The modern Serbia, into whose fabric the Second Serbian Uprising has been weaved, chooses to live in peace and cooperation with neighboring and other European states and peoples, Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Dacic stated in Takovo, at the celebration of the 197th anniversary since the start of the battle for the final liberation of Serbia from the Turks. The report of Mladen Bijelic.
After laying wreaths one the monument to rebels of the Second Serbian Uprising, Dacic has underlined that Serbia wishes to build lasting, democratic state, based on the strong legal foundation, obedience to law and respect of personal rights and freedoms. “The message from Takovo is that the Serbian people can never put up with occupation. That is why in the 19th century Serbia was among first European countries to have built its independence. Not burdened with the past, we look at the future with optimism, to bring Serbia the admission to the European family of peoples, which had been one of the central strivings of the Serbian political and intellectual elite in the past centuries”, said Dacic.
In memory of the day when the Second Uprising began, this year the Serbian Army is marking its day for the first time on April 23, with the event in Leskovac, attended by the military leadership, headed by Assembly President and acting president of the republic Slavica Djukic Dejanovic, Minister of Defense Dragan Sutanovac and Chief of the General Staff Ljubisa Dikovic.
The Second Serbian Uprising was started in the spring of 1815, under the guidance of Milos Obrenovic. The armed conflicts with the Turkish Army were not on the scale of those from the First Uprising, which was influenced by the situation on the Russian front and Napoleon’s defeat. In such circumstances, there was the possibility of Russian intervention, based on the article eight in the Bucharest Treaty, so the Turks were forced to open the negotiations with the Serbs.
The armed actions were stopped after the negotiations and conlusion of an oral agreement between Marashli Ali-pasha and Milos Obrenovic. Turkey had accepted the agreement as the final cease of battle and uprising, but for Milos Obrenovic and his rebels it formed the foundation for further expansion of privileges and the starting point in the diplomatic struggle to realize the final goals – taking down the Turkish feudal rule and establishment of the national authorities. After the victory of Russia over Turkey, the Adrianople Peace of 1828 also solved the Serbian issue. Two special decrees were issued by then sultan, in 1830 and 1833. With the decree of 1833, the feudal obligations were calculated into the annual tax that Serbia was paying to Turkey. This was the formal solution of the agrarian issue and destroyed the feudal order, along with the Turkish rule in Serbia.
The Second Serbian Uprising lead to the final liberation and recognition of modern Serbia at the Berlin Congress in 1878, as a state with full competencies and international legal subjectivity. In a way, it also was the foundation for the establishing of the Serbian army, which was preceded by the forming of the “standing army” and the Guard Unit, comprising of 76 young men “of stature and repute”, from best countryside households. The creation of the “standing army”, and later “soldiers”, went unnoted by the Turkish authorities, and the National Assembly made official the title soldier.