page_title: Ottoman Serbia
section_title: 1791–1804
hierarchical_section_title: Ottoman Serbia / Revolts / 1791–1804
context_page_description: The territory of what is now the Republic of Serbia was part of the Ottoman Empire throughout the Early Modern period, especially Central Serbia, unlike Vojvodina which has passed to Habsburg rule starting from the end of the 17th century.
  Ottoman culture significantly influenced the region, in architecture, cuisine, language, and dress, especially in arts, and Islam.
  In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Serbian Despotate was subdued by the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. The Ottomans defeated the Serbs at the Battle of Maritsa in 1371, making vassals of the southern governors. Soon thereafter, Serbian Emperor Stefan Uroš V died; as he was childless and the nobility could not agree on the rightful heir, the Empire was subsequently ruled by semi-independent provincial lords, who often were in feuds with each other. The most powerful of these, Lazar of Serbia, the Duke of a region now encompassing present-day central Serbia and that had not yet fallen under Ottoman rule, stood against the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. The outcome of the battle was indecisive, but Serbia did eventually fall to the Ottomans.
context_section_description: The withdrawal of the Austrians from Serbia in 1791 marked the end of the Kočina Krajina Serb rebellion, which was ignited by Austria in 1788. However Austria needed to settle the war and returned the Belgrade region to the Ottoman Empire.  Despite guarantees that Austria had insisted on, many of the participants in the uprising and their families went into exile in Austria. Reforms made by the Porte to ease the pressure on Serbs were only temporary; by 1799 the Janissary corps have returned, suspended the Serb autonomy and drastically increased taxes, enforcing martial law in Serbia.
  Serb leaders from both sides of the Danube began to conspire against the dahias. When they found out, they rounded up and murdered tens of Serbian noblemen on the main square of Valjevo in an event known today as Seča knezova (Slaughter of the Dukes in 1804).
  The massacre outraged the Serbian people and incited the revolt across the Pashaluk of Belgrade. Within days, in the small Šumadija village of Orašac, the Serbs gathered to proclaim the uprising, electing Karađorđe Petrović as the leader. That afternoon, a Turkish inn (caravanserai) in Orašac was burned and its residents fled or were killed, followed by similar actions country-wide. Soon the cities Valjevo and Požarevac were liberated, and the siege of Belgrade launched.
  Initially fighting to restore their local privileges within the Ottoman system (until 1807), the revolutionaries – supported by the wealthy Serbian community from southern Austrian Empire (present-day Vojvodina) and Serb officers from Austrian Military Frontier – offered themselves to be placed under the protection of Habsburg-, Russian- and French Empires respectively, entering, as a new political factor, into the converging aspirations of the Great Powers during the Napoleonic wars in Europe.
caption: Belgrade pashaluk (Sanjak of Smederevo) in 1791
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