Baština (Jan 2010)
The work of Hadži-Serafim Ristić on the improvement of the position of Serbian people in old Serbia
Abstract
The author points out to the fact that difficult position in which Serbian people were found in Old Serbia during the second half of the 19th century, gave impetus to the educated and brave people to engage and gave their contribution to the improvement of Serbs position, in accordance with their possibilities. Due to the low number of literate people, it was difficult to find brave and educated ones. The author points out that the one of them was Hadži-Serafim Ristić, arhimandrit of the monastery Visoki Dečani, who believed and hoped the state in Old Serbia, could improve, and in accordance with his possibilities he engaged himself at that matter. The first part of his activities related to the maintenance and rehabilitation of the Serbian monasteries and churches in Old Serbia, due to which he was coming to Belgrade many times during the middle of the 19th century, requesting and was given money for the renewal of the Serbian holy objects, and first of all the monastery of Visoki Dečani. Furthermore, the author emphasizes that the second part is connected to the writing of requests and complaints in which he described difficult position of Serbian people in Old Serbia, which were handed in to the courts and governments in Serbia, Russia and Ottoman Empire. Therefore he collected data on separate oppressions containing the names of victims and oppressors including the description of the same with the aim to point out to the difficult position in which Serbs are to be found. Because of the fact his documented requests did not find a good reception with the Ottoman authorities, he was printing them as books during the whole decade of the 19th century. His second intention was to inform wider publicity through books with real position of Serbs in Old Serbia.
