Book Description

"Contemporary analysis of Serbia's foreign policy in the middle of the nineteenth century has remained in a deep shadow of the "Načertanije", a document conceived in 1844 in Belgrade, as a result of collaboration between Serbia's interior minister Ilija Garašanin and F.A. Zach, the representative of the Polish political emigration from Paris, led by Prince A. Czartoryski, in the capital of the autonomous Principality of Serbia. Prince Czartoryski, author of Councils for Serbia's foreign policy in 1843, considered Serbia, the sole semi-independent state among Slavs in South-Eastern Europe, a nucleus of a wider, Serbia-led South Slav state that might endorse an anti-Russian and anti-Austrian policy as a support for his wider plans regarding the restoration of independent Poland. The over-ambitious pan-Slav probject of F. Zach (Serbia's Slavic Policy) was eventually modified by Garašanin to a more realistic and attainable plan, in accordance with Serbia's modest demographic and military potential, limited international experience and still humble administrative capacities. Planning the unification of the predominantly Serb-inhabited lands under Ottoman rule was appropriately adapted to the geopolitical realities of 1844. The foreign policy of Serbia under Garašanin, during the rule of the pro-Austrian Prince Alexander Karadjordjević and Garašanin's premiership under Russophile Prince Michael Obrenović, was balancing between various political options that were dominating Europe and the Balkans between the 1848 Revolution and the Crimean War and the first Balkan Alliance. Garašanin was continuously prudent and bold in pursuing realistic political ambitions regarding large-scale anti-Ottoman activities, by building a network of confidents and agents throughout Turkey-in-Europe that was to forment a joint insurrection against the Ottoman rule. During its last phase, Garašanin's foreign policy gradually evolved into the direction of closer Yugoslav and Balkan cooperation"--Back cover.