secretly left Russia and reappeared quite alone in Servia in the neighbourhood of Semendria (Smederevo) on the Danube. The motives and the object of his return are not clear. Some believe that he was sent by the Hetaerists to raise up Servia to a new war with Turkey and thereby facilitate the rising of the Greek people. It is generally assumed, however, that, having heard that Servia, under the guidance of Milosh Obrenovich, had obtained a certain measure of self-government, he desired to put himself again at the head of the nation. This impression seems to have been that of Milosh himself, who at once reported to the Pasha of Belgrade the arrival of Karageorge. The pasha demanded that Karageorge, alive or dead, should be delivered to him immediately, and made Milosh personally responsible for the execution of that order. Karageorge’s removal could not unfortunately be separated from the personal interest of Milosh; already acknowledged as chief of the nation, Milosh did not like to be displaced by his old chief, who in a critical moment had left the country. Karageorge was killed (July 27, O.S., 1817) while he was asleep, and his head was sent to the pasha for transmission to Constantinople. It is impossible to exonerate Milosh Obrenovich from responsibility for the murder, which became the starting-point for a series of tragedies in the modern history of Servia.
Karageorge was one of the most remarkable Servians of the 19th century. No other man could have led the bands of undisciplined and badly-armed Servian peasants to such decisive victories against the Turks. Although he never assumed the title of prince, he practically was the first chief and master (gospodar) of the people of Servia. He succeeded, however, not because he was liked but because he was feared. His gloomy silence, his easily aroused anger, his habit of punishing without hesitation the slightest transgressions by death, spread terror among the people. He is believed to have killed his own father in a fit of anger when the old man refused to follow him in his flight to Hungary at the beginning of his career. In another fit of rage at the report that his brother Marinko had assaulted a girl, he ordered his men to seize his brother and to hang him there and then in his presence, and he forbade his mother to go into mourning for him. Even by his admirers he is admitted to have killed by his own hand no fewer than 125 men who provoked his anger. But in battles he is acknowledged to have been always admirable, displaying marvellous energy and valour, and giving proofs of a real military genius. The Servians consider him one of their greatest men. In grateful remembrance of his services to the national cause they elected his younger son, Alexander, in 1842, to be the reigning prince of Servia, and again in 1903 they chose his grandson, Peter Karageorgevich (son of Alexander) to be the king of Servia.
See Servia; also Ranke, Die serbische Revolution; Stoyan Novakovich, Vaskzhs srpske drzhave (Belgrade, 1904); M. G. Milityevich, Karadyordye (Belgrade, 1904). (C. Mi.)
KARA-HISSAR (“Black Castle”). (1) Afium Kara-Hissar (q.v.). (2) Ichje, or Ischa Kara-Hissar (anc. Docimium), a small village about 14 m. N.E. of No. 1. Docimium
was a Macedonian colony established on an older site. It was
a self-governing municipality, striking its own coins, and stood
on the Apamea-Synnada-Pessinus road, by which the celebrated
marble called Synnadic, Docimian and Phrygian was
conveyed to the coast. The quarries are 212 m. from the village,
and the marble was carried thence direct to Synnada (Chifut
Kassaba). Some of the marble has the rich purple veins in
which poets saw the blood of Atys.
See W. M. Ramsay, Hist. Geog. of Asia Minor (London, 1890); Murray, Hbk. to Asia Minor (1893).
KARA-HISSAR SHARKI [i.e. “eastern Kara-Hissar”], also called Shabin Kara-Hissar from the alum mines in its vicinity,
the chief town of a sanjak of the same name in the Sivas
vilayet of Asia Minor. Pop. about 12,000, two-thirds Mussulman.
It is the Roman Colonia, which gradually superseded
Pompey’s foundation, Nicopolis, whose ruins lie at Purkh,
about 12 m. W. (hence Kara-Hissar is called Nikopoli by the
Armenians). In later Byzantine times it was an important
frontier station, and did not pass into Ottoman hands till
twelve years after the capture of Constantinople. The town,
altitude 4860 ft., is built round the foot of a lofty rock, upon
which stand the ruins of the Byzantine castle, Maurocastron,
the Kara Hissar Daula of early Moslem chroniclers. It is
connected with its port, Kerasund, and with Sivas, Erzingan
and Erzerum, by carriage roads.
KARAISKAKIS, GEORGES (1782–1827), leader in the War
of Greek Independence, was born at Agrapha in 1782. During
the earlier stages of the war he served in the Morea, and had a
somewhat discreditable share in the intrigues which divided the
Greek leaders. But he showed a sense of the necessity for
providing the country with a government, and was a steady
supporter of Capo d’Istria. His most honourable services were
performed in the middle and later stages of the war. He helped
to raise the first siege of Missolonghi in 1823, and did his best to
save the town in the second siege in 1826. In that year he
commanded the patriot forces in Rumelia, and though he failed
to co-operate effectually with other chiefs, or with the foreign
sympathizers fighting for the Greeks, he gained some successes
against the Turks which were very welcome amid the disasters
of the time. He took a share in the unsuccessful attempts to
raise the siege of Athens in 1827, and made an effort to prevent
the disastrous massacre of the Turkish garrison of fort S
Spiridion. He was shot in action on the 4th of May 1827.
Finlay speaks of him as a capable partisan leader who had great
influence over his men, and describes him as of “middle size,
thin, dark-complexioned, with a bright expressive animal eye
which indicated gipsy blood.”
See G. Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution (London, 1861).
KARAJICH, VUK STEFANOVICH (1787–1864), the father of modern Servian literature, was born on the 6th of November 1787 in the Servian village of Trshich, on the border between Bosnia and Servia. Having learnt to read and write in the old
monastery Tronosha (near his native village), he was engaged
as writer and reader of letters to the commander of the insurgents
of his district at the beginning of the first Servian rising against
the Turks in 1804. Mostly in the position of a scribe to different
voyvodes, sometimes as school-teacher, he served his country
during the first revolution (1804–1813), at the collapse of which
he left Servia, but instead of following Karageorge and other
voyvodes to Russia he went to Vienna. There he was introduced
to the great Slavonic scholar Yerney Kopitar, who, having heard
him recite some Servian national ballads, encouraged him to
collect the poems and popular songs, write a grammar of the
Servian language, and, if possible, a dictionary. This programme
of literary work was adhered to by Karajich, who all his life
acknowledged gratefully what he owed to his learned teacher.
In the second half of the 18th and in the beginning of the 19th century all Servian literary efforts were written in a language which was not the Servian vernacular, but an artificial language, of which the foundation was the Old Slavonic in use in the churches, but somewhat Russianized, and mixed with Servian words forced into Russian forms. That language, called by its writers “the Slavonic-Servian,” was neither Slavonic nor Servian. It was written in Old Cyrillic letters, many of which had no meaning in the Servian language, while there were several sounds in that language which had no corresponding signs or letters in the Old Slavonic alphabet. The Servian philosopher Dositey Obradovich (who at the end of the 18th century spent some time in London teaching Greek) was the first Servian author to proclaim the principle that the books for the Servian people ought to be written in the language of the people. But the great majority of his contemporaries were of opinion that the language of Servian literature ought to be evolved out of the dead Old Slavonic of the church books. The church naturally decidedly supported this view. Karajich was the great reformer who changed all this. Encouraged by Kopitar, he published in 1814 (2nd ed., 1815) in Vienna his first book, Mala Prostonarodna Slaveno-Serbska Pyesmaritsa (“A small collection of Slavonic-Servian songs of the common people”), containing a
