 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Serb volunteers in the Greek War of Independence" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
SomeSerbs joined theGreeks, their co-religionists, in theGreek War of Independence (1821–29). Volunteers arrived fromSerbia,Montenegro, and territories still under Ottoman rule, to fight alongside the Greek rebels against the Ottoman Empire. Several of the volunteers were veterans of theSerbian Revolution, such asHadži-Prodan.
During the first decades of the 19th century, theFirst Serbian Uprising and thesecret preparations for a Greek revolution coincided. The news of the Serbian revolt of 1804 were received with great joy by the Greeks, who viewed it as a paradigm for a Greek national revolution. The ground for a common action had been prepared already from the end of 18th century, when the Greek intellectual and revolutionaryRigas Feraios, inspired by theFrench Revolution, envisioned a common revolution of all the Balkan nations against the Ottoman Empire and the formation of a Balkan federation.
Military cooperation between the two nations was forged in the semi-autonomousDanubian Principalities, which were governed mostly byPhanariote Greekvoivodes. There are indications that communication and cooperation between Serbs and Greeks of the Greek mainland had also been established early. For example, in 1806 the French consul in Thessaloniki reported that “the Turks are very furious against the Greeks because of their communications with the Serbs”.[1]
Several distinguished Serbs had been accepted as members ("brothers") in theFiliki Eteria, the secret organization that prepared the Greek Revolution, despite officially only enlisting ethnic Greeks. Symbolic ofGreek-Serbian friendship was theblood brotherhood between GreekarmatolosGiorgakis Olympios and Serbian rebel leaderKarađorđe; Olympios had fought in theSerbian Revolution and was married to the widow ofhajdukVeljko Petrović.[2]
On the other hand, many eminent Greeks in Wallachia and Russia, politicians, merchants etc. assisted the Serbian Revolution in many ways. For example,Constantine Ypsilantis, father of theEteria leaderAlexandros Ypsilantis, had, as voivode of Wallachia, helped the revolutionaries of Karađorđe, whileIoannis Kapodistrias as Russian Minister of External Affairs offered diplomatic support to the Serbian cause in international meetings like theCongress of Vienna.
Apart from R. Feraios, other leading Greek revolutionaries conceived a common Greek-Serbian-Montenegrin revolution, but due to diverging political strategies of the two nations this did not happen. TheEteria had suggested collaboration toMiloš Obrenović I, Prince of Serbia, but the latter preferred political arbitrations rather than a military confrontation with theOttoman Empire.[3] Consequently, the Greco-Serbian military cooperation was limited. From the Greek side there were isolated acts, like the attempt of the Greekarmatolos Nikotsaras, captain of few hundred fighters, to march in 1807 from Greece to Serbia in order to join the army of Karađorđe.
The first Serbian presence in the Greek Revolution occurred during the revolt's outbreak inWallachia (1821). The political and military leader of the revolution, Alexandros Ypsilantis, apart from Greeks and other ethnicities, had a number of Serb fighters under his command, known collectively as "Arvanites".[4] Some of the notable fighters were captainsMilenko Stojković,[citation needed]Petar Dobrnjac,[citation needed]Hadži-Prodan,Mladen Milovanović[citation needed] andarchimandrite "Servos",[5] head of 300 Greeks and Serbs killed in battle. All the above were the leaders of mixed units of Greeks and Serbians.[6]
After the failure of revolution in Wallachia, many of them moved south to Greece to continue fighting against Ottoman forces. Other Serbs were already in Greece enlisted in the Ottoman army, who defected to the Greek side after the outbreak of the revolution.
A group of 105 Serbs under the Serbianphilhellene Anastasije Dmitrijević moved to Greece with the beginning of the Revolution and participated in many battles till the end of the Revolution. Several of those men were killed in battle.
Other Serbian leaders who participated in the Revolution of 1821 were:
Some fighters from Montenegro were known asMavrovouniotis (Greek for "Montenegrin"), such as Joannos Slavanos Mavrovouniotis, Joannos Montenegrinos (participated in the siege of Tripolitsa), Gregory Jurovic Mavrovouniotis andVasos Mavrovouniotis fromBjelopavlići. The latter came fromSmyrna to Greece in 1820 and became the leader of a group of Montenegrins, many of them being his brothers and relatives.[7] A notable Montenegrin philhellene was General De Wintz, who had also fought under Napoleon. He attempted to assemble a unit of 2,000 European volunteers or mercenaries to fight in Greece and Cyprus but he did not manage to get any financial assistance. Another group of 25 Serbs under the leadership of the Greek George Kontopoulos is known for their participation in thesieges of Messolonghi.
At the beginning of the revolution the Serbian units were ethnically homogeneous, but gradually, a mutual trust and a sense of brotherhood with the Greeks was developed. Thus, after 1823 Greeks enlisted in Serbian units and vice versa. Most of these troops were irregulars, with the exception of a corps of 250 Greeks and Serbs led by the Serbian Stefanos or Stefos Nivitsa, part of a tactical army under the commandment of the French philhelleneCharles Nicolas Fabvier (Loukatos, pp 105–107).
After 1824 many Serbians and Montenegrins ascended the hierarchy of the Greek army, such as the generals Chatzi Christos Dagovic and Vasos Mavrovouniotis, the battalion commanders (chiliarchs) Stefos and Anastasi Dmitrevic, vice-chiliarch Jovo Mavrovouniotis, Captains Ioannis and Nikolaos Radovic from Montenegro and the Serbians Nikolzo, Kotzo, Helias, Spyros, Sterios Pitolites (from Bitola) and Karagiorgos.
Many changed their original name for the safety of their relatives or for other reasons. Thus, in the archives they are recorded with their Christian name and the epithetServos orSerbes (Serb),Mavrovouniotis (Montenegrin),Bosnakos (Bosnian) or the name of their home-town (e.g. KatzosMonastirlis i.e. from Manastır/Bitola). Most were under the age of 25 at the beginning of the Revolution. The Montenegrins originated mostly from the tribe of Bjelopavlići and the Serbs fromBitola,Belgrade,Psarades andNiš.
Some of the volunteers remained in Greece after the Revolution and became fully Hellenized, like Vasos Mavrovouniotis.
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help){{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)