Serb National Board

The Serb National Board (Serbian: Српски народни одбор, romanized: Srpski narodni odbor), also known as the Main Board (Serbian: Главни одбор, romanized: Glavni odbor), the Serbian Main Committee,^[1][2] or the Chief Committee (also, the Central Committee),^[3] was a political and representative body of Serbs of Vojvodina, that acted as a provisional governing body of the Serbian Vojvodina in 1848-1849. It was elected at the May Assembly (13-15 May 1848) in Sremski Karlovci, and was active until the establishment of the Voivodeship of Serbia and Temes Banat in the autumn of 1849.^[4][5][6]

The governing body of the Serb people during the Serb uprising of 1848–1849 was elected at the May Assembly held in Sremski Karlovci in 1848. It had 48 members of whom a smaller number were immediately elected to stay at Karlovci and receive petitions from the people. It was a de facto executive body, government, of the Serb people in rebel-held territory. At the very beginning, it had no actual executive power nor fixed scope of activities and seats of authority. Several departments were established, such as military, political, judicial, financial-economic and educational. With the progression of the Revolution, the National Board became the highest governmental organ in the Voivodeship (Vojvodina). In order to gain confidence among the people, district boards were established in larger towns such as Mitrovica, Zemun and Pancevo, and subcommittees in villages, in late May 1848.

The first president of the Board was Patriarch Josif Rajačić, the spiritual leader of Habsburg Serbs, who also had the decisive word in the Board. The Board was authorized to use money from the people's treasury for its most urgent needs, with consent of the Patriarch and the assistants of the National Fund. The Assembly instructed the Board, in agreement with the Patriarch, to select persons who would submit its decisions to the Austrian monarch and the Croatian Parliament. For transparency, the newspaper Vestnik, up until then an editorial of Konstantin Bogdanović published in Pest, would become an organ of the National Board. In the absence of Patriarch Rajačić, who was part of the Serbian delegation in Vienna and Innsbruck for a long time, Djordje Stratimirović was elected president of the Main Board. He explained in a proclamation that the Main Board was created to work for the benefit of the people until the vojvoda Stevan Šupljikac came, to ease his work.

When the Hungarians began to prepare for war and set up several military camps on the territory of the Voivodeship, the Board, through several printed proclamations, called on the people to arm themselves, prepare for defense, join the ranks of the national army and give financial contributions. The Board encouraged the people to fight against the Hungarians, convinced them that the Emperor and King Ferdinand and his entire army agreed with the Serbs because the Hungarians wanted to overthrow the emperor and rule the entire empire. As relations strained and conflict approached, the Board changed the tone and manner of its address to the people, at first informing on events, appealing for unity and giving advice. With the outbreak of military conflict, the Board began to give orders and subsequently became the supreme authority of Vojvodina, and in that capacity on 10 June 1848 called on the Serbs to obey only its orders from now on.

After general Hrabovski's attack on Karlovci on 12 June, several members of the Board, especially older and more respectable, and more wealthier citizens, left Karlovci. Only supporters of the so-called Parties of Action, mostly youth, led by Stratimirović stayed in the Board. For the sake of safety, the Board moved to Zemun.

Through the Board, the Serbian National Army was organized and Serbian military camps were established throughout the Voivodeship. The Board passed the "Law of War" on 18 July to raise the morale and ensure order and discipline. The Board highlighted Hungarian crimes against the innocent Serb population and invested in preserving unity between Serbs and Catholic Croats, preventing a religious conflict between them.

Patriarch Rajačić's return from Innsbruck resulted in a conflict with Stratimirović, as the Patriarch wanted to rule over the entire movement and wanted to suppress Stratimirović who dubbed himself "supreme leader" of the people and army. After the National Assembly held in Karlovci in 9–17 October, the Patriarch managed to reorganize the Main Board, removing his opponents and the supporters of Serbian Prince Obrenović. Stratimirović was marginalized with the vice-chairman title, left politically powerless, and was sent as a delegate to Vienna on resolving the Serbian Question. In January 1849 the National Board rejected Rajačić's orders to arrest Stratimirović. Because of the absolutism of the Patriarch, including issuing orders without the Board's consent, appointing Ferdinand Meyerhofer the Serbian general following the death of Šupljikac, introducing extraordinary courts and commissioners for Syrmia and Banat, in doing so bypassed the National Board, there was an open conflict. Since the Austrian Court, Serbian government and Serb conservatives of Vojvodina stood behind Patriarch Rajačić in this dispute, and the army (now Austrian-led) did not support Stratimirović and the Board, Patriarch Rajačić broke any opposition. Patriarch Rajačić dissolved the National Board and reorganized it with members loyal to him.