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Karađorđe (Serbian Cyrillic: Карађорђе, [kârad͡ʑoːrd͡ʑe]; 1768 – 24 July 1817) was a Serbian revolutionary leader who fought the Ottoman Empire during the First Serbian Uprising.

Early life

Đorđe Petrović was born into a poor Serbian family in the village of Viševac, Šumadija. His family is said to have been descended from the Vasojevići tribe and had emigrated from Montenegro to Serbia at some period in the late 1730s or early 1740s. Little is known of Petrović's early life and even the year of his birth is uncertain. Historians speculate that he was most likely born in 1768. His parents were forced to move around often in search of a livelihood while he was a child. He worked for multiple landlords throughout Serbia until 1787, when he and his family left Šumadija—likely due to his actions against the Ottoman jannisary—and settled in Vojvodina. There, they found sanctuary in the Krušedol monastery.

Military career

Petrović joined the Serbian Freikorps and was involved in fighting the Turks in western Serbia following the outbreak of the Austro-Turkish War in 1787. He gained invaluable military experience by serving with the Austrians and learned their military techniques. In 1791, the Turks and the Austrians agreed to come to terms at the Treaty of Sistova. The Austrians returned Belgrade to the Turks in exchange for minor territorial concessions in northern Bosnia, effectively abandoning the Serbs and leaving them to resist Ottoman forces on their own. Petrović continued fighting the Turks as an outlaw. He returned to Šumadija in 1794 and settled in the town of Topola, where he became a livestock merchant and traded with the Austrians. This business connected him with many Serbs in Austria. He later joined the Serbian national militia and became a buljukbaša, assigned to command a military detachment consisting of 100 men. He went on to collaborate with vizier Hadži Mustafa Pasha against the jannisaries and acquired considerable experience in Ottoman military organization as a result. Violent and undisciplined, the jannisaries returned to Serbia in 1801. Petrović, like many other Serbs, foresaw that action would have to be taken against them. The jannisaries massacred hundreds of Serb nobles in January and February 1804, sparking a revolt by the Serbian rayah, the tax-paying lower class. By this time, Petrović was respected and well known in Šumadija. On 2 February, he was chosen to lead the rebellion against the jannisaries. He was elected without opposition. Legend has it that he twice refused to lead the uprising, arguing that his violent temper would make him an unsuitable leader.

References

• Ćirković, Sima M. (2008). The Serbs. Translated by Vuk Tošić. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-40514-291-5.
• Fotić, Aleksandar (2009). "Karađorđe". In Ágoston, Gábor; Masters, Bruce Alan (eds.). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-6259-1.
• Glenny, Misha (2012). The Balkans: 1804–2012. London: Granta Books. ISBN 978-1-77089-273-6.
• Jelavich, Charles; Jelavich, Barbara (2000). The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920. Vol. 8 (4th ed.). Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-96413-8.
• Johnson, Michael D. (2014). "Karađorde Petrović". In Hall, Richard C. (ed.). War in the Balkans: An Encyclopedic History from the Fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Breakup of Yugoslavia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 159–160. ISBN 978-1-61069-031-7.
• Judah, Tim (2000) [1997]. The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (2nd ed.). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-08507-5.
• Király, Béla K.; Rothenberg, Gunther Erich (1982). Vucinich, Wayne S. (ed.). The First Serbian Uprising, 1804–1813. War and Society in East Central Europe. New York: Brooklyn College Press. ISBN 978-0-93088-815-2.
• Mackenzie, David (1996). "The Serbian Warrior Myth and Serbia's Liberation, 1804–1815" (PDF). Journal of the North American Society for Serbian Studies. 10 (2). Bloomington, Indiana: Slavica Publishers: 133–149. ISSN 0742-3330.
• Norris, David A. (2008). Belgrade: A Cultural History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-970452-1.
• Pavlowitch, Stevan K. (2002). Serbia: The History of an Idea. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-6708-5.
• Singleton, Frederick Bernard (1985). A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-27485-2.

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Early life and family

A young Putnik (back row, centre) with his parents and two sisters

Radomir Putnik was born in Kragujevac on 24 January [O.S. 12 January] 1847, the fourth of five children of Dimitrije Putnik and his wife Marija. His paternal grandfather, Arsenije, had fled Kosovo alongside thousands of other Serbs during the Austro-Turkish War of 1787–91 and settled in Vojvodina, then a possession of the Habsburg Monarchy. In Serbian, the word putnik means traveler. The surname is said to have originated with Arsenije, who identified himself as "a traveler going in an unknown direction" when questioned by Austrian authorities after crossing the Ottoman–Habsburg frontier. Arsenije settled in Bela Crkva, then an important centre of Vojvodina Serbs, and married. Dimitrije, Putnik's father and Arsenije's only child, was born in 1813. He left Bela Crkva in the 1830s and moved to Kragujevac, then the capital of the nascent Serbian state, became a schoolteacher, married and started a family. Putnik had two brothers and two sisters; his older siblings were named Đorđe, Sofija, and Kosta, and his younger sister was named Mila.

Putnik began attending primary school at age six, and started high school in Kragujevac, attaining fluency in German and distinguishing himself as an excellent student. Upon finishing the first year of high school, Putnik chose to become a professional soldier, apparently inspired by the exploits of the warlord Stevan Knićanin, who had the reputation of a great Serbian patriot and was revered as a national hero by Serbs of the time.

Notes and references

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

• Hall, Richard C. (2000). The Balkan Wars 1912–1913: Prelude to the First World War. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-13458-363-8.
• Mitrović, Andrej (2007). Serbia's Great War, 1914–1918. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. ISBN 978-1-55753-477-4.
• Pavlowitch, Stevan K. (2002). Serbia: The History of an Idea. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-6708-5.
• Skoko, Savo (1990a) [1984]. Vojvoda Radomir Putnik. Vol. 1 (2 ed.). Belgrade: Beogradski izdavačko-grafički zavod. ISBN 978-8-61300-453-0.
• Skoko, Savo (1990b) [1984]. Vojvoda Radomir Putnik. Vol. 2 (2 ed.). Belgrade: Beogradski izdavačko-grafički zavod. ISBN 978-8-61300-453-0.
• Strachan, Hew (2001). The First World War: To Arms. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820877-8.
• Thomas, Nigel; Babac, Dušan (2001). Armies in the Balkans: 1914–18. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78096-735-6.