Republic Square
Encyclopedia
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
Cyrillic: Трг Републике) is one of the central town square
Town square
A town square is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town used for community gatherings. Other names for town square are civic center, city square, urban square, market square, public square, and town green.Most town squares are hardscapes suitable for open markets,...
s and an urban neighborhood of Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, the capital of Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, located in Belgrade's municipality of Stari Grad
Stari Grad, Belgrade
Stari Grad is an urban neighborhood and one of 17 municipalities which constitute the Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It encompasses some of the oldest sections of urban Belgrade, thus the name...
. It is the site of some of Belgrade's most recognizable public buildings, including the National Museum
National Museum of Serbia
The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...
, the National Theatre and the famous statue of Prince Michael.
Location
The square is located less than 100 meters away from TerazijeTerazije
Terazije is the central square and an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in the Belgrade municipality of Stari Grad.- Location :...
, designated center of Belgrade, to which it is connected by the streets of Kolarčeva (traffic) and Knez Mihailova
Knez Mihailova
Knez Mihailova Street or Prince Michael Street is the main pedestrian and shopping zone in Belgrade, and is protected by law as one of the oldest and most valuable landmarks of the city...
(pedestrian zone). Many people erroneously consider Square of the Republic to be the center of the city. Through Vasina street it is connected to the fortress and park of Kalemegdan
Kalemegdan
Belgrade Fortress , represent old citadel and Kalemegdan Park on the confluence of the River Sava and Danube, in an urban area of modern Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Stari Grad...
to the west and through Sremska
Syrmia
Syrmia is a fertile region of the Pannonian Plain in Europe, between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is divided between Serbia in the east and Croatia in the west....
street it is connected to the neighborhood of Zeleni Venac
Zeleni Venac
Zeleni Venac or colloquially Zelenjak is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia...
and further to Novi Beograd
Novi Beograd
Novi Beograd or New Belgrade is the most populous municipality that constitutes the City of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is a planned city, built in 1947 on the left bank of the Sava river which was previously an uninhabited area, opposite of the old Belgrade...
. It also borders the neighborhoods of Stari Grad and Dorćol
Dorcol
Dorćol is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Stari Grad.- Location :Dorćol begins already some 700 meters north of Terazije, the central square of Belgrade...
, to the north. Today, it makes one of the local communities within Belgrade (mesna zajednica) with a population of 2,360 in 2002.
Origin
The present square was formed after the demolition of the Stambol Gate in 1866 and the construction of the National Theatre in 1869. The Gate had been built by the AustriansAustrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
at the beginning of the 18th century, and stood in the area between the present monument to Prince Mihailo and the National Theatre building. It was the largest and most beautiful town gate at the time when Belgrade was encircled by a moat
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...
. It was named after the road which led through it to Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
(Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
). The people remembered the Stambol Gate as the place in front of which the Turks
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
executed the "raya", their non-Muslim subjects, by impaling them on stakes. It was also the place where during the attack on Belgrade in 1806 in the First Serbian Uprising
First Serbian Uprising
The First Serbian Uprising was the first stage of the Serbian Revolution , the successful wars of independence that lasted for 9 years and approximately 9 months , during which Serbia perceived itself as an independent state for the first time after more than three centuries of Ottoman rule and...
, one of the leading Serb military commanders, Vasa Čarapić
Vasa Čarapić
Vasa Čarapić, known as the Dragon from Avala was a Serbian voivode that participated in the First Serbian Uprising of the Serbian Revolution against the Ottoman Empire....
, was fatally wounded. In memory of this sad event, a street near the square and a monument in the vicinity were named after him.
After the establishment of Serbian rule and the demolition of the Stambol Gate, the site of the present square was not laid out for a long time. The National Theatre was the only large building standing here for more than thirty years and until Communist rule after 1945 it was named Pozorišni Trg (Theatre square). The square gradually started to acquire more buildings after the monument to Prince Mihailo was erected in 1882. The place where now the National Museum is, was the location of long single-storied building which housed, among other things, the famous "Dardaneli restaurant". This was the meeting-place of members of the artistic circles at the time. The building was pulled down to make way in 1903 for the Treasury (now the building of the National Museum). In a small park next to the National Theatre, there were the well-known "Kolarac" restaurant and cinema (owned by Ilija Milosavljević-Kolarac, a merchant and benefactor). The "Riunione" Palace, in which the "Jadran" cinema is located today, was built in 1930.
In the place of today's Press House, there have been old and single-storied buildings with shops, until World War II.
World War II and later
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the tram
Tram
A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...
tracks were removed (until then, a tram terminus was here), and the square, on which for a short time were the crypt and the monument to the Red Army soldiers died during the liberation of Belgrade in 1944, was removed (their remains have been transferred to the Cemetery of the Liberators of Belgrade). Later, the biggest building on this square, the "Press House" was constructed, so as the "City Restaurant" and the International Press Center.
Opera controversy
The area of the present 'Plateau of Dr Zoran Đinđić', right across the National Theatre was seen for decades as the site of the future Belgrade Opera. However, this became highly controversial issue, both academic and public, in the 2000s, when city government decided to tear down the Staklenac mall (saying it has done its purpose, even though it was built in 1989) and to construct City Gallery, while the Opera is supposed to be built in the swampy and uninhabited area of Ušće in Novi Beograd. Despite opposition from the population, ensemble of the opera and prominent architects and artists, the city government, most prominently the official city architect Đorđe Bobić, insists that regardless of everything, they already made a decision that the Opera will not be built on the Square.Protests
Ever since the first anti-Slobodan MiloševićSlobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
demonstrations on March 9, 1991, over to the student protest during winter 1996-97 and pro-democracy rallies in September and October 2000, the Republic Square was a central point of all of them. For this reason, opposition leader Vuk Drašković
Vuk Draškovic
Vuk Drašković , leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, is a Serbian politician who served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and Serbia.He graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School in 1968...
of the SPO
Serbian Renewal Movement
The Serbian Renewal Movement is a political party in Serbia.It was founded in 1990.In 1997 a dissident group abandoned the party and formed New Serbia....
party insisted on changing the name of the square to Trg Slobode (Freedom Square) but this was never officially done, even during the SPO's municipal rule in Belgrade (1997–2000).
Characteristics
Trolleybus
A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from overhead wires using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires and poles are required to complete the electrical circuit...
lines of the city public transportation passing through the square.
On one side, the square extends to the Knez Mihailova street, the pedestrian zone and one of the main commercial sections of Belgrade. On the opposite side, the square is occupied by the Staklenac (Serbian for glassy), the Belgrade's first modern glass and steel constructed shopping mall, built in 1989 for the purpose of the IX Non-Aligned Movement
Non-Aligned Movement
The Non-Aligned Movement is a group of states considering themselves not aligned formally with or against any major power bloc. As of 2011, the movement had 120 members and 17 observer countries...
summit in Belgrade. The small flat area in front of Staklenac has been officially named 'Plateau of Dr Zoran Đinđić', after the Serbian prime minister was assassinated in 2003.
Prince Michael Monument
The bronze statue of Prince Michael on a horse, by the Italian sculptor Enrico Pazzi was erected in 1882. It was erected in honor of the Prince's most important political achievement, complete expulsion of the Turks from Serbia and liberation of the remaining 7 cities within (then) Serbian territory, still under the Turkish rule (1867). The names of the cities are carved on a plates on the monument itself, on the statue's pedestalPedestal
Pedestal is a term generally applied to the support of a statue or a vase....
and prince is sculptured with his hand allegedly pointing to Constantinople, showing the Turks to leave. However, his hand points to the opposite direction, to the north-east instead to the south-east. During recent years, the role and honor of prince somewhat fell into the oblivion and the statue became simply known as kod konja (Serbian for 'at the horse'). Even the nearby restaurant is named that way, Kod konja.
Clock
In 2000, a modern public clock, named the Millennium clock and funded by Delta HoldingDelta Holding
Delta Holding is the third largest company in Serbia. The company was founded in Belgrade. Delta Holding performs a variety of services, such as import-export,real-estate , banking, insurance, retail, wholesale, etc. The president is Miroslav Mišković...
, was installed in the square. The clock is placed on a tall stand, and it also displays current weather conditions. Two main, digital clocks face the less busy sides of the square (near Čika Ljubina and Kolarčeva streets), while two small, analog clocks face the two busier sides (near Knez Mihailova street and the National Theatre). The clock and its stand are made of chromed steel and glass, which is somewhat in contrast to the rest of the square's architecture.