THE CAMPAIGN OF ALEXANDER YPSILANTIS AND THE GREEK REVOLUTION (1821–1829) IN SERBIAN ARCHIVAL SOURCES

This paper examines the reception of the campaign of Alexander Ypsilantis and the Greek Revolution (1821–1829) in Serbia based on Serbian archival material, primarily unpublished and published documents preserved in the Archives of Serbia and the Archives of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade. Particular attention is devoted to the channels through which news about events in Wallachia, Moldavia, and the Peloponnese was gathered and disseminated, as well as to the reactions of the Serbian authorities and Prince Miloš Obrenović (1815–1839, 1858–1860) to the revolutionary developments within the Ottoman Empire. The study highlights the importance of commercial, diplomatic, and intelligence networks through which information about Ypsilantis’s movement, the Greek uprising, and Ottoman reprisals reached Serbia. Through an analysis of archival sources, the paper reconstructs the attitudes of Prince Miloš toward the possibility of Serbian-Greek cooperation in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire, as well as the security measures taken by the Serbian prince in order to preserve peace and the semi-autonomous status enjoyed by the Serbs within the Belgrade Pashalik. The paper demonstrates that Serbian sources concerning the Greek struggle for liberation from Ottoman rule are both numerous and diverse and that they constitute important testimony to the political and revolutionary processes in the Balkans during the first half of the nineteenth century.