Serbia's aid in textbooks to schools outside of Serbia (1868-1878)

This paper deals with the aid in textbooks provided by Serbia to schools in the Ottoman Empire, Montenegro and Austria-Hungary from 1868 (from the beginning of the year and from the foundation of the Committee for schools and teachers in Old Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in August of 1868) until the end of 1878. Based on archival sources for each individual case, analysis shows that 158 097 copies of various, mainly elementary school textbooks and other literature were sent to numerous schools. Most of them (102 985) were distributed to schools in Old Serbia, the region where Serbia's interests collided with Bulgarian propaganda. Serbia's activities in providing aid to schools outside of Serbia was significantly intensified during this period in comparison with the previous decades (1849-1868). However, the events of The Great Eastern Crisis (1875-1878) reduced this aid to minimum.