Greece in 1821 threw the Serbian question from the international point of
view into the shade, but the Emperor Nicholas I, who succeeded his brother
Alexander I on the Russian throne in 1825, soon showed that he took a
lively and active interest in Balkan affairs. Pan-Slavism had scarcely
become fashionable in those days, and it was still rather as the protector
of its co-religionists under the Crescent that Russia intervened. In 1826
Russian and Turkish delegates met at Akerman in Bessarabia, and in
September of that year signed a convention by which the Russian
protectorate over the Serbs was recognized, the Serbs were granted
internal autonomy, the right to trade and erect churches, schools, and
printing-presses, and the Turks were forbidden to live in Serbia except in
eight garrison towns; the garrisons were to be Turkish, and tribute was
still to be paid to the Sultan as suzerain. These concessions, announced
by Prince Milo[)s] to his people at a special _skup[)s]tina_ held at
Kragujevac in 1827, evoked great enthusiasm, but the urgency of the Greek
question again delayed their fulfilment. After the battle of Navarino on
October 20, 1827, in which the British, French, and Russian fleets
defeated the Turkish, the Turks became obstinate and refused to carry out
the stipulations of the Convention of Akerman in favour of Serbia.
Thereupon Russia declared war on Turkey in April 1828, and the Russian
armies crossed the Danube and the Balkans and marched on Constantinople.

Peace was concluded at Adrianople in 1829, and Turkey agreed to carry out
immediately all the stipulations of the Treaty of Bucarest (1812) and the
Convention of Akerman (1826). The details took some time to settle, but in
November 1830 the _hatti-sherif_ of the Sultan, acknowledging Milo[)s] as
hereditary prince of Serbia, was publicly read in Belgrade. All the
concessions already promised were duly granted, and Serbia became
virtually independent, but still tributary to the Sultan. Its territory
included most of the northern part of the modern kingdom of Serbia,