The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-06 00:00:00

THE PRINCIPALITY OF SERVIA.

The attention of the Press has been much directed i
within these few days to the change which has ensued
in the administration of this principality by the de •
position of Prince Michael, and the elevation to the
hospodarship in his stead, of the son of the celebrated
Czerny George. In this instance, no less than in the
hundred others of their history, the independence and
unsuccumbing spirit of the bervian nation has been
ahown,-by heroically resisting in any shape the op-
pression or dissatisfactory government of their rulers,
whether Turkish or native. Their history presents
us with the picture of a people, who, continually
pressed down by the stronger arm of Turkey, have
eventually and repeatedly riserr superior to the tyranny
imposed on_ them.
This patriotic and magnanimous people must be
reckoned among those races who vibrated between the
North and East ; possessing to-day, dispossessed to-
morrow • now fixed, and now wandering; having
their head-quarters in Sarmatia for many generations
in Macedonia for following ones, and settling in Servia
at last. But to trace their history, as to trace their
course, is impossible. At last the eye fixes them be-
tween the Sava and the Danube, and Belgrade grows
up as the central point round which the power of
Servia gathers itself together, and stretches itself
along the right bank of the former river, southwards
to the range of mountains which spread to the
Adriatic, and to the verge of Montenegro. Anciently
Servia formed part of Elyria, which the Romans, under
the name of Mmsia, reduced under their dominion.
The Servians maintained for ages a dubious struggle
with the power of the Byzantine empire; but the Turk
had grappled with, and utterly broken them, nearly a
century before the final ruin of Constantinople. The
campaign in which their freedom was beaten down,
never again effectually to re-assert itself, is abun-
dantly celebrated, as might be expected in their
minstrelsy. With those who are familiarised with
these national out-pourings, the ballads of the long
trampled Servians may be found entitled to a place
not below those of haughtier nations. Perpetually
they allude to their fatal overthrow by Amurath :
extolling the valour and conduct of the heroes of La-
zarus, the King or Krall of Servia, and the immense
superiority of the number of the hostile host. The
fatal issue of this battle to the liberty of Servia is in-
cessantly bewailed.
Subsequent to this period, as we observed, no
dawn of liberty has shone upon Servia. Reduced to
be the bloody trieatre of the fierce wars which have
been carried on between the Turks and Hungarians,
every struggle for freedom—each feebler than the
foraier one—has only served to deteriorate her con-
dition and to destroy her hopes.. After the battle on
the Amselfeld in 1447, by which the Hungarians,
under Hunniades, were completely overthrown,
Servia was altogether subdued by the Turks. In
1459 she was treated as a conquered province, her
most respectable families banished or destroyed, while
from time to time vast numbers of Servians emigrated

to Hungary.
In 1801 the barbarity of the Turkish governors,
into whose hands the State of Servia had again
fallen, together with the arrogance of their janiza-
ries, led to an insurrection. George Petrowitsch, a
man of courage, known by the name of Czerny
George, placed himself at the head of the malcon-
tents, and fought for eleven years with the greatest
ardour. He demanded of Turkey that Servia, like
Moldavia and Wallachia, should be elevated to a
principality under a Greek hospodar. The demand
was rejected but Czerny George, aided powerfully
by the Russians, defeated the troops of the Porte so
often, that an armistice was at length proposed, and
concluded at the Servian head-quarters in 1808.
Czerny George, with the other chiefs of his nation,
now prepared a Constitution for Servia, under the
protection of Russia. Having been before appointed
chief ruler by the people, he was formally declared
Prince of Servia, and recognised by the Russian
Emperor, who, at the same time, made him Lieuten-
ant-General of the Russian army, and Knight of the
Order of Alexander Newzky.
War again broke out, which -,fas, however, sub-
sequently ended by a peace concluded at Bucharest,
May '2B, 1812, between Russia and the Porte. By
this it was agree( -that the Porte should treat the
Servians wit kindness, and grant them a full
aomest:: The administration of its internal affairs
w'r..s-tommitted to the nation. The Servians were to
enjoy the same advantages with the Turkish subjects
in the islands of the'Archipelago and other countries.
In July, 1813, however, the war between Servia
and the Porte again began, and was prosecuted with
bitterness and with various success. After it had
continued four months, the Turks prevailed. The
country was made a desert. Finally, under the con-
duct of Milosch, the Servians concluded the treaty of
December 15, 1815, which made them not so much
the subjects, as the dependents of the Porte. The
attempt of Czerny George in 1817 to kindle a new
war, cost him his life.
Till 1820, negotiations with the Servians were
continued in Constantinople. They demanded that
'no Turk should possess property in Servia, without
the wails of Belgrade. It was granted. From that
time the country has been governed by a Senate,
which consists of a President, Milosch, who was made
Prince in 1817, and four members or Syrian repre-
sentatives. The Senate then held its sessions at
Semendra, a fortified city on the Danube, containing
8,000 inhabitants, the residence ofthe Archbishop, and
the Hospodar Milosch Obrenowitsch, formerly a
General under Czerny George. Prince Milosch, in
1825, put down with an iron hand a rebellion excited
by his own severity, and was rewarded for it by the
high office of Hospodar.
Prince Milosch has, however, highly benefited his
country, and under him have been worked out many
of those needful reforms which it would be well if the
wl':ole of Servia were to experience. The best accounts
el the great change he has superinduced, are to be
found in h;s own words. The people demanded a re-
presentative constitution from Prince blilosch, and
this they obtained. At the first Assembly of the
States, held at Karagozovitz, on the 16th of February
in 1835, he pronounced a speech, which not only shows
the present state of the Constitution of Servia, but is
a cbaracter,stic specimen of statesmanship :
"It is but a year since Servia has become a State.
I:, laying down the foundation of a new one, it is
-iic.cessaryto go slowly to work, to take care not to
utter a single syllable, which, to-morrow, we shall
have to retract. Centuries have gone by before the
different States in the world could attain the position
in which we at present see them. Yet every day their
institutions require some alteration. Such must also
be Servia's fate. Servia cannot in one year become
a State so perfectly administered as to be faultless."
• On speaking of the new statute which he was
about to promulgate for Servia, he said—
" This statute, which accurately defines the rights
and duties of the Prince of Servia—the rights and
duties of the Servian Magistrates—as well as those of
every Servian, shall be read in your presence. You
' will see that the general national rights are the rights
which every Servian is to enjoy—are such as humanity
dem'apds : that the person of every Servian is free—
shat every Servian is master of his property. Obe-
dience to this statute we must swear—not only we
who are now here e
assmbled, but also every one of our
brethren who happens to be absent. We must swear
one to the other—the Prince to the Magistrates and
the people—the Magistrates to the Prince and the
people—the people to the Prince and b la4istrates—
thai we consider this statute sacred and inviolable, as
we hold the Gospel to be inviolable and sacred—that
we shall not swerve one inch from it, or alter a single
syllable of it, without previously obtaining the ap-
proval and consent of the whole nation."
He then proceeded to explain the new formations
he had made in the Council of State—the magistracy
of the country—the revision of the civil and criminal
code—the taxations for payment of officers, troops,
police, the quarantine,-tribute to the Sultan, &c., and
this peculiar provision was made on this score :
`` To prevent the people being hourly teased by
small indirect contributions, I have established but
one tax, one of three dollars every six months, from
every one. Let every one, I say, pay three dollars
half-yearly, and thus be exempt
from paying anything,
whetker for poll-tax' , church-taxes,
mill and distillery-tax, a matrimony-tax,
corn-tax, and also the tenth
on Indian corn, wheat,,barley, bee-hives, and wine."
Alluding to this remodelling of the general institu-
tions of the country, he modestly remarked :
"Neither my judgment, nor the information I am
possessed of, nor the time I have at my disposal, have
sufficed to bring to perfection this important task, so
as to enable me to say, No one will be able to find
fault with my work,' or ' It is the most perfect work
upon earth.'
Prince Milosch was born in Dobriaja, in 1780, and
is therefore at present about 62 years of age. He spent
his youth in " herding the famed swine" of Servia,
which attain their perfection in consequence of the
abundant crops of acorns which the boundless forests
el the interior afford.. This was the man, who, in the
course of half a century from that time was to be
Prince of the Servians —not a swine -herd among them,
The only visit Milosch made to the Frank towns was
when he hired himself as a drover, with a large herd
of cattle going to Zera. He was forced to aidicate
early in 1838, in favour of his son Michael, and chiefly
through the machinations of Jefrem Obrenowitsch,
his own brother.
Prince Michael, till within these few days the
reigning Prince of Servia, has, as our readers
been deposed in the assembly called by the Notables
and Senators at Belgrade, which consisted on the
occasion of 12,000 Servians, while Alexander Petro-
witsch, son of the famous Czerny George, now forty
years old, and bred in a Russian military academy,
has been unanimously elected in his stead. .
The Obrenowitsch family, it is stated, have enjoyed
no popularity among the people, and ever since the
accession of the late SoVereign, Michael, the country
has been in a most unsettled state.