђ. М. Слијепчевић, Стеван Стратимировић, Митрополит Карловачки као поглавар цркве, просветни и национално-политички радник (Београд, 1936).

[6] Д. Руварац,  Гeoграфске белешке о Турској Митрополита Стевана Стратимировића из године  1803 и 1804 (Београд, 1903).

[7] Х. Шабановић (ed.), Турски извори о српској револуцији 1804 (Београд, 1956), 200−204.

[8] B. Jelavich, History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1984), 43−44. More about the relations between Islamic religious law and Ottoman state’s system see in: H. Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300−1600 (New York, 1973); N. Itzkowitz, Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (New York, 1972).

[9] В. Чубриловић, Историја политичке мисли у Србији у XIX веку (Београд, 1982); Р. Љушић, Вожд Карађорђе, I (Смедеревска Паланка, 1993), 133−145; А. Ивић (уредник), Списи Бечких архива о првом српском устанку, I, 1804 (Београд, 1935); С. Стратимировић, “Објашњење постанка и узроци устанка српских хришћана 1804”, Српски књижевни гласник, 18 (Београд, 1907).

[10] М. Екмечић, Дуго кретање између клања и орања. Историја Срба у Новом веку (1492−1992) (Нови Сад: Евро Ђунти, 2010), 127−150. 

[11] Т. Judah, The Serbs. History, Myth & Destruction of Yugoslavia (New Haven and London, 1997), 48−72.

[12] S. Ćirković, “Religious factor in Forming of Cultural and National Identity” in D. Janjić (ed.), Religion & War (Belgrade, 1994), 146−160.

[13] A. Albin, “The Creation of the Slaveno-Serbski Literary Language”, The Slavonic and East European Review, XLVIII (113), 483−492.

[14] М. Јовић, К. Радић, Српске земље и владари (Крушевац, 1990), 142−146; В. Ћоровић, Историја Срба (Београд, 1993), 510, 514, 528−537.

[15] Ђ. М. Слијепчевић, Стеван Стратимировић митрополит Карловачки као поглавар цркве, просветни и национално-политички радник (Београд, 1936), 172.

[16] Летопис Матице Српске, књига 143 (Нови Сад, 1885), 111−112.

[17] Д. Павловић, Србија за време последњег аустријско-турског рата (1788−1791) (Београд, 1910).

[18] Д. Павловић, Србија за време последњег аустријско-турског рата (1788−1791) (Београд, 1910), 264−265.

[19] Д. Поповић, “Сава Текелија према првом српском устанку”, Проблеми Војводине (Нови Сад, 1965), 101.

[20] Е. Г. Маретић, Историја српске револуције 1804−1813 ( Београд, 1987), 96−109 (Original in German language written immediately after the uprising according to the author’s diary); А. Ивић (уредник), Списи Бечких архива о првом српском устанку, I, 1804 (Београд, 1935); Р. Перовић (уредник), Прилози за историју првог српског устанка. Необјављена грађа (Београд, 1954).

[21] Ст. Т. Димитријевић, Стевана Стратимировића, Митрополита Карловачког План за ослобођење српског народа (Београд, 1926), 4.

[22] М. Екмечић, Дуго кретање између клања и орања. Историја Срба у Новом веку (1492−1992) (Нови Сад: Евро Ђунти, 2010), 149.

[23] М. Вукићевић, Карађорђе, I (Београд, 1907), 234−239.

[24] И. Пржић, Спољашња политика Србије (1804−1914), (Београд: Политика А. Д., 1939), 14−15.

[25] About this problem see more in: E. Picot, Les Serbes de Hongrie (Paris, 1873); Г. Јакшић, Борба за слободу Србије од 1788 до 1813 (Београд, 1991/1937).

[26] About the Austrian “Military Border” see more in: R. Günther, The Military Border in Croatia 1740−1881 (Chicago, 1966).

[27] About this question see more in: J. Bérengar, A History of the Habsburg Empire: 1700−1918 (London, 2000); Д. Павловић, Србија за време последњег аустријско-турског рата (1788−1791) (Београд, 1910).

[28] В. Поповић, Источно питање (Београд, 1928).

[29] About Karađorđe’s role in the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman authorities see: К. Ненадовић, Живот и дела великог Ђорђа Петровића Кара-ђорђа. Врховног Вожда, ослободиоца и Владара Србије и живот његови Војвода и јунака. Као градиво за Србску Историју од године 1804 до 1813 и на даље (књига Прва, Беч, 1883; књига Друга, Беч, 1884).

[30] Ђ. М. Слијепчевић, Стеван Стратимировић, Митрополит Карловачки као поглавар цркве, просветни и национално-политички радник (Београд, 1936), 189.

[31] С. И. Достян, “Планы основания славяно-сербского государства с помощъю России в начале XX в.”, Советское славяховедение, 5 (Москва, 1970), 1005−1007; Первое сербское востание и Россiя, 1 (Москва, 1980), 58−62; П. В. Грачев,  Балканские владения Османской империи на рубеже XVIII−XIX вв. (Москва, 1990), 120−138. See more about the deputation in:  Мемоари Проте Матије Ненадовића (Београд, 1867); Р. Љушић, Вук Караџић о Српској револуцији (Београд, 1990).

[32] М. Вукићевић, Карађорђе, II (Београд, 1907), 180−199.

[33] М. Екмечић, Дуго кретање између клања и орања. Историја Срба у Новом веку (1492−1992) (Нови Сад: Евро Ђунти, 2010), 149; Ђ. М. Слијепчевић, Стеван Стратимировић, Митрополит Карловачки као поглавар цркве, просветни и национално-политички радник (Београд, 1936), 176−179.

[34] More about this question see in: Б. Ђурђев, “Улога српске цркве у борби против османске власти“, Преглед, 1 (Сарајево, 1953).

[35] Г. Витковић, “Извештај Максима Ратковића, егзарха београдског митрополита, 1733”, Гласник, LVI (Београд), 121.

[36] С. Текелија, Описаније живота (Београд, 1966), 176.

[37] Р. Љушић, Вожд Карађорђе, I (Смедеревска Паланка, 1993), 119.

[38] About Panslavism in the Russian foreign policy see in: Ф. А. Миллер, Мустафа-паша Байрактар (Москва, 1947), 58−65.

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