From three Ottoman gates to three Serbian sites of memory: The performative rewriting of Belgrade from 1878 until today

ABSTRACT

This essay analyses how three entrances to Ottoman-era Belgrade have been reconstructed since 1878. It demonstrates how the rewriting of these places entailed silencing the Ottoman past and constructing sites of Serbian national memory. By examining city space as a palimpsest, it shows how a new national narrative has been written in relation to earlier Ottoman space, thus making the national narrative a mediator of the memory of the seemingly erased Ottoman past.

KEYWORDS:

• Ottoman past
• Belgrade
• memory
• silence
• commemoration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The Battle of Kosovo has been narrated in Serbian epic poetry as the decisive battle that marked the subjugation of the Balkan states under Ottoman rule (see Emmert 1990). The Migration of the Serbs refers to the two transfers of Serbian populations from the Ottoman to the Habsburg Empire, led by Serbian Patriarchs. The Battle of Kumanovo took place during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, in which Serbia took Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire, acquiring territories to which it claimed historical right.

2 Zulum is an Arabic and Turkish word meaning tyranny. It is no longer used in modern Serbian except when clearly evoking the Ottoman past. Harač (Turkish haraç) was a land tax imposed on non-Muslims (raja/Turkish reayah). It is derived from the verb harati in modern Serbian and means ‘to loot’. Danak u krvi means taxation in blood; it refers to the devşirme (Janissary) system of child levying in the Ottoman Empire. Danak has been replaced by the word taksa (tax) in modern Serbian, but it is still used when referring to the Ottoman past. As this paper discusses Serbian collective memory, I use Serbian orthography for Ottoman words to demonstrate how language is a bearer of memory. For the relationship between language and memory, see Assmann (2011). I would like to acknowledge the support provided by TÜBİTAK (the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) for this part of my research.

3 A pašaluk was an Ottoman administrative unit. Dahija was not an official title used by the Ottomans, but a name used by the people.

4 It is important to note that ‘Turkish identity’ is a generative concept that refers to a Muslim, Turkish-speaking Ottoman subject, not to a citizen of Turkey. The term ‘Turk’ in this sense was used mostly by Europeans who travelled to the Ottoman Empire, and as such was accommodated by national narratives of the Nineteenth century.

5 As the capital, Belgrade is envisioned as the metonymic space of the Serbian nation-state.

6 The squares are located where the outer moat of Ottoman Belgrade once was. This is why they are named ‘venac,’ which means ‘rim’ in Serbian.

7 For more on the Kosovo Myth, see Bakić-Hayden (2004) and Emmert (1991).

8 15 June is the date commemorating Saint Vitus in the Serbian Orthodox Church. This day coincides with 28 June in the state calendar. In the Nineteenth century Saint Vitus Day was constructed as a mythical date when the Battle of Kosovo allegedly took place. For more on the construction of the date, see Đorđević (1990).

9 By 2013, all of the major cities in south of Serbia – Belgrade, Vranje, Niš, etc. – had returned to commemorating the ‘Liberation from Turks’ as part of each city’s official holidays. As of 2013, Belgrade also holds a spring festival named ‘The Days of Belgrade’ during the week of Liberation Day, on 19 April. Both official City of Belgrade holidays and state military holidays involve ceremonies that begin at the foot of the monument to Knez Mihailo or the Veterans’ Club, and include a ceremonial entrance into inner city and Kalemegdan Fortress.

10 Vidin is a town in present-day Bulgaria. During the Ottoman era, it was the centre of the Danubian Province (Vidin Eyaleti in Turkish).

11 This occurred on the eve of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878.

12 While Stefan Lazarević was Knez Lazar’s son, Knez Lazar was only connected to the family of Tsar Dušan laterally, through his wife Milica.

13 Many similar strategies were used in the construction of the city in order to connect the image of medieval Serbia and its territories to the newly established seat of modern Serbia, Belgrade.

14 For a discussion of contemporary Neo-Ottoman memory at the site of Sultan Murad’s tomb complex in Kosovo, see Behar Sadriu’s contribution to this volume.

15 While the official Serbian narrative maintains that Miloš Obilić was of Serbian origin, a less known Albanian narrative, equally grounded in the sources, has it that Milosh Kopiliqi was Albanian. For more, see Di Lellilo (2009).