Serb volunteers in the Greek War of Independence

Some Serbs joined the Greeks, their co-religionists, in the Greek War of Independence (1821–29). Volunteers arrived from Serbia, Montenegro, and territories still under Ottoman rule, to fight alongside the Greek rebels against the Ottoman Empire. Several of the volunteers were veterans of the Serbian Revolution, such as Hadži-Prodan.

Background

During the first decades of the 19th century, the First Serbian Uprising and the secret preparations for a Greek revolution coincided. The news of the Serbian revolt of 1804 were received with great joy by the Greeks, who viewed it as a paradigm for a Greek national revolution. The ground for a common action had been prepared already from the end of 18th century, when the Greek intellectual and revolutionary Rigas Feraios, inspired by the French Revolution, envisioned a common revolution of all the Balkan nations against the Ottoman Empire and the formation of a Balkan federation.

Military cooperation between the two nations was forged in the semi-autonomous Danubian Principalities, which were governed mostly by Phanariote Greek voivodes. There are indications that communication and cooperation between Serbs and Greeks of the Greek mainland had also been established early. For example, in 1806 the French consul in Thessaloniki reported that “the Turks are very furious against the Greeks because of their communications with the Serbs”.

Several distinguished Serbs had been accepted as members ("brothers") in the Filiki Eteria, the secret organization that prepared the Greek Revolution, despite officially only enlisting ethnic Greeks.