Nikola Samardžić
alienated, estranged decisions: of its own, national
government, of aggressor countries and even of
allied countries. The consequences usually lasted
longer than the previous processes that led to
their appearance. The modern Belgrade history is a
parallel reality of ethnic diversity, archaic, autarchic
multiculturalism and pressurized assimilation. The
assimilation was forced in forms that fostered
ethnic misapprehensions and conflicts. Belgrade
has received some European basics only during the
brief period of the Austrian rule, 1718-1739: proper,
regular streets, institutions buildings, solid family
city houses, functional infrastructure. However the
baroque Belgrade largely disappeared during the
following wars between Austria and Turkey and in
the period of the Ottoman provincial government
disintegration in the late 18th and early 19th century.
After the national revolution period, when Belgrade
regained outlines of a European city being the Serbian
and the Yugoslav capital, the city enjoyed only three
periods of relatively peaceful development: from
the “keys delivery” by the Turkish garrison in 1867
until the beginning of WW I in 1914, between 1918
and 1941 when Belgrade managed to continue
establishing the shapes of its European identity, and from 1944 until the
beginnings of the Yugoslav disintegration in 1991. The first and third period
lasted 47 years each, and second one only 22 years.
The antithesis of the fascinating development of Belgrade after WW II was its
ideological degradation based on ruralization, a side effect of the intensive
development and the militarization.^5 The first mayor of the post-war Belgrade
was Mihailo Stolarić, the “Carpenter” in front of the National Liberation
Committee of the city, 1944-1947. The chairman of the administrative board
from 1947 to 1951 was certain Ninko Petrović, a member of the Executive
Committee of the Left Agrarian Party. Đurica Jojkić, born in the village of Turija
near Srbobran, administered in two terms between 1951 and 1961. Miloš
Minić, born in village Preljina near Čačak in central Serbia, better known as
the latter Minister of Foreign Affairs, was the mayor from 1955 to 1957. Minić
was previously the Public Prosecutor of Serbia in the process against general
Dragoljub Mihailović who was sentenced to death in 1946 by a firing squad, and
also with a permanent loss of civil and political rights as well as the seizure of all
assets. The fifth mayor of Belgrade was Milijan Neoričić from 1961 to 1965, who
was a high school graduate from Užice. Branko Pešić, was the President of the
City of Belgrade during the important period of major construction enterprises
and mass immigration between 1965 and 1974. He graduated from the high
school and the college political school “Đuro Đaković” and was also better
Fig. 2
The construction of the “Gazela” Bridge.
(Archive Samardžić)