Introduction
According to Cox (213), nationalism can be defined as “A sense of identity perceived by people who share a common language, territory, culture, tradition, and, sometimes, religion or race”. In comparing patriotism with nationalism, nationalism looks to be more modern and offers an important connection among individuals than patriotism. In patriotism, there is only a restricted connection between people and in most cases, this occurs during the time of a calamity. Nationalism falls into two groups. The first category is the “ethnic nationalism” that considers a nation as an extended kinship group and puts much emphasis on the significance of a uniform “high and low” culture. The second category is “Political Nationalism” which considers the nation as a political group that is bound together by the same desires and governmental inclinations.
The rising of nationalism at the time when the period of the late 1700s was coming to a close is associated with the multiplication of the thought of well-liked independence. This desire underlies a great deal of contemporary democratic reasoning, even though national states are in most cases founded on esteem for suitable course and toleration of rivaling interests as in democratic systems. When nationalism moves from the sphere of individual identity and turns out to be a political force, it normally targets at becoming self-determined to bring about the national state where it is independent and dominates within its boundaries. In spite of coming up with a global economy and strong corporations operating in several nations, nationalism has maintained its status as among the strongest forces in global dealings.
Serbian History and Factors That Led to the Rise of Its Nationalism
According to Kalt (2), based on the history of Serbia, Kosovo was not just the center of worldly Serbian medieval state but was residence to the Serbian Orthodox Church as well. This church was a religious center for the Empire of Serbia that was established in later times during the climax of the power of Serbia in the mid-fourteenth century. The Turks fought Serbia in a determining war of Kosovo during the year 1389 and by the time the year 1455 set in, the Ottoman Empire had dominated Kosovo. Four years after that, the entire ‘Territory of Northern Serbia’ had as well been taken over by the Ottoman Empire. The people of Serbia witnessed Kosovo, the supporter of their empire which had at one point been arrogantly dominated by Muslims and were then under full control of the Ottomans for almost four hundred years. The thought of the defeated war of Kosovo together with the sense of past grievance that accompanied it has from that time been lifted to mythic rank closely mingled with the national recognition of Serbia and up to the present is still significant in the history of Serbian.
The history of nationalist Serbia indicates that, while under the power of the Ottomans, most of the Serbian people went first to war with Hungary and later on in time, together with the Austrian people, fought in several wars with their similar foe, the Ottomans of Turkey. Nevertheless, whenever there was a restoration of peace, the defiant Serbian people time and again sought mercy to Turkish revenge. They paid a sufferer’s cost for fighting. Overwhelmed by warfare and worsening handling, the Serbian Orthodox Christians started to leave Kosovo during the 1500s and 1600s. Together with the War of Kosovo, the other injustice adorned on the Serbian consciousness was the “Great Migration”. This was the migration in which the Serbian people were forced to move out of Kosovo at once. It occurred in the year 1960 and involved the movement of the Serbian people in Austria. Kosovo experienced variation in population together with Metohija. The Serbian people encountered more trouble with the period that followed. The stay of the Albanian people together with the stay of the people of Serbia exposed them to even more troubles (Batakovic 8). After being for a short time under the power of Austria in the Great War that occurred from the year 1683 and 1699, one Patriarch of Serbia who was in fear of the revenge of Ottoman for the contribution of Serbia in the war took lead in moving 37000 families from Kosovo to Hungary. More migrations took place during the 1700s but still, the greater part of Kosovo remained Serbian, to independent Serb-controlled Belgrade.
The recurrence of hostility went on in the year 1766 at the time Ottoman leaders banned the “Serbian Orthodox patriarchate of pec” and started taxing all the people who were not Muslims. However, in the year 1815, there were uprisings of Serbia in a position to acquire some restricted independence from the Ottoman Empire. By the year 1871, with the exhibition of symptoms of falling of the Ottoman Empire, elated Serbia started to consider taking over once again Kosovo and the remaining old Serbia. The Serbian people had as well been forcing the Albanians out he Southern Serbia and by the time the 1800s came to a close, the migration of the Albanians to Kosovo which was said to have been enhanced by the Ottomans to make the Serbs lose ground, coupled with the moving out of the Serbians had transformed the image of Kosovo; Albanians had turned out to be the majority. With speed, the Albanians became doubtful of the building up Serbian menace and fright that the lands that they were living in would be shared among Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria, elated a rise Albanian nationalism.
The Ottoman weakness came to be known as it had never been known in the past times during the Russo-Turkish War that occurred from the year 1877 up to the year 1878. In the year 1878, Ottomans came to a consensus to make peace at the Berlin congress, with the Kosovska and Pristina Mitrovica cities under the power of Serbia and not within the jurisdiction of ottoman, but the rest of Kosovo was still under Ottoman power. After very many years of subjugation, the Serbian police that had been freshly empowered together with the troops were more than willing to pay back the favor to the Albanians, whom they had seen as being in association with the Ottomans. The cruel Serbian people’s treatment of the Albanian people hastened the establishment of the “League of Prizren” during the year 1878 and this was the representation of the rejection of the Berlin Congress and refusal of the Serbian rule. This league targeted to bring together the four vilayets that were occupied by the Albanian people into a single independent Albanian area. Other than their political superiority, the Serbian people still formed about 40 percent of the Kosovo population, and together with other Slav and Turks, they were in a position to offer opposition to the unification. The change in population component to greater part Albanian Muslim and the jurisdictional splitting up of Kosovo, as well as the existence of long term hostility and inter-ethnic conflict, served to make greater the nationalism of Serbia and Albania in Kosovo at the start of the 1900s.
While the power of the Ottoman went down, other powers realized this and the “Eastern question” concerning the uprightness of the empire of Ottoman was pronounced. Russia desired to occupy the Mediterranean. As a consequence, it pursued the “Pan-Slavic foreign policy” giving support to Serbia and Bulgaria. Britain was not in a position to accept such access and thus gave support to the empire of Ottoman but as this empire became weaker and weaker, Britain alternatively shifted its support to Greece as the other prospective safeguard against the extension of Russia. Anxiety came up in Austria-Hungary where the anarchy lost by the falling of the Ottoman Empire would put in too much threat to its ruling leaders and instill more confidence in Serbia. After many years of suppression, Serbia became more than willing to look for its own revenge against the Ottomans.
The low-profile war erupted during the year 1904 between groups from Bulgaria and Greece and the Ottomans in Macedonia. The “Young Turk revolution” came up in 1908. In this revolution, the disturbed provinces of Europe brought back parliament that had earlier on been put off in the year 1878 by the Sultan and in the time being uplifted hopes of having a parliament that could represent many ethnic groups (Anonymous: Young Turk Revolution, 1). These hopes were cleared away at the time more uncompromising nationalist elements took over the movement’s control. Following the chaos in the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary utilized the chance to take over the Ottoman province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbia, as well as Montenegro, coveted this province of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Anonymous: Nationalism, 8). Bulgaria and Montenegro went the same way and announced themselves to be absolutely independent. Serbia seeking to take advantage as well, took interest in their former territories Kosovo being among them.
The changes in power that resulted from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the consequent freshly elated Balkan nations, at last, brought about the Balkan wars that occurred in the years 1912 and 1913. Towards the end of the year 1912, a greater part of Kosovo was under Serbia and the Balkan League which comprised Greece, Montenegro, and Bulgaria (Claudia & Corinne 4). At the same time, the Metohija (Kosovo’s western region), was under the Montenegro Kingdom. It was now the local Albanians that massively moved out while the Serbian people put in place plans to colonize Kosovo once again. The Serbian people were moving in to bring about a balance between the population of the Serbian people and the Albanian people. In the current times, the Albanian people still remember the cruel Serbian treatment at the time of recolonization. The First World War broke out in the year 1914 and in the year 1916, in what came to be known as “The great Serbian Retreat”, the Serbian army deserted Kosovo but pressed back into power by 1918 to establish the kingdom of Serbs, Slovenes, and Croats at the end of the First World War (Kalt 5).
According to Anonymous (Rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire 25), “The Serbian national movement represents one of the first examples of successful national resistance against the Ottoman rule.” According to this author, the Serbian national movement climaxed in two huge uprisings at the time when the nineteenth century was starting resulting in the nation getting liberated and in turn establishing the modern Serbian state. Among the major movement’s centers was the “Belgrade Pashaluk” and this turned out to be the heart of the national state of Serbia that had been established once again.
Several factors led to the rise of this state. On top of the total, the center of the nation’s identity was preserved in the form of the “Serbian Orthodox Church” that was maintained in one shape or the other independent all through the time of Ottoman occupation. After the Ottoman control had been established in Balkan Peninsula, the nation of Serbia stayed united basically by the church’s bonds. The church was the heart of the community and at the same time the community’s unshakable leader (Jelavich 144). The devotion to Orthodox Christianity is, at the present, still regarded to be a significant aspect of cultural self-determination. More so, Montenegro’s principality, which was at that time regarded to be a fundamental component of the overall body of the Serbia nation, never got absolute suppression from the Ottomans. These entities maintained the connections with the “Medieval Kingdom of Serbia” holding the initiative of national freedom alive.
The other factors originated from the political events within the region at the time of Ottoman rule, especially during the eighteenth and the seventeenth century. According to Anonymous (Rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire 27), “ At the turn of the nineteenth century the region of Belgrade Pashaluk had a relatively recent experience of Austrian rule, as a result of “Treaty of Passarowitz.” Even if Serbia’s northern territory was taken back to the rule of Ottoman basing on the Belgrade Treaty, this region experienced war in the course of the eighteenth century. Consequently, there was no establishment of complete feudal order within Belgrade Pashaluk by the Ottomans. Peasants that were free and having minute pieces of land comprised the major part of the population. More so, the potential leaders that had to emerge in time to come to deal in armed rebellions acquired much experience in military service having served in the irregular troops of Austria known as Freikorps. The closeness of the border of Austria gave a good chance of acquiring vital military material. The leaders in the nation of Siberia had a chance of relying on the support of the Serbian people who were staying and having a prosperous life in the Austrian empire in terms of finances and logistics.
Another factor that is also connected to the rising of Serbian nationalism is the epic culture such as epic poetry. The Serbs narrated the deeds of heroism and military merits that were followed by the Serbian people and played a major role in strengthening the military tradition of the Serbs. This poetry along with the Church of Serbia and the faith of the Serbian people were the bases on which the nationalism awareness was build (Pappas 29).
The instant reason for the onset of the “First Serbian Uprising” was the poor management of the region by traitor “Janissary” troops that were able to take power in Belgrade. Nevertheless, through the motivation of the original success, the rebellion intensified with speed to a complete war of liberating the nation with a well-defined goal of spreading armed effort to other Ottoman areas occupied by the Serbian people. However, even if this struggle did not succeed in the end, the “First Siberian Uprising” served as an avenue to the “Second Serbian Uprising” that occurred in the year 1815 that was ultimately successful.
The Serbia nation that was brought back to life would in the end turn out to be a center of rebellion to Ottomans, offering active support to freedom movements in the adjacent Christian lands which consisted of Bulgaria, Macedonia and Bosnia. This nation would continue to engage in a sequence of wars that turned out to be successful against the empire of Ottoman and the climax being the result of the “First Balkan War” that occurred in the year 1912.
Conclusion
In summary, the main factors that led to the rise of Serbian nationalism included autonomy, the church, migration and emigration, the epic culture and armed confrontation and military service.
The issue of military service and armed confrontation gave way for the expression of the military strength and ability of the Serbian people and this gave them the capability to uphold a measure of civil freedom, privileges, and autonomy from the empires that subjugated them.
The issue of autonomy involved those conditions which instilled in the Serbian people a mind the possibility of acquiring self-government regardless of how worse the situation could turn out to be. The kinds of autonomy that varied from one area to the other lessened the impact of foreign control.
The issue of migration and emigration enabled the Serbian people to refuge from war and its outcomes. It also offered fresh opportunities for military service, land to cultivate, and entry into other fields of opportunity such as trade.
The epic culture such as the epic poetry and the church helped in retaining the identity in terms of history and religion in the epoch that followed Kosovo. The church played a role in instilling in people the faith of national belonging that was independent and of its own kind not just from the Ottoman Islam and the Habsburgs’ Catholicism but from the Orthodoxy that was followed by the Bulgarians, the people of Greece among other Christians. The epic poetry maintained a sense of history among the Serbian people in an epoch during which literacy and the ability to keep records that were written could not be easily found. For instance, according to Etty (4), the Serbian people were inspired by poetry; “idealizing the Orthodox peasant lifestyle and glorifying the Battle of Kosovo and bolstered by Russian assistance, “they were able to attain freedom from Turkey in the year 1815.
These factors that contributed to the rise of Serbian nationalism were very closely related. Each factor was influenced by the other. For instance, military service and armed resistance aided in the establishment of self-governing institutions and also influence migration and emigration.
Works Cited
Anonymous. “Nationalism”. Unpublished, 2009. Web.
Anonymous. “Rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire”. AbsoluteAstronomy.com. 2009. Web.
Anonymous. “Young Turk Revolution”. AbsoluteAstronomy.com, 2009. Web.
Batakovic T. Dusan. “Kosovo and Metohija under the Turkish Rule”. Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren, 2009. Web.
Claudia and Corinne. “Serbia and Balkans: Early 20th Century”. Unpublished, 2009. Web.
Cox K. John. “The history of Siberia”. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. ISBN: 0313312907, 9780313312908. 2009. Web.
Etty John. “Serbian Nationalism and the Great War”. Britannica, 2009. Web.
Jelavich Charles. “Some aspects of Serbian religious development in the eighteenth century.” University of Illinois Press, 2009. Web.
Kalt Eric Benjamin. “Kosovo: At the Fringe of Empires,” Zen Diplomat, 2009. Web.
Pappas C. Nicholas. “Serbian Survival in the years after Kosovo”. Deremilitari, 2009.