Читать книгу The Lands of the Tamed Turk; or, the Balkan States of to-day онлайн

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Only since the final suppression of the Turks have the Servians “found themselves,” so to speak, and the rapid rise of the nation has been remarkable. In the early years of the nineteenth century, before its revolt under the leadership of George Petrovitch—Kara, or Black George, as he was called by the Turks—Servia could not boast of a single schoolhouse; there was not even a wagon road in the whole country, except what remained of the ancient Roman highway between Belgrade and Nisch; because the Turks forbade the building or even repairing of houses of Christian worship, the churches were, for the most part, in miserable ruin; the entire population at that time was scarcely larger than that of the single city of Detroit to-day. Then Servia was merely a province of Turkey, governed by a Vizir sent from Constantinople. The country was not only the seat of internal friction, but tribes, in rebellion against the Sultan, exploited the land as a private estate.

But listen to the changes of a hundred years.