Moving between Belgrade’s neighborhoods, crossing its rivers, and shifting from the city center to one of many peripheries can be a dizzying experience. Green river islands and small rafts hidden amongst brutalist architecture, skyscrapers looking down on winding cobblestone streets from the Ottoman era, and neon signs on 19th-century classical architecture… The ‘patchwork’ nature of Serbia’s capital city is a reflection of its long, multifaceted history and specific geographical position. Art historian and professor emerita Irina Subotić helps us understand something of this city’s complicated story.
Visiting Belgrade for the first time means seeing a modern, lively capital of a small Balkan country, filled with brand new high-rises on par with those of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. There are numerous restaurants with world cuisine, countless bars and coffee shops spread along the pedestrian areas, luxury hotels and designer shops, as well as a flood of gaming houses and casinos promising fortunes, and pharmacies promising relief. For now, let us set aside the perpetual traffic jams and pollution that Belgraders have to live with.
The symbolism of Belgrade’s location on the Pannonian ridge above two rivers is multifaceted.
The Sava, the longest river originating entirely within the former Yugoslav territory, connects four republics of the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia) and flows into the Danube, the largest European river and one of the most important world rivers. Their confluence, Ušće, is an extraordinarily wide expanse of water, with a river island at its center that is home to many migratory birds and other protected animals. In a way, this confluence symbolizes Belgrade’s position at the crossroads of north and south, east and west – a position that has determined the city’s destiny to a large extent. Different armies, tribes, and peoples, each with their own agendas, cultures, religions, customs, and languages, have been present here for centuries due to an interplay of geographical, historical, and civilizational circumstances. And each of them has left their traces.
Much of the rich and tumultuous history of Belgrade is not accessible to visitors. It’s one of Europe’s oldest cities, built, conquered, ruined, and renewed time and again for centuries. Traces of settlements in this area range from the Vinča culture of 7,000 years ago, and the Celtic settlers who named Belgrade Singidun, to Roman legions who started their Eastern conquests here and first declared Singidunum a municipium – a city. Belgrade was contested by the Sarmatians, Huns, Goths, Byzantines, Slavs, and Avars. The Hungarians ruled Belgrade before the Ottomans, who dominated the city from the time of Suleiman the Magnificent until the late 19th century. Austria ruled Belgrade several times, during the reign of Emperor Charles VI, and then again during World War I. During World War II, Belgrade was occupied by Nazi Germany. And in the spring of 1999, it experienced NATO bombing.
To learn more about the layers of history that shaped Belgrade, get the digital edition of City Less Ordinary.
Author: Irina Subotić
Photographs: Anja Mihić
