Slaughter of the knezes
1804 CE
The Slaughter of the Knezes refers to a massacre that is committed in January 1804, on the central square of Valjevo, Serbia.
The victims are the most prominent Serbian nobles, titled Knezes ("local dukes"), of the Belgrade Pashaluk.
They are executed by the Ottoman Dahias, the Jannisary junta that rules Serbia at this time.
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The Ottoman empire has long tried to crush the rise of nationalism among its Serbian subjects, who are virtual bond-slaves of their Turkish controlled lands.
The Serbs also detest the tyrannical rule of the Janissaries, the elite corps of the Turkish army, in the Pashalik (province) of Belgrad The dahis, leaders of the Jannisary troops that had had taken power in the Pashalik in defiance of the Sultan, fear that the Sultan will make use of the Serbian nobility to oust them.
To forestall this, on February 4, 1804, Ilija Birčanin, a Serbian knez (usually translated into English either as prince or, less commonly, as duke) and the Serb chieftain Aleksa Nenadović are brought by the dahis before a large crowd of Christian and Muslim onlookers in the village of Valjevo, near Belgrade, where Nenadovic is publicly accused of conspiring with Austrians against the sultan.
The two are then publicly decapitated and their bodies dumped in an open meadow by the Kolubara River, causing the residents to panic and flee.
According to contemporary sources from Valjevo, the decapitated heads of the murdered men were put on some sort of a public display in the central square to serve as an example to those who might plot against the rule of the dahis.
Thus incident, known as the Slaughter of the Knezes, sparks the First Serbian Uprising of the Serbian Revolution, which will ultimately lead to the liberation of Serbia in 1817.
Three hundred Serb notables gather on February 14, 1804, in the small Šumadija village of Orašac, nearby modern Arandelovac, in Marićevića jaruga, and decide to undertake an uprising.
Prota Mateja and several other leaders have organized military detachments that have engaged the dahis in Valjevo.
Karadjordje ("Black George") Petrović, so named because of his dark complexion and penetrating eyes, is elected as the leader of the uprising, which starts immediately.
The son of a peasant, Karadjordje had in his youth herded swine and goats; In 1787, he had migrated to Austria, where he had joined the army and served with distinction in Italy and against the Turks.
Karadjordje had made his home in Topola (Serbia) at the end of the Austro-Turkish war in 1791, and had prospered by trading in livestock.
When Prota Mateja hears of this, he urges all Serb leaders to resist the dahis and the Ottoman authorities.
Mateja is appointed deputy-commander of Valjevo, and later acts as diplomat to Russia, Austria, Bucharest and Constantinople.
That afternoon, a Turkish inn (caravanserai) in Orašac is burned and its residents flee or are killed.
Similar actions are undertaken in surrounding villages, then spread further.
The cities of Valjevo and Požarevac are soon taken, and the siege of Belgrade begins.
The Serbs at this stage are acting in the name of the Sultan, who on March 12 issues a fermans ordering all to support the uprising against the dahis.
Karadjordje has thirty thousand combat-ready men under his command by the spring of 1804.
The Serbs manage to quickly organize a widespread revolt, under the pretext of liberation from the dahis.
Karadjordje terminates feudalism in the liberated areas of Serbia and installs his military commanders and local leaders as governors of nahis (administrative units).
The dahis flee from Belgrade, abandoning their followers, but ...
...the dahis are captured on Ada Kaleh island on the Danube by forty rebels led by Milenko Stojković and executed with the knowledge and approval of the Ottoman authorities.
With the success of the uprising, Selim III starts to negotiate with the rebels.