GARASHANIN, ILIYA (1812-1874), Serbian statesman, was born on Jan. 28, 1812, at Garasha (Kragujewac). In 1836 Prince Milosh appointed him a colonel and commander of the then just organized regular army of Serbia. In 1842 he was called to the position of assistant to the home minister, and from that time until his retirement from public life in 1867 he was repeat edly minister of home affairs. He rendered great services to his country as minister for foreign affairs. He sought to replace the Russian protectorate over Serbia by the joint protectorate of all the great powers of Europe. In 1853 he opposed co-operation with Russia against Turkey and the western powers. His anti Russian views led Prince Menshikov, while on his mission in Constantinople, 1853, peremptorily to demand his dismissal. Nevertheless his personal influence in the country secured the neutrality of Serbia during the Crimean War. It was due to Garashanin that France proposed to the peace conference of Paris (1856) that the old constitution, granted to Serbia by Turkey as suzerain and Russia as protector in 1839, should be replaced by a more modern and liberal constitution, framed by a European international commission. But the agreement of the powers was not secured. Garashanin induced Prince Alexander Kara georgevich to convoke a national assembly, which had not been called to meet for ten years. The assembly was convoked for St. Andrew's Day 1858, but its first act was to dethrone Prince Alexander and to recall the old prince Milosh Obrenovich.
When after the death of his father Milosh (in 1860) Prince Michael ascended the throne, he entrusted the premiership and foreign affairs to Iliya Garashanin. The result of their policy was that Serbia was given a new, although somewhat conservative, constitution, and that she obtained, without war, the evacuation of all the fortresses garrisoned by the Turkish troops on the Serbian territory, including the fortress of Belgrade (1867). Garashanin was preparing a general rising of the Balkan nations against the Turkish rule, and had entered into confidential ar rangements with the Rumanians, Bosnians, Albanians, Bulgarians and Greeks, and more especially with Montenegro. But the execu tion of his plans was frustrated by his sudden resignation (at the end of 1867), and by the assassination of Prince Michael a few months later (June Io, 1868). Although he was a Conservative in politics, and as such often in conflict with the leader of the Liberal movement, Yovan Ristich, he certainly was one of the ablest statesmen whom Serbia had in the 19th century.
His son, NILUTIN GARASHANIN (1843-1898), entered parlia ment in 1874. He was minister of the interior (1880-83), and prime minister (1884-87). In 1894 he became ambassador in Paris, where he died on March 7, 1898.