Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family: or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.Paton, A. A. (Andrew Archibald)
History
Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family: or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.
Paton, A. A. (Andrew Archibald)
Serbia -- Description and travel
"The prince considered all land in Servia to belong to him, and
perpetually wished to appropriate any property that seemed better than
his own, fixing his own price, which was sometimes below the value,
which the proprietor dared not refuse to take, whatever labour had
been bestowed on it. At Kragujevatz, he prevented the completion of
the house of M. Raditchevitch, because some statues of wood, and
ornaments, which were not to be found in his own palace, were in the
plan. An almanack having been printed, with a portrait of his niece
Auka, he caused all the copies to be given back by the subscribers,
and the portraits cut out."
There can be no doubt, that, after the miserable end of Kara Georg,
and the violent revolutionary wars, an unlimited dictatorship was the
best regimen for the restoration of order. Milosh was, therefore, many
years at the head of affairs of Servia before symptoms of opposition
appeared. Allowances are certainly to be made for him; he had seen no
government but the old Turkish regime, and had no notion of any other
way of governing but by decapitation and confiscation. But this
system, which was all very well for a prince of the fifteenth century,
exhausted the patience of the new generation, many of whom were bred
at the Austrian universities. Without seeking for democratic
institutions, for which Servia is totally unfit, they loudly demanded
written laws, which should remove life and property from the domain of
individual caprice, and which, without affecting the suzerainty of the
Porte, should bring Servia within the sphere of European
institutions. They murmured at Milosh making a colossal fortune out of
the administration of the principality, while he rendered no account
of his intromissions, either to the Sultan or to the people, and
seized lands and houses merely because he took a fancy to them.[25]
Hence arose the _national party_ in Servia, which included nearly all
the opulent and educated classes; which is not surprising, since his
rule was so stringent that he would allow no carriage but his own to
be seen in the streets of Belgrade: and, on his fall, so many orders
were sent to the coach-makers of Pesth, that trade was brisk for all
the summer.
The details of the debates of the period would exhaust the reader's
patience. I shall, therefore, at once proceed to the summing up.
1st. In the nine years' revolt of Kara Georg nearly the whole
sedentary Turkish population disappeared from Servia, and the Ottoman
power became, according to their own expression, _assassiz_
(foundationless).
2nd. The eighth article of the treaty of Bucharest, concluded by
Russia with the Porte, which remained a dead letter, was followed by
the fifth article in the treaty of Akerman, formally securing the
Servians a separate administration.
3rd. The consummate skill with which Milosh played his fast and loose
game with the Porte, had the same consequences as the above, and
ultimately led to
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