[1] Prince Miloš was an autocrat, consistently refusing to decentralize power,[2][full citation needed] which gave rise to a strong internal opposition.

After the death of his brother Milan, a famed revolutionary with great reputation among the people, Miloš adopted the surname Obrenović.

In official documents, his name was sometimes written Miloš Teodorović Obrenović (Serbian Cyrillic: Милош Теодоровић Обреновић; pronounced [mîloʃ teodǒːroʋit͡ɕ obrěːnoʋit͡ɕ]).

[12] Between the end of 1828 and the autumn of 1830, Prince Miloš created a so-called "legislative commission" to translate the Code Napoléon into Serbian and codify the laws and customs of the country.

After discussing the commission, Miloš invited two distinguished legal specialists to come from Hungary to prepare a more suitable criminal and civil code of laws for Serbia.

They were Vasilije Lazarević, Bürgermeister (mayor) of Zemun, and Jovan Hadžić, lawyer, poet, and member of the municipal senate of Novi Sad.

[13] In January 1831, Prince Miloš informed a great national assembly that he had obtained an imperial edict from the Sultan ending all direct obligations of Serbian peasants to their former Turkish lords, guaranteeing Ottoman recognition of Serbian autonomy in most matters of internal administration, and offering Serbia the prospect of territorial aggrandizement, as well as the express right to institute schools, courts, and a governmental administration of her own.

The Sultan's decrees of 1830 and 1833 expanded the same rights to a larger territory, and made Serbia a sovereign principality,[14] with Miloš Obrenović as hereditary prince.

[19] Thanks to his good contacts during his stay in Vienna, Johann Strauss II composed the Serben-Quadrille intended for Serbian balls.