Vukov Spomenik

Vukov Spomenik or colloquially Vuk (Serbian Cyrillic: Вуков Споменик, English: The Vuk Monumet) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located on the tripoint of Belgrade's municipalities of Zvezdara, Palilula and Vračar.

Location

Vukov Spomenik is located on the crossroad of the Bulevar kralja Aleksandra and "Ruzveltova" street, in the valley between the north-eastern slopes of the Vračar and western slopes of the Zvezdara hills. It borders the neighborhoods of Tašmajdan on the west and Palulula and Hadžipopovac on the north (in Palilula municipality), Slavujev Venac on the north-east and Đeram on the north (in Zvezdara municipality) and Krunski Venac and Kalenić in the south.

History

The area formed an eastern outskirts of Belgrade until 1930s. A football field was set in the area and the oldest campus in Serbia was built here too in 1928. A donor of the campus was king Alexander I of Yugoslavia, so the campus was named "King Alexander the First". Prior to World War II, the campus was used as a seat of the Grand Lodge of Yugoslavia's Freemasons. In 1937, on the corner of the "Bulevar kralja Aleksandra" and "Ruzveltova" street, a monument to Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (by sculptor Đorđe Jovanović), a major reformer of Serbian language, celebrating 150 years of his birth. [Politika daily, July 16, 2007, p.25] After the monument, the entire neighborhood got its name (Vukov spomenik is Serbian for Vuk's monument). The entire neighborhood developed into an academic area, as University Library, Archives of Serbia and Technical faculties are located here and the park built to surround the monument was named after one of the first Slavic enlighteners, Cyril and Methodius.

Characteristics

Apart from its academic function, Vukov Spomenik is one of the busiest traffic spots in Belgrade, being on or near the crossroads of some of the most frequently used transportation routes ("Bulevar kralja Aleksandra", "Ruzveltova", "Kraljice Marije", "Cvjićeva" streets). Additionailly, "Vukov Spomenik" is also one of the underground train stations of the future Belgrade Metro, which for now operates as part of the Belgrade-Pančevo railway (local Beovoz rail, connecting Nova Pazova (in province of Vojvodina), Belgrade and Pančevo (in Vojvodina again).

Administratively, Vukov Spomenik is a local community ("mesna zajednica", sub-municipal administrative unit) in its Zvezdara section, with a population of 11,379 by the 2002 census. Additionally, it is a main administrative center of the municipality of Zvezdara as a whole, as the Municipal assembly of Zvezdara is located here, so as theaters, cinemas, etc.

References