Ilija Garašanin

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Ilija Garašanin

Ilija Garašanin (Serbian Cyrillic: Илија Гарашанин) (born 1812, died 1874) was a politician in Serbia having considerable influence in national affairs.

Ilija was the son of a Serbian peasant, who made money by exporting cattle and pigs to Austria and by his intelligence and wealth attained to a certain influence in the country. He wanted to give his son as good an education as possible, and therefore sent him to Hungary to learn first in a Greek and then in a German school. Highly gifted, and having passed through a regular although somewhat short school training, the young Ilija very quickly came to the front.

In 1837, Prince Milosh Obrenovich appointed him a colonel and commander of the then just organized regular army of Serbia and, later in the year, the military police. In 1840, Garasanin faced exile in Constantinople. In 1842, he was nominated to Serbian Governing Council, later in the year, interior minister. From that time until his retirement from public life in 1867 he was repeatedly minister of home affairs, distinguishing himself by the energy and justice of his administration.

Nevertheless, Garasanin rendered far greater services to his country as minister for foreign affairs. He was the first Serbian statesman who had a political programme, and who worked to replace the Russian protectorate over Serbia by the joint protectorate of all the great powers of Europe. As minister for foreign affairs in 1853 he was decidedly opposed to Serbia joining Russia in war against Ottoman Turkey and the western powers. His anti-Russian views resulted in Prince Menshikov, while on his mission in Constantinople, 1853, peremptorily demanding from the prince of Serbia (Alexander Karageorgevich) his dismissal. But although dismissed, his personal influence in the country secured the neutrality of Serbia during the Crimean War. He enjoyed esteem in France, and it was due to him that France proposed to the peace conference of Paris (1856) that the old constitution, granted to Serbia by Turkey as suzerain and Russia as protector in 1839, should be replaced by a more modern and liberal constitution, framed by a European international commission. But the agreement of the powers was not secured.

Garashanin induced Prince Alexander Karageorgevich to convoke a national assembly, which had not been called to meet for ten years. The assembly was convoked for St Andrew's Day 1858, but its first act was to dethrone Prince Alexander and to recall the old Prince Milosh Obrenovich. When after the death of his father Milosh (in 1860) Prince Michael Obrenovich ascended the throne, he entrusted the premiership and foreign affairs to Ilija Garashanin. The result of their policy was that Serbia was given a new, although somewhat conservative, constitution, and that she obtained, without war, the evacuation of all the fortresses garrisoned by the Turkish troops on the Serbian territory, including the fortress of Belgrade (1867).

Garashanin was preparing a general rising of the Balkan nations against the Turkish rule, and had entered into confidential arrangements with the Romanians, Bosnians, Albanians, Bulgarians and Greeks, and more especially with Montenegro. But the execution of his plans was frustrated as in 1867 Garašanin was suddenly discharged, probably because he objected the marriage of Prince Michael and Katarina Konstantinović. His dismissal caused energetic protests of Russia, and more especially by the assassination of Prince Michael a few months later (the June 10, 1868). When the assassination took place, he was in Topčider (a place where Mihajlo was killed) and immediately went to Belgrade to inform the ministers about assassination. Thanks to his nerve, quick measures were taken to preserve order. Last years of his life, Garašanin spent away from politics, on his estate in Grocka.

Ilija Garašanin was very conservative in internal politics. He believed that bureaucracy was the only way for administration to work. In foreign politics, he was the first pro Yugoslav statesman among Serbs. He considered that only great Yugoslav state can maintain its independency from both Russia and Austria. Garašanin left behind a vast (still not published) political correspondence. He certainly was one of the ablest statesmen whom Serbia had in the 19th century.