The Takovo Uprising
Videos
The Takovo Uprising is the title of two nearly identical oil paintings by the Serbian realist Paja Jovanović. They depict rebel leader Miloš Obrenović inciting his countrymen against the Ottoman Empire and initiating the Second Serbian Uprising.
The Takovo Uprising (Takovski ustanak), c. 1894, oil on canvas, 160 by 256 centimetres (63 by 101 in), Rudnik–Takovo Regional Museum
Paja Jovanović, c. 1900
The painting was commissioned by the young King Alexander in 1889
Seoba Srba is a set of four similar oil paintings by the Serbian artist Paja Jovanović that depict Serbs, led by Archbishop Arsenije III, fleeing Old Serbia during the Great Serb Migration of 1690–91. The first was commissioned in 1895 by Georgije Branković, the Patriarch of Karlovci, to be displayed at the following year's Budapest Millennium Exhibition. In the view of the Serbian clergy, it would serve to legitimize Serb claims to religious autonomy and partial self-administration in Austria-Hungary by upholding the contention that Serbs left their homeland at the behest of the Holy Roman Emperor to protect the Habsburg monarchy's borders.
Paja Jovanović, Migration of the Serbs (Seoba Srba), c. 1896, oil on canvas, 126 by 190 centimetres (50 by 75 in), Pančevo Museum
An illustration of Serbs crossing the Danube into the Habsburg lands
The journalist John Kifner characterizes the painting as "a Balkan equivalent to Washington Crossing the Delaware" (pictured)