10.5937/zrpfns48-6743 = Manifestations of corruption in Serbia during Uprisings (1804-1815)

Abstract

The statehood of the Serbian nation was manifested early (as early as the Middle Ages), but the modern Serbian state was built gradually, starting from the First and Second Serbian Uprising (1804-1815), through the self-governed Principality of Serbia (1830) to the international recognition of the independence of the Principality of Serbia (1878). The young Serbian state in the period of the First Serbian Uprising had all the attributes that constitute a state: the governing apparatus that included both central and local authorities, territory, and population. Having inherited nepotism and corruption (two major evil remnants of the Ottoman rule), the emerging state undertook a number of measures to curb them, so that the centralised administration should be able to strengthen the state apparatus. Instead of qadis and musellims, who had lived mainly on bribe, the developing state had to confront its own officials who tended to abuse their positions in order to achieve economic prestige and separate themselves from the general population of the Pashaluk. They took the best and the largest shares of the spoils won while combating the Turks, arbitrarily appropriated Turkish houses and other property, took over control the ferries and customs checkpoints, held a monopoly in trading and used the 'official toil' the forced labour that Serbian peasants were obliged to do for the spahijas (feudal lords) before the uprising. Manifestations of corruptive practices inherited from the Turkish era still persisted, although with certain new habits emerging at the time of the creation of the Serbian state and reflecting the general belief that money could buy everything.