Halfway down the Danube

Happy Birthday, Serbia

This week marks the 200th anniversary of the First Serbian Uprising, which began in February 1804. The Uprising began the long process of Serbia winning its independence from the Ottoman Turks, who had ruled the country since the 16th century.

Serbian history is so complicated that it's not easy to point to one date and say, here -- here's where it started. There was the First Serbian Uprising, which succeeded for a while but then was crushed. Then there was the Second Serbian Uprising, which succeeded partially and ended with Serbia getting partial autonomy. Then there was a long period of semi-independence, with Serbia still officially under Turkish rule, but with the Turkish presence and power steadily shrinking until nothing was left but token garrisons in Belgrade and a few other towns. Then full independence -- but not until 1878, a lifetime after the process had begun.

Still, if one has to pick a single date, 1804 is probably the one that makes most sense. And it's still a source of pride to the Serbian people. After all, of all the subject peoples under the Ottoman Empire, they were the first to rebel successfully. The Greeks, the Bulgarians, the Albanians -- they all came later.

The First Uprising was led by a remarkable fellow named Karageorge, "Black George", a pig farmer who made himself a revolutionary and, eventually, the founder of a dynasty. Karageorge's great-great-grandson was eventually forced off the throne by the Communists in 1946, but the dynasty survives and is still influential in Serbian society and even, a little, in politics. Karageorge himself met a bitter end -- he was murdered by a rival after his uprising had failed. Still, for better or worse, he changed the shape of Europe forever.

As Dragan Antulov notes, this is not the happiest birthday Serbia has ever had. The country is still recovering from three lost wars, has a big piece of its territory (Kosovo) under UN administration and de facto independent, is still bitterly divided internally, and is suffering from a painful attack of political paralysis.

But these problems will not last forever; and birthdays are times to look forward as well as back. So, happy birthday, Serbia, and here's to better days ahead.

Posted by douglas at February 17, 2004 03:02 PM