КАРАЂОРЂЕ И УСТАНИЧКЕ СТАРЕШИНЕ У ОЧИМА РУСКЕ ДИПЛОМАТИЈЕ (1804-1808. г)

Abstract

This paper presents the assessments of Russian diplomats regarding Karađorđe and the insurgent commanders—their characters, domestic policy, and foreign-policy contacts—as expressed in official diplomatic correspondence during the first four years of the Uprising. This was the period of the establishment and consolidation of the first insurgent authorities, in which official St. Petersburg actively participated by receiving Serbian deputations and sending its first diplomatic agents to Serbia. Numerous diplomatic dispatches and reports from the period 1804–1808 testify that Russian diplomacy of the time was capable of producing meticulous analyses of the personalities and policies of the leading insurgent commanders. The subtle diplomacy of St. Petersburg could not overlook the differences that existed not only in the characters but also in the political views and interests of Karađorđe and the other commanders, as well as between the commanders and the Serbian people.