The Turbulent 1870s

During the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire lost territory and was perceived by many of its own subjects as well as international actors as a failing and oppressive state. There was an anti-Ottoman rebellion in the Serb lands in 1804 and Greece also emerged as a new state in the 1820s. Local Muslim populations were punished and excluded, which led to a long-term phenomenon that Safet Bandžović has called “de-Ottomanization.” ¹ Political reorganization and the assertion of local rights within the Ottoman Empire in the early 1830s may have exacerbated the instability. There were major rebellions in Bosnia and Hercegovina from 1831–1832: Ahmedbeg Resulbegović briefly took control in the Trebinje garrison. ² After the defeat of the rebellions in 1832, Hersek (or Hercegovina) was organized as a sanjak (province) of the Bosnian eyelet, which became a separate Hercegovinian eyelet, only to be merged with Bosnia again in 1853. In 1862, Muslims responded to persecution by moving from Belgrade, Užice, Šabac, and other Serbian settlements en masse before settling in towns on the other side of the Drina. ³ Most of these people stayed: five Muslim families who had come from Serbia were given the right to remain in Trebinje on July 28, 1914. ⁴