BELGRADE

  Josić Višnjić, born in Stapar, Vojvodina, is recognized as one of the most talented authors of his generation. After several years of difficulties with the communist authorities, he made a dramatic comeback in 1990 with his novel The Defence and Fall of Bodrog in Seven Turbulent Seasons (Odbrana i propast Bodroga u sedam burnih godišnjih doba). The book concerns the 1848 uprising of Serbs in Vojvodina at the fictional town of Bodrog, against Hungarian attempts to take away their autonomy. Some of the rebels go to Belgrade in order to raise support for their cause, where they meet with or hear about important people in the city such as Toma Vučić Perišić, the minister of foreign affairs Ilija Garašanin, and cultural figures like Jovan Sterija Popović.

  One of the characters in Josić’s novel writes down in a diary his impressions of what he sees in the city. Recalling the adventure many years later, he remembers the excitement he and his friends felt journeying back to Serbia, which their families had left generations before. He writes, “Then, when we were young, we were all setting foot for the first time in the southern region, the motherland of our grandfathers and distant ancestors, and so we added everything that we knew from stories and books to that which our eyes saw, our ears heard, our mouths said and our fingers touched.” They arrive at the Sava quay and set about looking for somewhere to stay in the district around Karađorđe Street. Later, the diarist recalls some of what he saw in Belgrade:

  Here is a list of some that kept my eyes transfixed for hours: the Prince’s Palace, the New Residence, the Customs Office, the Cathedral, the Old Hospital, the Department of State, the Great Barracks... then the Bajram Bey and the Bajrakli mosques... the Lycée, the Palilula Church, the Military Hospital, the Library, the Prussian Consulate, the District Court, the Serbian Crown Tavern and the Turkish Inn... well, there’s no end, none at all... and I can’t write them all down here.

  Some of the buildings Josić Višnjić mentions still survive, while others have long since disappeared. In a world in which memory and amnesia co-exist, Belgrade appears as a city which refuses to be fixed, vanishing just as it appears to be coming into tantalizing reach. In the literary imagination the urban landscape is always on the brink of being transformed into something else, of taking a new form, and adopting a new beginning.

  Chapter Three

  FROM KNEZ MIHAILO STREET TO THE RIVER DANUB: THE ROAD TO MORDERNIZATION

  RETURN OF THE OBRENOVIĆ DYNASTY

  Belgrade was the official capital of Serbia and the site of Knez Alexander Karađorđević’s court from 1842. He continued the building programme initiated by Miloš, paying particular attention to development further away from the city and the fortress of Kalemegdan. The new regime remained in place until 1858 when Vučić Perišić was ousted, imprisoned with the same minimum of ceremonies that he showed to his rivals, and died while in prison, presumably poisoned. Miloš became Knez of Serbia for a second time in 1859, and although elderly quickly resumed his active participation in affairs of state.

  Of all Serbia’s nineteenth-century rulers Miloš was among the most ruthless. He also accomplished a great deal for the young semi-autonomous state, maintaining an admirable modus vivendi with the Ottoman government that held sovereign power, extending the borders of his territory when able to do so, and encouraging internal developments. His many faces make him something of a paradoxical figure. He died the following year when he was succeeded by his son, Mihailo. From the time of the First Serbian Uprising to the First World War, for over a hundred years the rulers of Serbia were either forced to abdicate or were assassinated, except for Miloš who died peacefully while in office.

  Mihailo, like his father, was ruler for a second time. Spending many years in exile, he was the first leader of Serbia to be educated in the West. He brought to his poor country a desire to modernize all areas of government, establish the rule of law, introduce a proper tax system, and having established secure government funding, to form a standing army and to attend to the infrastructure of his country, which demanded an ever increasing supply of educated and professional citizens: lawyers, doctors, teachers and engineers. Belgrade was the centre of his political plans for the future of Serbia. He was acutely aware of the backward nature of the society he was to govern, and of the elements within that society that were resisting the kind of progress for which he stood. The old way of life in village communities grouped around extended family systems was dying out as the state evolved. The rhythms of daily life in Belgrade were dictated by the need to be able to reach work and schools, and by the general requirements of municipal life. Belgrade was fast becoming an urban centre of modern Europe, but linked to a hinterland more used to traditional customs.

  One of the fundamental aims of Mihailo’s government was to rid the capital city of the Ottoman presence. His hands were in part tied by the continuing presence of the pasha and his military garrison at Kalemegdan. Large numbers of Muslims had already left, unhappy at the way things were going. Serbs were becoming more and more important in social, economic, cultural and political affairs. When Mihailo became knez, relations were already strained between the different communities in Belgrade. The Turkish quarter was stagnating due to outward migration, while the Serbs were busy developing areas away from the old heart of the city towards Palilula, Savamala and Vračar.

  Matters came to a head in 1862 when a quarrel broke out between Serbs and Turks at a water fountain not far from the Istanbul Gate where a queue of people were waiting to fill water jugs. A brawl followed in which a young Serbian boy was seriously wounded. A patrol of Serbian police went to the Ottoman police station to try to resolve the problem. The Turkish gendarmes fired shots and killed two members of the delegation, claiming that there was a large crowd behaving in a threatening manner. The Ottoman governor ordered the Istanbul Gate to be closed and his cannon opened fire on the town.

  The situation was critical and negotiations began immediately with the foreign consuls based in Belgrade acting as intermediaries. The Great Powers in Europe, fearing that the Ottoman action was potentially destabilizing for the whole region, forced the sultan eventually to agree terms including the removal of the pasha and his troops from Serbia. The pasha ceremoniously handed over the keys of Belgrade to Knez Mihailo in 1867 at the spot where the commemorative stone stands today at the entrance to Kalemegdan Park. He and all his troops left Belgrade and Serbia for good, although a few more years were to elapse before the country enjoyed complete independence.

  Despite this spectacular success, Mihailo also made many enemies. The knez was in intense negotiation with the other peoples of the Balkan Peninsula. In geopolitical terms these countries had much in common, principally their hostility to the Ottoman presence in their region, but also because they were all under the influence of the Great Powers over which they themselves had no control. His outlook was simple: the Balkan countries together would be better able to defend their own interests rather than allow outside forces to dictate the terms of regional relations. He was quite successful in the initial stages of his plans and reached agreements with the Romanians, Greeks and Bulgarians for mutual support. He also managed to persuade some Croats who were in favour of greater autonomy from the Austrian and Hungarian presence on their territory that their best hopes for independence in the future lay in a union with Serbia.

  These foreign policy successes did not earn Milhailo any friends among the Great Powers, especially as the situation in Bosnia was looking more uncertain. Taking a lead from Serbia, the local Christian population was showing increasing dissatisfaction with Ottoman rule and likely to rebel. An uprising in any of the Turkish provinces could have unforeseeable consequences. Mihailo was also alienating previous sources of support at home. Perhaps it was the price of his political success, perhaps because he was not a natural democrat and often resorted to the kinds of authoritarianism for which his father was better known, but Mihailo did not enjoy universal popularity in Serbia. Conservative opinion was not happy with the speed of his reforms an
d the kind of social transformation taking place. An established way of life was disappearing with little chance to absorb the new manners and customs. Many people felt lost in this state of transition and very uneasy at what the future might hold. For the more radical sections of this new Serbia, change was not happening fast enough and the knez appeared more like an oriental despot than the ruler of a modern European state. Little progress was made toward parliamentary rule, with political power wielded by a small group around Mihailo’s court.

  There were many important actors who wished Mihailo out of the way and he was warned that there was a plot against his life, to which he is said to have replied, “If I have not done good by the Serbs, I certainly have done no evil, thus if they kill me they will kill only Mihailo, and not the Serbian knez.” He was assassinated while out walking with his aunt, her daughter and granddaughter on 29 May 1868. The Serbian government claimed that Alexander Karađorđević was involved, in an attempt to regain the position from which he had been forced to abdicate ten years earlier when the Obrenović family returned to power. The event was, in fact, the result of a personal vendetta. If Alexander was hoping to make a comeback in the chaos following the royal murder, he was to be disappointed as there was no coup.

  For all his faults, Knez Mihailo is regarded as one of those figures whose contribution to the development of Serbia was of the utmost significance for its future. Mihailo did not have any children, which left the immediate question of the succession to be resolved. The grandson of Gospodar Jevrem Obrenović, the son of Mihailo’s cousin, was the only remaining Obrenović male and he was duly appointed the next knez. He was a fourteen-year–old boy, by the name of Milan, attending a school in Paris.

  A regency conducted affairs of state for the next few years, but when Milan took on the mantle of ruler he soon faced criticism. He was profoundly opposed to all attempts to extend parliamentary rule, which earned him the hostility of some of the political lobby at the time. In 1878, following popular uprisings in Bosnia, the European Powers again intervened in the Balkans. At the Congress of Berlin they created a new Bulgarian state and Austria took over the administration of Bosnia from the Turks.

  Clearly nothing could be done without outside support from one of the major states and Milan set about courting the Austrians. They eventually gave him what he wanted: a royal title and final recognition of full independence from the Ottoman Empire. In 1882 he was crowned king (kralj in Serbian), although the price he had to pay was to put himself and his country under direct Austrian influence. Ostensibly recognized internationally as the sovereign King of Serbia, Milan found himself entirely dependent upon Austrian support, and the Austrians insisted that he take no initiatives in foreign policy without their agreement.

  Milan displayed all the weaknesses of the Obrenović family with none of the successes for which Miloš and Mihailo were famous. His wife, Queen Natalija (1859–1941), was a very forceful personality with whom he was rarely seen to be on good terms, and whose popularity increased as his declined. It was said by the twentieth-century statesman Slobodan Jovanović (1869–1958) that during the short and disastrous Serbian war against Bulgaria in 1885 the king displayed all female weaknesses, while Queen Natalija displayed all typical male virtues. In the face of continuing opposition in the country and plots at court King Milan was forced to abdicate in 1889.

  END OF THE OBRENOVIĆ DYNASTY

  Milan was succeeded by his son Alexander whose policies, private actions and autocratic mode of government contributed to making him much despised in Serbia. In fact, it became difficult to pinpoint who were his real friends. While he manipulated the country’s fragile democratic institutions in order to maintain his personal authority, Belgrade society was shocked at his infatuation with a widow, Draga Mašin, who was one of his mother’s ladies-in–waiting. She was generally regarded as a gold-digger, a woman with a colourful past who was entirely inappropriate to the position of queen. The Orthodox Church took the matter very seriously and advised against marriage. Political circles were concerned not only by the influence she had over the king, but also at her promoting the interests of her two brothers. Their wedding was hastened at the news that Draga was expecting Alexander’s child, although this was later shown to be a phantom pregnancy and increased doubt regarding her intentions. It was not clear after their marriage in 1900 which decisions were his and which were the result of her interference. The situation in the palace was providing huge amusement abroad and Serbia was becoming a joke state with a king showing all the excesses of intrigue and passion that foreigners thought characteristic of the Balkans.

  Draga could not have children, and as Alexander was Milan’s only child and there was no other Obrenović male heir, the royal couple began to turn their thoughts to securing the succession through the female line. Suspicions were immediately aroused that this was one of Draga’s ploys in the interests of her own family. The king and queen sensed the danger posed by their enemies and decided to strike first by purging the army’s officer corps. Their move was to be disastrous as a group of disaffected officers decided that their only solution was a coup that would include the deaths of Alexander and Draga and the prompt return of the Karađorđević dynasty. One of the leaders of the conspiracy was a certain Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević–Apis, who was to play a part in the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand during his tour of Bosnia in 1914.

  The plotters set out from the Dom oficira, a club for army officers but now the Student Cultural Centre, in the early hours of 11 June 1903. They broke into the royal palace and overcame the guards loyal to the king before searching the building for their victims. They were eventually found hiding in a secret chamber where they were attacked with great ferocity, their corpses hacked by swords and then thrown from the window into the park below. The Russian consul discovered their mutilated bodies when out for a walk the following morning.

  Their murder was in many ways a turning point for Belgrade and Serbia. Domestic reaction was not unpleasantly surprised when news of the regicide spread, and the elderly Peter Karađorđević was immediately invited to assume the throne. Alexander and Draga had abandoned their legitimacy in a series of acts that showed no regard for the rights of the citizens of Serbia to participate in the running of the country without fear and intimidation. They used the power at their disposal to deprive others of access to channels of government and to rule as if Belgrade and the whole country existed for their personal benefit.

  Abroad, however, news of the event was received with great consternation. The Serbian royal couple were not regarded with any particular respect, but the general consensus was that even if their behaviour might be considered scandalous they did not deserve such an ignoble and barbaric end. Furthermore, established foreign governments felt a twinge of empathy in that Alexander was the rightful king and in possession of correct legal authority. A shudder of collective fear must have run up the spines of European statesmen at how easily the assassination had occurred. Equally, it may have been the absence of public anguish and apparent impunity for the killers that caused foreign governments to seek retribution from Serbia. Many governments recalled their representatives home and the country was left in a state of international isolation.

  NAMES OF PLACES AND DISTRICTS IN BELGRADE

  The Serbian word for street is ulica, which is sometimes shortened to ul. in writing. It may come either at the beginning of the name of the street or at the end; for example, Ulica kneza Mihaila (literally Street of Knez Mihailo) or Francuska ulica (France Street). The first pattern usually refers to a street named after someone: Ulica kneza Miloša (Street of Knez Miloš), Ulica kralja Milana (Street of King Milan). In these circumstances the word ulica is often omitted. When the word ulica follows the name of the street it is usually because the first word is being used as an adjective: Pariska ulica (Parisian, or Paris, Street), Karađorđeva ulica (Karađorđe’s Street).

  The word venac usually means a wreath, but when used in
town refers to a curved street like a crescent in Britain, such as Kosančićev venac (Kosančić Crescent) or Obilićev venac (Obilić Crescent). A wide main road may be called a bulevar (boulevard): Bulevar kralja Aleksandra (Boulevard of King Alexander). The word for a square is trg: Trg Republike (Square of the Republic, or Republic Square).

  Street names are written in the Cyrillic alphabet on a blue plaque. It is quite usual to find that a street has an old and a new name on two different plaques. Changes of regime and political circumstances in the twentieth century have led to the renaming of roads and squares to reflect the new order. Major causes of these transformations were the victory of the Communist Party at the end of the Second World War and the collapse of communism at the end of the 1990s. Thus, at the end of the war Krunska ulica (Crown Street) was rechristened Ulica proleterskih brigada (Street of Proletarian Brigades), while Bulevar kralja Aleksandra became Bulevar revolucije (Boulevard of the Revolution). The aim was to eradicate the last traces of the previous regime by writing out references to the royal families, dynastic offspring and other unwanted historical baggage.

  The main street King Milan Street, as another example, became Ulica Maršala Tita (Street of Marshal Tito), as it was common for the main street in the towns and cities of Yugoslavia to bear the name of the president. With the end of communism the pre-war nomenclature was revived in an effort to wipe out the remnants of that regime. Thus, the examples above have all reverted to their old name.