The Serbian Mission to Russia, 1804

In the year of Napoleon’s coronation, writes Ann Kindersley, three patriotic Serbs officially asked for the help of the Tsar in their revolt against the Turks.

On September 1st, 1804, the Serbs, who had risen under the tempestuous Kara-george against their Turkish oppressors a few months earlier, sent a petition for help to the Tsar Alexander I. Karageorge chose three men to carry the document from Belgrade to St. Petersburg: their leader was Prota (Archpriest) Mateja Nenadovic, who has left a detailed account of the journey to Russia in his memoirs.

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