Defenders of the Constitution - the first Serbian opposition

The fight to bring about the first of the constitution of modern Serbia was created immediately after the proclamation of the state, the Principality of Serbia, on December 13, 1830, at Tašmajdan, in Belgrade. The previous Belgrade Pashaluq, with a dual Turkish-Serbian administration, was replaced entirely by a Serbian administration, and Prince Miloš and all Serbian officials tore off their Turkish caps and uniforms and replaced them with European uniforms and suits. The creation of the state, a work started by Karađorđe (1804–1913), he finished Milos Obrenovic by war (1815) and diplomacy (1815–1830).

But Prince Miloš's way of ruling was still militarily strict and centralized, and his court was still like a military headquarters with its own office: all decisions had to be reviewed and approved by the commander and questioned about everything. Rebellions against his way of ruling were peasant rebellions that he easily suppressed: Dobrnjčeva's and Abdulina's rebellion (1821), Đakov's rebellion (1825) and Čarapić's rebellion (1826). He crowned his reign with the proclamation of the state, which ended the Serbian Revolution (1804–1830), and Serbia became a hereditary monarchy, recognized by the great powers from Europe. Succession to the throne, the delimitation of the territory with Turkey and Austria and the establishment of the Serbian administration were the most important elements of statehood.

LITERATURE AND EDUCATED

Suddenly, Prince Miloš received opposition in the officials from his office and the offices of almost all the elders of the Nahi in the Principality, literate and educated, who came from "ancestors", from Austria, the so-called "Germans" (Zemun, Novi Sad, Sombor, Pest, Vienna, Saint Andrew...). They did not raise riots, but asked him for a constitution, the rule of law and the limitation of his absolute power. They were also supported by Vuk Karadžić in 1832 in a famous letter in which he requested that the prince finally give the people a "constitution" and explained the ways and reasons for it. It was also aimed at meeting the official abolition of feudalism, because the feudal lords (spahis) were Turks who were ordered to leave Serbia by the Porte, and capitalism demanded European laws, a constitution and the division of power. As the prince procrastinated, the officials and their elders raised the so-called elders' rebellion, which was led by Prince Mileta Radojković from Jagodina ("Mile's rebellion").

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The rebel army invaded Kragujevac in January 1835, and the prince had no choice but to proclaim the first constitution of the Principality of Serbia already in February (on Sretenje), which was written by Dimitrije Davidović, the secretary of the prince's office, a native of Zemun. The Constitution of Sretenj (February 2/15, 1835) prescribed the abolition of feudalism, the division of power into legislative, executive and judicial, the introduction of the rule of law and the rule of institutions. The prince's immediate authority is limited by the institution of the State Council, with which he had to agree on all issues and without whose approval he could not make any important decision. However, the great powers interpreted the first Serbian constitution as too democratic and ordered its abolition after only a few weeks, which the prince could hardly wait for. The struggle for the constitution continued with the mediation of the great powers and their consuls in Belgrade, where the constitution had to be written from scratch, and the duke's opposition was called the "defenders of the constitution", the first political party in the modern Serbian state. Dimitrije Davidović was forced out of office and joined the opposition. Feudalism was the only thing that remained abolished, because the Turkish spachies left Serbia, and all their land was divided among free peasants, who had been cultivating it until then.

Like Davidović, other proponents of the drafting of the constitution and later its ardent defenders came from the ranks of bureaucratic, elder opposition to Prince Miloš, even though they owed their titles and positions to him and were in his closest circle. Uncertain, however, in their official positions, and as literate people with a clearer idea of ​​how to organize a legal state and ensure their own status, after the proclamation of the Principality of Serbia (1830), they led a fierce struggle against the prince's absolutism, which lasted for eight years.

THE PARADOX WITH THE CONSULS

The field for the political struggle related to the constitutional issue is practically still open in the unclear wording between the hatisherif, by which Serbia was declared a vassal principality of the Turkish Empire, and the berat on hereditary princely dignity, addressed to Miloš Obrenović. According to the hatisherif, the prince was given a limitation of power by the establishment of the State Council, and according to the berat, all the power went to him. Although those two acts, in a way, represented the constitutive act of the Principality, or rather - its first "constitution", the issue of supreme authority was not clearly and completely resolved by them. The acquired right to independent internal administration left room to think about a constitution that would be adopted in the country itself, which would represent a constitution in the true sense of the word and bring with it specific regulations on the issue of supreme power and everything else.

That is why the turning point in the development of these events was brought about by the rapid abolition of the Constitution of Sretenj (1835), due to its excessive "democraticness" (according to the assessment and pressure of the great powers), and at the same time the arrival of the first foreign consuls in Serbia. The paradox that arose in connection with the constitutional issue and the interference of foreign consuls in that problem consisted of the following: the consuls of absolutist countries, Austria (A. Mihanović) and Russia (G. Vashchenko) supported the opposition in the fight against the prince's absolutism, and the consul of the democratic power, Great Britain (L. Dz. Hodges), sided with Prince Miloš in defense of his absolutist rule. Delighted by the British consul, Prince Miloš also began to make a significant turn in foreign policy - from Russia to Great Britain. In the final outcome, losing the support of the protecting power, Russia, he unwittingly created one of the important preconditions for his own fall from the throne (1839).

The soul of the opposition in Serbia was Avram Petronijević, the leader of the constitutional defenders. That is why it is no coincidence that the great powers, and the Porte itself, asked that he be involved in the project of drafting a new constitution. At the suggestion of the Russian consul, a large constitution-making commission was formed, which sat in Belgrade. Jevrem Obrenović, the prince's brother, was appointed as its president, who easily switched to the side of the opposition, and among the members of the commission there were also the prince's opponents and supporters. Then things around the drafting of the constitution started to move faster. Various directions were taken to shape the final act, and heated arguments ensued. The opposition managed to win over Jovan Hadžić, a learned lawyer from Novi Sad, as an important lyricist, and Jevrem, as the president of the commission, was able to sit next to him and say: "Be my friend and speak for me, I will agree to all your words".

However, the work related to the writing of the constitution proceeded slowly, and the essence of the main dispute in all constitutional drafts came down to the balance of power between the prince and the Council of State. In addition to Russia and Great Britain, Austria also got involved in the constitutional issue (through the writers of the law), and the constitutional issue increasingly went beyond the borders of Serbia. In the end, at the suggestion of Great Britain, Turkey itself intervened, as a Syserene state, so it was decided to settle everything in its capital, under international arbitration, in 1838. Avram Petronijević was at the head of the Serbian delegation, and the prince added his men Jakov Živanović and Jovanča Spasić to him, although he took an oath of loyalty to all three of them before setting off on their journey.

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ABSOLUTISM HAS BEEN DESTROYED

After eight months of discussions, the constitution was finally written in Constantinople on December 23, 1838. The Porte sent him to Belgrade through the Belgrade vizier on Kalemegdan (in Serbia, in the duke's surroundings, that act was immediately derogatorily called the "Turkish Constitution"). With it, the long-standing constitutional issue in Serbia was resolved. Prince Miloš suffered a defeat in the fight with the opposition: his absolutism was destroyed, he had to share supreme power with the State Council, an independent judiciary was created, the rights of officials and citizens' private property were protected, in short - Serbia became a constitutional and legal state.

The day after the reading of the constitution, on February 23, 1839, Jevrem Obrenović was appointed as the president of the State Council by the prince's decree. When the National Assembly agreed to it, the prince, state councilors and people's deputies took the oath to the constitution in the Cathedral Church, in front of the Metropolitan.

When, at the end of May, a rebellion broke out in Šumadija, led by the prince's second brother, Jovan Obrenović ("Jovan's Rebellion"), with the aim of restoring the old order, the prince was placed under house arrest in Topcider, and an army was sent to attack the rebels and captured the leaders of the rebellion, persuaded by the prince himself. Moreover, the very next day, on June 12, 1839, Jevrem congratulated the soldiers of the Belgrade garrison for standing up against "the ill-wishers of this national welfare because they wanted to damage and destroy it." A day later, Prince Miloš accepted the already written resignation, with the promise of the Russian consul that his older son Milan would be recognized as a Serbian prince. Jevrem Obrenović was the only man with whom the prince refused to say goodbye when leaving Serbia for Wallachia, in exile, sitting in a ship on the Sava coast, near Kalemegdan, on June 15, 1839.

The constitution gave executive power to the prince, which he exercised through four ministries, legislative power to the State Council, and judicial power to the court. The State Council thus limited the prince's rights and abolished the previous absolutism. Although the institution of the National Assembly was not mentioned in it, an amendment left it with its previous rights, although the budget and approval of taxes fell to the State Council. The court became independent and three-level: peace, district and appellate. Almost a third of the articles of the Constitution belonged to the judiciary, since the Principality of Serbia did not yet have a civil and criminal code. Basic civil and clerical rights are guaranteed, property is protected and freedom of trade is enabled. The return of feudalism was prevented. With it, Serbia finally became a constitutional state, with a good foundation from which it quickly became a legal state.

Since Miloš's sons, Milan and Mihailo, did not rule strictly according to the Constitution of 1838, the constitutional defenders also changed the ruling dynasty and brought to the throne the younger son of Karađorđe, Aleksandar, who took the oath to the constitution and lived in a house in Belgrade that the constitutional defenders assigned to him, without much interference in the government, as a ceremonial figure.

Thus, the foundations of the constitutional defender political order were laid in Serbia, which created a civil and constitutional state and which lasted until the return of Obrenović in February 1859.