Belgrade 1714-2014: Utopianism and urbicideof urbanization in the middle of the 1960s. Despite their violent, sometimes
rural-traditional character, the authorities were forced to reply according
to the official ideology of the social egalitarianism. Therefore the Yugoslav
socialism became, especially in the cities, a certain basis of their emancipation.
The urbanization brought up the issues of the, since then, excluded groups of
women and invalids. These things alike, new reality triggered the Serbian and
the other Yugoslav nationalisms that looked at the urbanization and the social
emancipation as new historical threats. It is no coincidence that exactly since
the middle of the 1960s new requests appeared for a territorial reorganization
of the community and new concepts of national culture, language, customs,
traditions and religion were introduced. Both the Marxism and the political
religion were becoming platforms for the Yugoslav break-up, and the intended
return to the previous forms of social relations, to the “real communism”, or to
the “traditional” models roots intended to intended to liven up “the mystical
body of the nation”. The same individuals or institutions were involved often in
both ideological concepts. That process, with reciprocity of two collectivisms,
produced confusion in the middle class, already deprived of its important
property and economic attributes.
The global world was appearing on the foundation of the Reagan-Thatcher
revolution from the beginning of the 1980s. The competitive world was getting
rid of the traditional and present barriers in every sense. The question is, if the
citizenry, the supporter of the Belgrade’s cultural and urban climax from 1965
to 1990, was able to understand the global development while dominantly
opting in favor of the obsession with territorial borders and the preservation of
the autarchic society and economy.
The self-destruction of Belgrade took place in the decade of the demolition of
the institutions, the imposition of the authoritarian politics and culture, the war
of aggression, the international isolation, the criminalization and the economic
collapse, 1991-2000. The social structure has changed. At least several tens of
thousands of most educated people had fled the country, while Belgrade was
receiving the majority of refugees mainly from rural parts of Yugoslavia affected
by the war and the ethnic cleansing. The corruption has become the main form
of business or personal relations. The residential buildings were upgraded with
additional floors. Belgrade was flooded by street vendors, kiosks and dealers
of currencies, gasoline or narcotics. As in the rest of Yugoslavia the urbicide
in Belgrade, affected by war conflicts, was a response to the urban culture
generally, to the civic order and the value systems. The retaliation to Belgrade
as the largest urban center in the former Yugoslavia was felt even among
those who found in Belgrade their last refuge. The urbicide is paradoxical. The
residents of the city, whether the natives or the newcomers, destroy their own
habitat. At the same time Belgrade has remained the last major urban haven in
its part of the world.