Orašac Assembly

The Orašac Assembly (

The first thing they did, concluding to start an uprising, Karađorđe, and his comrades-at-arms convened to one meeting, to the "people's assembly" (that name is preserved in all memoirs of that time, and is also used in official insurgent correspondence) more prominent people from Kragujevac and Belgrade.^[2]

Insurgent Assembly in Orašac

In the famous town of Orašac, the Orašac Assembly took place, at which the people's leaders from the Belgrade and Kragujevac districts decided to start an uprising and elected Karađorđe as the insurgent leader, it was not an ordinary assembly, first because it was secretive, so only the closest circle of selected people knew about it, and second because it was insurgent. conspiratorial, and that it aimed to carry out two important conclusions of an earlier, even narrower gathering of national leaders, held in Orašac on 8 November 1803: to conclude the rise of the people's uprising in the Belgrade pashalik and elect an insurgent leader. It was, in fact, a gathering of revolutionary people's princes and other champions and elders, mixed with the faces of the priesthood on the one hand, and hajduk elders on the other, held in a hard-to-reach and hidden place, at dawn. The immediate reason for its maintenance, as well as for the uprising itself, was the slaughter of princes and national leaders by the Dahijas, and the difficult situation that ruled the country under the system of the Dahiya administration.

On 2 February 1804, at

When Karađorđe accepted the election, Archpriest Atanasije Antonijević of Bukovik put on an epitaph, lit a candle, blessed the election, and the people's conclusions, and swore allegiance to the Leader and the uprising. The chosen Leader kissed everyone present. After that day, the uprising began immediately, so that on 4 February 1804, the Austrian border authorities knew for sure that the uprising was flaring up in neighboring Serbia and that "Christian Serbs had taken up arms." [3] [4]

Assembly participants

The cross with which Atanasije Antonijević blessed Karađorđe's insurgents.

Historian Milenko Vukićević maintains that about 300 people were present at the Orašac insurgent assembly. Today, based on historical and memoir literature, only the presence of these people can be determined:

True, everything was done in one quick, short, insurgent and revolutionary procedure, but the mutual oath was there, it acted in a certain and strong way, so blood and fire, those two symbols of revolutionary mass movements, soon gave real meaning to the Orašac decisions. In a relatively short time, the Belgrade pashalik was cleansed of Turks. The power, according to the law, was in the hands of the sultan, but in fact, it was in the hands of Karađorđe and the insurgents. All negotiations conducted with anyone and in any form, after that time, were conducted in the name of the people; all letters, complaints or petitions were carried, except for the signature of Karađorđe as the "Supreme Leader of the Serbian People", later the Leader, and the signatures of other people's elders, mostly those who appear as regular participants in all people's assemblies. ^[5]

See also

• Serbian Revolution
  • Timeline of the Serbian Revolution
• Serbian Independence Day

References

Literature

• Djordjević, Miroslav R. (1979): "Serbia in Uprising: 1804-1813".
• Jelavich, Charles; Jelavich, Barbara (1986): "The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920". University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-96413-3.

Sources

• Morison, W. A. (2012) [1942]. The Revolt of the Serbs Against the Turks: (1804-1813). Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 978-1-107-67606-0
  .
• Petrovich, Michael Boro (1976). A history of modern Serbia, 1804-1918. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
• Ranke, Leopold von (1847). History of Servia, and the Servian Revolution: From Original Mss. and Documents. J. Murray.