Bureau Savamala Belgrade

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Introduction to Savamala
A Brief Overview of
Belgrade’s History and
Development
Vladimir Dulović
Although it is a very old city, Belgrade has the misfortune of having a history of numerous
discontinuities. Singidunum, Belgrade’s Roman predecessor, vanished from
the map in the face of advancing Huns. Medieval Belgrade was “remodeled” as an
Ottoman stronghold and, a century and a half later, the Catholic Habsburgs razed
the Islamic town to the ground. Having changed hands between the Habsburgs and
Ottomans three times between 1688 and 1791, Belgrade entered the nineteenth
century as an all but deserted small town of a few thousand souls in the shadows of a
great fortress on the boundary between two warring kingdoms; indeed, between two
civilizations. Almost everything from its past had disappeared in bloody and destructive
conflicts. This difficult period of the city’s history, harder perhaps than any in the
preceding centuries, was also the starting point for its modern development.
The modern history of Belgrade is inexorably linked with the history of an independent
Serbian state. The seeds of Serbia’s independence were sown in 1804 with the
First Serbian Uprising, later to be reaffirmed with the granting of autonomy in 1830.
By the same decree that granted Serbian autonomy—and contrary to the expectations
of the Serbs and their leader, Prince Miloš—the Sublime Porte also retained a
Turkish garrison in the Belgrade Fortress and a Muslim population in the town itself.
Belgrade remained a divided city with two administrations struggling to solve com-