The Timok Rebellion ( sh, Timočka buna; ro, Răscoala Timoceană) was a popular uprising that began in eastern

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hung ...

(now the region of the Timok Valley) on 28 September 1883, led by the

People's Radical Party The People's Radical Party ( sr, Народна радикална странка, Narodna radikalna stranka, abbr. НРС or NRS) was the dominant ruling party of Kingdom of Serbia and later Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from the lat ...

. It has been called the most important event in Serbia between

independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the s ...

(1878) and the

First Balkan War The First Balkan War ( sr, Први балкански рат, ''Prvi balkanski rat''; bg, Балканска война; el, Αʹ Βαλκανικός πόλεμος; tr, Birinci Balkan Savaşı) lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and invo ...

(1912).

Misha Glenny Michael V. E. "Misha" Glenny (born 25 April 1958) is a British journalist and broadcaster, specialising in southeast Europe, global organised crime, and cybersecurity. He is multilingual. He is also the writer and producer of the BBC Radio 4 ...

, ''The Balkans, 1804–1999: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers'' (Granta Books, 2000), 167–68. The first battle occurred at Lukovo on 21 October, when the rebels defeated

Royal Serbian Army The Army of the Kingdom of Serbia ( sr-cyr, Војска Краљевине Србије, Vojska Kraljevine Srbije), known in English as the Royal Serbian Army, was the army of the Kingdom of Serbia that existed between 1882 and 1918, succeedin ...

forces sent to suppress them."Timok Rebellion of 1883"
''The Great Soviet Encyclopedia'', 3rd Edition (1970–79). According to the Radical politician

Pera Todorović Pera may refer to: Places * Pera (Beyoğlu), a district in Istanbul formerly called Pera, now called Beyoğlu ** Galata, a neighbourhood of Beyoğlu, often referred to as Pera in the past * Pêra (Caparica), a Portuguese locality in the district of ...

, at a planning meeting of the Radicals' Executive Committee before the rising, one member suggested killing all bureaucrats. In the words of the ''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

'', the rebels were motivated by "such vestiges of feudalism as payment in labor and bondage imposed for the nonpayment of debts, as well as an unbearable tax burden, bureaucratic tyranny, and the growing power of commercial and usurious capital." Among their demands were a reduction in taxes, greater local self-government and the maintenance of the militia. On 2 November, peasants across the region refused to hand over their weapons to military units unless they were given modern replacements. It took the reformed Royal Army only a couple of weeks to crush the poorly organised rebellion, which at its height had controlled almost half the country and had threatened the line between Belgrade and

Niš Niš (; sr-Cyrl, Ниш, ; names in other languages) is the third largest city in Serbia and the administrative center of the Nišava District. It is located in southern part of Serbia. , the city proper has a population of 183,164, whil ...

. At the start of the rebellion, King Milan I was afraid that the soldiers would not "be willing to fire into the flesh of their own people", but his decision to pay officers double what top bureaucrats earned and to give bonus pay to soldiers who fought the rebels proved his fears ungrounded. The consul of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

in Belgrade noted that "a new page was written in the history of the Serbian people when the army launched its first shell at the rebels." After the rebellion, many Radical leaders, including

Nikola Pašić Nikola Pašić ( sr-Cyrl, Никола Пашић, ; 18 December 1845 – 10 December 1926) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat who was a leading political figure for almost 40 years. He was the leader of the People's Radical ...

, fled abroad. Of the participants who remained, 809 were put on trial. Of these, 567 were sentenced to forced labour, 68 to prison, 5 to detention and 75 were released. The remaining 94 were sentenced to death: twenty were executed right away, one committed suicide, ten escaped and fled abroad and 63 were eventually pardoned. The Timok Valley was and still is populated by a Romanian community which participated in the rebellion. In recent times, this has been commemorated by ethnic Romanian organizations in Serbia and Bulgaria.

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