ПРЕДИСТОРИЈА СТВАРАЊА СРПСКЕ ДРЖАВЕ ПРВОГ УСТАНКА
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SERBIAN STATE DURING THE FIRST UPRISING

Summary/Abstract: Taking the assertion made by Vuk Karadzic that the „Serbian uprising” actually began as far back as 1788 (and not 1804, when military operations began) as a starting point, the author has attempted to find and select in the pre-uprising period (1788—1804) the roots and essential elements of the state and legal establishment, which led to the eruption of the revolution and the formation of the Serbian state during that revolution. For the first four years of the mentioned period, it is especially pointed to the following: a) the repeated opening of the Eastern Question in 1788 by the outbreak of the Austrian-Turkish War (Koča’s Territory) leading to a rise in hope among the Serbian people concerning a successful national liberation war, and serving the purpose of a military (war) school to them; and b) the outbreak of the French Revolution, creating an atmosphere of unrest throughout Europe and provoking new aspirations for freedom and independence. The following decade (1791—1801) is characterised by these events: further disintegration of the Turkish political system and Turkish internal struggles; the establishment of the Serbian national army in the Belgrade pashalik, and the autonomous privileges granted to the Serbian people in the Pashalik in 1793, 1794 and 1796. The last three years of this pre-uprising period (1801—1804) are characterised by an extraordinarily intensified terror of the Turkish governors (dahijas), who had finally seized all power in the Belgrade Pashalik; they had terminated the so far successful social and economic development and were the direct cause of the outbreak of the revolution, which paved the way toward a bourgeois and democratic development of the Serbian society and the establishment of the first Serbian state in the nineteenth century.

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