The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

THE RECON STRUCTION OF

Archduke’s agents, that they would be given ample guarantees for their national development, induced them to side with Ferdinand, thus contributing greatly to his being able to maintain himself in Western Hungary against Zapolya. That moment was a somewhat decisive one in the creation of the present Austria-Hungary and the establishment of the Hapsburgs upon the Hungarian throne simultaneously with their acquiring the crown of Bohemia.

The position of the Serbian nation was at that time peculiar. When the Hungarian Kings Matthew and Vladislay encouraged Serbian immigration they granted the Serbs special extensive privileges and exempted them from paying tithes to the Roman Catholic priests; the Serbs settled down in one district (the Banat) and from the fourteenth century formed a separate politicoadministrative province; this, together with the imperishable traditions of the past glory and greatness of the Serbian Empire, kept alive the idea of Serbian national independence for which the Serbs, notwithstanding many failures, were always ready to shed their very best blood.

But even when the Turkish flood had completely submerged all the provinces inhabited by Serbs, the idea of their national unity and independence was in some ways strengthened. The Great Vizier Sokolovié, who was a Serbian by birth, re-established the Serbian National Church in 1557, and nominated his own brother, the pious

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