Serbia- the Ottoman province in the Balkans that rose up against Janissary control in the early 1800’s. After World War II the central province of Yugoslavia. Serb leaders struggled to maintain dominance as the Yugoslavia federation dissolved in the 1990s.

Ottoman Empire-Islamic state founded by Osman in northwestern Anatolia ca. 1300.After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire was based at Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) from 1453 to 1922. It encompassed lands in the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus, and eastern empire. Secularization- of the legal code had special implications for the non-Muslim subjects of the Ottomans. Islamic law had required non-Muslims to pay a special head tax that was sometimes explained as a substitute for military service. Crimean War- was a conflict between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire.

Young Turks- was a secularist Turkish nationalist reform party in the early twentieth century, favoring reformation of the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Empire. Officially known as the Committee of Union and Progress. They ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1908 until the end of World War I in November 1918.

Tsar Nicholas I- 6 July [1796 – 2 March 1855) as the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers.

Slavs- the first mention of the name Slavs dates to the 6th century, by which time the Slavic tribes inhabited a