The knežina (Serbian: кнежина, from knez) was a rural self-governing institution among Serbs in the Belgrade Pashalik (now central Serbia) of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century. As a Christian (rayah) institution supervised by the Ottoman nahiye officials, it had very limited authority and rights. Two organs constituted the knežina, the assembly as per customary law, which cared for important local issues, such as judicial disputes, monasteries and roads, and the obor-knez (обор-кнез), a representative of a group of villages and intermediary between these and the government, who had basic tasks as collecting taxes and maintaining peace and order. The knežina became instrumental in the onset of the First Serbian Uprising as an organization for uprising and maintaining it. In Revolutionary Serbia (1804–13) it became an official administrative unit that also had a military function. Following the successful Second Serbian Uprising (1815) and establishment of the Principality of Serbia, it was an administrative unit with altered function. It was finally removed from the apparatus in the 1830s, replaced by the srez.
History
1739–1788 The Sanjak of Smederevo (known as the "Belgrade Pashalik") was an Ottoman administrative unit (sanjak) further divided into the nahiya, the smallest administrative-territorial unit. The positions of Ottoman authority was the kadi (judges) and musellim (commanders and administrative officials), stationed in the nahiya fortress towns (varoš) and small towns (palanka). Popular assemblies were held in the nahiya mostly regarding taxation. The Ottoman system returned to central Serbia in 1739, after decades of Habsburg rule. In the knežina and villages, the local self-governing continuously developed and affirmed itself during the second half of the 18th century, when the Ottoman system was weakened with anarchy in administration and economy. The knežina and villages became more important in the survival of the Serb people. All villages had a village knez (seoski knez), kmetovi (serfs) and village zbor (meetings). The village knez was chosen only to collect taxes and had no power or influence, while the serfs constituted the real village chiefs (starešina), and attained their status through honesty, intelligence and eloquence, according to philologist Vuk Karadžić. The serfs mainly performed the village police function and judged in minor disputes. Groups of villages were organized into knežina, where an obor-knez was elected for both state- and local self-governing functions. There were two organs of popular self-government in the knežina, that of the knežina assembly and the knez of the knežina (obor-knez):
knežina assembly (knežinska skupština), as per customary law, the highest organ of popular self-government, held regularly at a designated place, with members being village serfs (kmet) and other notables. Taxes were distributed according to local tradition and geo-economical circumstances. An obor-knez was elected in this context if he was held wise and favorable to their interests. The assembly cared for monasteries and churches, roads, judicial disputes and other important local issues. The assembly did not enjoy complete independence as it was supervised by the nahiya authorities, although it strove to maintain non-interference from the "Turks". knez of the knežina (knežinski knez, known as obor-knez, baš-knez), was used for the elected chiefs, commonly villagers who worked in agriculture or less commonly sold cattle, that were seated in their own villages and paid the same taxes as all rayah and had no extra pay for their title. They were elected at the knežina assembly and then sanctioned by the Ottoman authorities through berat (decree). They were mostly elected from the same family, the title thus becoming hereditary (primogeniture). Their main tasks were to distribute and collect taxes in their nahiya and act as delegates of Ottoman authority and then to resolve issues not regulated by Ottoman law. They thus had both a state- and local self-governing function. They were the intermediary between the commoners and Ottoman government, and were responsible for maintaining order and peace, judging in minor offenses and discussing in peasant disputes, although their decisions were not binding. The Ottoman Empire saw growing political and economical crisis from the mid-18th century onwards; the European-Ottoman wars and new economic relations broke the Ottoman feudal system and effected the emancipation of Christians in the empire, especially in the Balkans. The sipahi were entrusted to restore Ottoman rule to the sanjak and relied on the small and still recovering Muslim population, and as a result, the Ottoman state lacked the strength and authority to counter the Janissaries' oppression and implementation of forced labour (known as chiflik) and extraordinary taxes. This led to deterioration of status and disruption of local self-government, which is why the Serbs under their obor-knezes sided with Austria in the coming war (1788). The 1741 defter bears witness to the depopulation of the knežine throughout the Sanjak of Smederevo, especially along the highways in the central nahiyas, such as Levač, Rudnik and Lepenica. There were an estimated 7–15 villages in each knežina, while the area of the smaller nahiyas such as Braničevo, Kolubara and Železnik coincided with the territory of knežina. There were at least 33 knezes (as listed in the defter).
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