Serbia as Piedmont and the Yugoslav Idea, 1804-1914

Abstract

Reborn as an autonomous principality in 1830 after four centuries of Turkish rule, Serbia played a role among the South Slavs like Piedmont--Sardinia among Italians and Prussia in Germany. In all three cases the eventual result was unification of most areas claimed by these three great national movements. Unification was achieved in each case by the most cohesive and dynamic political unit with a combination of diplomacy and force. Because they were small and weak militarily, Serbia and Piedmont--Sardinia required major external aid by a great power to reach their goal; Prussia achieved its destiny unaided after insuring the neutrality of powerful neighbors. In all three cases Piedmont's methods and policies in achieving unity provoked opposition by rivals, produced serious sectional rivalries, and in Serbia's case also ethnic divisions after unification. This essay traces Serbia's development as the South Slav Piedmont from its revolt in 1804 until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. When did Serbia assume consciously the role of Piedmont among Serbs and other South Slavs? How did it prevail over such rivals as the Croats, Montenegro, and the Vojvodina? How important were individual leaders, and how aware were they of Serbia's mission and the Piedmontese example? Was the goal of Belgrade's leaders a Greater Serbia or Yugoslavia?* How did political freedom, military success, and cultural primacy influence Serbia's progress toward unity? The history of the modem Serbian national movement includes several phases: a. the struggle to achieve autonomy and extend autonomous Serbia's narrow boundaries (1804-42); b. setting goals of all-Serb and all-Yugoslav unity (1843-68); c. a brief lull followed by a partially successful war of liberation with Russian support (1868-78); d. temporary renunciation of unity and dependence on Austria-Hungary (1878-1903); and e. a conscious and accelerating drive for unification (1903-18). The sacrifices of Serbia, the support to her by the Triple Entente, and the latter's eventual triumph in World War I achieved the goals of unity set during the nineteenth century. I. The First Serbian Insurrection (1804-13) began as localized revolts by village leaders (knezovi) in Belgrade pashalik against mounting oppression by local Turkish officials (dayi). Their initial aim was not independence but restoration of the sultan's legitimate rule. Believing they were fighting for the sultan, Serbian peasants followed their knezovi mainly from fear and desperation. Many peasants had some concept of past Serbian glory, but the initial lack of central organization or leadership prevented any true national consciousness. Leading contemporaries such as Vuk Karadzic and Matija Nenadovic confirm that coercion often was required to obtain peasant recruits.(1) Many Serbian historians have affirmed that the First Insurrection immediately became a war for national liberation. Citing evidence in the late eighteenth century of Serbian national consciousness and latent national ambitions, they ascribed these to the Ottoman millet system and the success of the Serbian Orthodox Church in preserving national identity. Others credit also Serbian epic folk poetry and exploits of guerrilla bandits (hajduci), noted for resistance to Turkish rule.(2) Serbian knezovi, these historians contend, plotted in advance to achieve independence and unification of all South Slavs under Turkish rule except the Bulgars. But the evidence suggests, claims the American scholar, Lawrence Meriage, that there were widely separated risings conditioned by local pressures and grievances. The personality and interests of local knezovi bulked larger than general ideas of national independence. No overall Serbo-Montenegrin plan for united action could be elaborated by leaders unknown before 1804 much beyond their home districts.(3) One of the few articulate Serbs who already revealed then a developed sense of national consciousness was Stevan Stratimirovic, Metropolitan of Sremski Karlovci in the Vojvodina, who in 1803-04 elaborated three plans for a Slavo-Serbian empire. …