The Lion Of Plevna In The Songs Of Bosniaks From Sandžak

198 Naka NİKŠİĆ, PhD, Assistant Professor T.C Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı school with the rank of mülâzim-ı Sânî. As soon as he enrolled in the Erkânıharp sınıfı he was enlisted into the Rumelian army. For his merits in the Crimean war, on 21 March 1855 he was awarded the rank of mülâzım-ı evvellik. Upon his return to Istanbul he worked in the Erkânıharp sınıfı, and then in the Erkânıharp Dairesi. In 1856 he became a kolağası. From 1859 - 1861 he held office in Bursa, after which he was sent to Lebanon because of the uprising of Yûsuf Kerem in Syria, and then in 1866, to Crete because of a Greek rebellion. Due to the devoted service he showed on that occasion, Bilhassa Serdârıekrem Ömer Paşa promoted him at the time to the rank of miralay and awarded him with a Mecidiye nişanı of the 3rd order. In 1868, following his success in Yemen, he was promoted to the rank of mirlivâ, but as a result of illness in 1871 he returned to Istanbul. Following his recovery, he was named the redif livalık of the third order and for a while he remained in the military center Manastir. In 1873 he was transferred to the Division Command in Novi Pazar 4 where he was given the rank of feriklik rütbesi. Immediately following that, Osman Paşa was transferred to the Central Command in Istanbul, and soon after that to the Skadar, and then the Bosnian command. As a result of a conflict with the valija of Bosnia, Derviş Paşa, in 1875 he was transferred to the Headquarters of the Fourth Army, in Erzurum, and then, in the same year was transferred to Niš. From Niš he was relocated to the Command in Vidin. In 1876 Knjaz Miloš declared war on the Ottoman Empire. In the battle which ensued immediately after that, Gazi Osman Paşa and his unit defeated the Serbian army and garnered great fame, and so that very same year he was awarded the Mecediye medal of the second order, and the rank of müşirlik rütbesi (Hülagü, 2015: 464). When on 24 April, 1877 Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, Gazi Osman Paşa was located in the Vidin Command of the Western Army. On 7 July, 1877, following commands, and with a battalion of 25 000 soldiers from Vidin, he reached Plevna. On 8 July he successfully stood up against the first Russian attack 5 . The Russian forces were quick to gain reinforcements and on 18 July attacked Plevna for the second time 6 and were once again defeated. On 7 Sep- tember the Russians with the help of the Romanians once again attacked and were defeated 7 . As a result of this victory, Osman Paşa was awarded the title of gazija. On 13 September the Russians attacked Plevna, and so the defenders of the fort, due to a lack of ammunition and food due to long-term shelling, decided to move ahead. Osman Paşa, on the morning on 10 December with an army 40000 men strong and divided into two parts, was hit by shell fire from the Russi- an-Romanian cannon fire while he was crossing the river Vid. Once he and his closest associates determined that there was nothing more to be done, he was forced to surrender. He spent some time in captivity in Bugoto, Bucharest, Harkov and Russia. On that occasion, the Russian tzar awarded him with the double headed eagle for courage and called him the Lion of Plevna. He was released through the intervention of the high officer Serasker Müşir Rauf Paşa. He returned 4  Novi Pazar is the largest city in the Sandžak of Novi Pazar and was an important Ottoman military base. Most of its inhabitants, although they readily sing one of the songs of Gazi Osman Paşa at their festivities (there will be more information on this in the remainder of the paper), they do not know who he was, nor that he spent time as an officer in Novi Pazar, and that the Bosniaks from Sandžak fought under his command in the battles for Plevna. 5  This bloody struggle is known as the First Battle for Plevna, and was the first battle of the Russians on the Rumelian front during the Ottoman-Russian war 1877-1878. 6  However, the twenty-six hour long resistance and counter-attack resulted only in another defeat of the Russians. 7  They did not manage to achieve success, not even in the third battle fought for Plevna which took place on 7-11 September. Naka Nik š i ć