B Balkan and East European insurrections was a devastating letdown Consequently, the failed insurrection served as an excuse for the total dismemberment of the country In the region between Germany, Russia, and the Balkan Peninsula, one nation after another lost its political independence, while others never even succeeded in gaining political independence to lose In addition to the history of the empires that controlled East Central Europe and the Balkans, there is a history of nations striving for nationhood The conquest of the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire was the dominant event of this region’s history in the later Middle Ages But when that advance turned into a retreat, the question of Eastern authority appeared During the 1800s large numbers of Balkan peoples passed from Ottoman to Austrian rule In addition to these political changes, the stimuli of the Enlightenment spreading to eastern Europe promoted a revival of cultural and national traditions Romanians of the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia were among the first to expect liberation from Turkish rule, which Russia’s victories in 1770 against the Ottomans seemed to make possible The Kỹỗỹk Kaynarca Treaty of 1774 shaped the future of the region Russia was later to claim that it had won a right to interfere on behalf of the sultan’s Orthodox subjects, giving those subjects the reassurance that they had an ally in Russia In Poland, divided between Austria, Russia, and Prussia between 1772 and 1795, a resistance movement began This insurrection had a promising start in 1794, but the Prussian failure to support the Poles SERBIAN NATIONALISM The Balkan nations’ wars for independence started in Serbia, where the struggle against Ottoman rule continued throughout the Napoleonic period, in part because of the response that the ideology of the French Revolution evoked within the region Ottoman authority in Serbia was the weakest and foreign influence strongest than anywhere else in the Ottoman provinces The revolutionary leader George Petrovich founded the Karageorgevich dynasty The revolt began in 1804 with hope of success until another Russo-Turkish War broke out two years later Serbian insurgents were encouraged by a series of victories against regular Ottoman troops in 1805 and 1806, but also by the capture of Belgrade in January 1807 The Russians, however, abandoned the Serbs to their fate when the Peace of Bucharest was concluded in 1812 The fight resumed in 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna, under a new leader, Milosh Obrenovich His descendants were to be for almost 100 years the rivals of the Karageorgevich Obrenovich realized that independence would not be won immediately, so he tried to gain gradual concessions from the Ottomans In 1817 Obrenovich became prince of a small Serbia with partial autonomy Advantage was taken of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29 This time, the peace treaty included full autonomy for Serbia, and in 1830, Obrenovich was 45