Serbian Revolution in the context of "First Serbian uprising"

Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a landlocked country in Southeast and Central Europe. Located in the Balkans, it borders Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, North Macedonia to the south, Croatia to the northwest, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, and Montenegro to the southwest. Serbia also claims to share a border with Albania through the disputed territory of Kosovo. Serbia has about 6.6 million inhabitants, excluding Kosovo. Serbia's capital, Belgrade, is also the largest city in the country.

Continuously inhabited since the Paleolithic age, the territory of modern-day Serbia faced Slavic migrations in the 6th century. Several regional states were founded in the Early Middle Ages and were at times recognised as tributaries to the Byzantine, Frankish and Hungarian kingdoms. The Serbian Kingdom obtained recognition by the Holy See and Constantinople in 1217, reaching its territorial apex in 1346 as the Serbian Empire. By the mid-16th century, the Ottoman Empire annexed the entirety of modern-day Serbia; their rule was at times interrupted by the Habsburg Empire, which began expanding towards Central Serbia from the end of the 17th century while maintaining a foothold in Vojvodina. In the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the nation-state as the region's first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory.

Central Serbia (Serbian: централна Србија, romanized: centralna Srbija), also referred to as Serbia proper (Serbian: ужа Србија, romanized: uža Srbija), is the region of Serbia lying outside the autonomous province of Vojvodina to the north and the disputed Kosovo region to the south. Central Serbia is a term of convenience, not an administrative division of Serbia as such, and does not have any form of separate administration.

Broadly speaking, Central Serbia is the historical core of modern Serbia, which emerged from the Serbian Revolution and subsequent wars against the Ottoman Empire. In the following period, Serbia gradually expanded south, acquiring Southern Serbia, Kosovo, Sandžak, and Vardar Macedonia, and in 1918 – following the unification and annexation of Montenegro and unification of Austro-Hungarian areas left of the Danube and Sava (Vojvodina) – it merged with other South Slavic territories into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The current borders of Central Serbia were defined after World War II, when Serbia became a republic within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with Kosovo and Vojvodina as its autonomous provinces.

The Principality of Serbia (Serbian: Књажество Србија, romanized: Knjažestvo Srbija) was an autonomous, later sovereign state in the Balkans that came into existence as a result of the Serbian Revolution, which lasted between 1804 and 1817. Its creation was negotiated first through an unwritten agreement between Miloš Obrenović, leader of the Second Serbian Uprising, and Ottoman official Marashli Pasha. It was followed by the series of legal documents published by the Sublime Porte in 1828, 1829 and finally, 1830—the Hatt-i Sharif. Its de facto independence ensued in 1867, following the evacuation of the remaining Ottoman troops from the Belgrade Fortress and the country; its independence was recognized internationally in 1878 by the Treaty of Berlin. In 1882 the country was elevated to the status of kingdom.

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (Serbian Cyrillic: Вук Стефановић Караџић, pronounced [ʋûːk stefǎːnoʋitɕ kâradʒitɕ]; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS) – 7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the modern Serbian language. Vuk Karadžić was a versatile scholar and the founder of several Serbian academic disciplines, with a significant contribution to historiography. For his collection and preservation of Serbian folktales, Encyclopædia Britannica labelled Karadžić "the father of Serbian folk-literature scholarship." He was also the author of the first Serbian dictionary in the new reformed language. In addition, he translated the New Testament into the reformed form of the Serbian spelling and language.

He was well known abroad and familiar to Jacob Grimm, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and historian Leopold von Ranke. Karadžić was the primary source for Ranke's Die serbische Revolution ("The Serbian Revolution"), written in 1829.

Revolutionary Serbia, or Karađorđe's Serbia, was the state established by the Serbian revolutionaries in Ottoman Serbia (Sanjak of Smederevo) after the start of the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1804. The Sublime Porte first officially recognized the state as autonomous in January 1807, however, the Serbian revolutionaries rejected the treaty and continued fighting the Ottomans until 1813. Although the first uprising was crushed, it was followed by the Second Serbian Uprising in 1815, which resulted in the creation of the Principality of Serbia, as it gained semi-independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1817.

The Second Serbian Uprising was the second phase of the Serbian Revolution against the Ottoman Empire, which erupted shortly after the re-annexation of the country to the Ottoman Empire in 1813. The occupation was enforced following the defeat of the First Serbian Uprising (1804–1813), during which Serbia existed as a de facto independent state for over a decade. The second revolution ultimately resulted in Serbian semi-independence from the Ottoman Empire. The Principality of Serbia was established, governed by its own parliament, constitution and royal dynasty. De jure independence, however, was attained in 1878, following the decisions of the Congress of Berlin.

Serbian epic poetry (Serbian: Српске епске народне песме, romanized: Srpske epske narodne pesme) is a form of epic poetry created by Serbs originating in today's Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. The main cycles were composed by unknown Serb authors between the 14th and 19th centuries. They are largely concerned with historical events and personages. The instrument accompanying the epic poetry is the gusle.

Serbian epic poetry helped in developing the Serbian national consciousness. The cycles of Prince Marko, the Hajduks and Uskoks inspired the Serbs to restore freedom and their heroic past. The Hajduks in particular, are seen as an integral part of national identity; in stories, the hajduks were heroes: they had played the role of the Serbian elite during Ottoman rule, they had defended the Serbs against Ottoman oppression, and prepared for the national liberation and contributed to it in the Serbian Revolution.

Vasilije "Vasa" Čarapić (Serbian Cyrillic: Василије "Васа" Чарапић; 1768–1806), known as the Dragon of Avala (Serbian: Змај од Авале, romanized: Zmaj od Avale) and Vasso Tscharapitsch (German), was a Serbian voivode who participated in the First Serbian Uprising of the Serbian Revolution against the Ottoman Empire.