Karađorđev Park

Karađorđev Park (Serbian Cyrillic: Карађорђев Парк) is a public park and an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. While the park itself is located in Belgrade's municipality of Vračar, majority of what is today considered the neighborhood of Karađorđev Park is since 1957 located in the municipality of Savski Venac (though historically still within the old, much larger neighborhood of Vračar).

Park

Location

Karađorđev Park is located on the southern slope of the Vračar hill, beginning at the Vračar plateau and the National Library of Serbia and ending at the highway interchange of Autokomanda. It is elongated in the north to south direction, bordered by the Boulevard of the Liberation on the west and the "Nebojšina" street on the east.

History

Predecessor of the modern park was one of the camps set by the Serbian army in 1806 during the siege of Belgrade in the First Serbian Uprising. After Belgrade was liberated, killed soldiers were buried at this place and the place was arranged as the Insurgents Cemetery in 1848, when the Monument to the Liberators of Belgrade was also erected. Out of the 50 original tombstones, 12 still survives. As the ruling prince of Serbia at that time was Aleksandar Karađorđević, who was also the patron of the monument, the park which soon developed around the monument was named after his father, leader of the First Serbian Uprising and the founder of the Karađorđević royal family, Karađorđe. Originally outside the urban core of Belgrade, park was much enlarged in 1903-04, when it got, more or less, its present borders and a hedge which encircled it. After the World War I many additional monuments were erected in the park.

Neglected for a long time, Karađorđev Park went through massive reconstruction and beautification in the early 2000s which completely rejuvenated the park, including new benches, children playgrounds and candelabra. The idea at the time was to turn it into the first English type park in Belgrade, with added wall around the park, gates with porters and working hours, but after the failed bids for the job, the idea is put on hold for the time being.

Monuments

Monuments in the park include:

* "Monument to the Liberators of Belgrade" ("Spomenik oslobodiocima Beograda/Споменик ослободиоцима Београда"), erected in 1848, the oldest public monument in Belgrade. Dedicated to those killed in the liberation of Belgrade in 1806, it is 547 centimeters high, made of stone with the cover of artificial rock. Erected by the prince Aleksandar Karađorđević, it was renovated by the king Aleksandar Obrenović in 1889.

* "Monument to the third-class reservists" ("Spomenik Trećepozivaca/Споменик Трећепозиваца", author Stamenko Đurđević), erected in 1923, dedicated to the soldiers of the final reserve (those unfitting for drafting and summoned only in the extreme situations) killed in the World War I. Made of natural stone, it is 470 centimeters high.

* "Monument to Alphonse de Lamartine" ("Spomenik Lamartinu/Споменик Ламартину"), dedicated to the French poet, erected in 1933 (street dedicated to him, "Lamartinova", also begins here).

* Stone memorial dedicated to the victims killed in an underground shelter during German bombing of Belgrade on April 6, 1941. Built hastily before the war began, it suffered a direct hit by a bomb and collapsed, killing 192 Belgraders.

* In 1979 it was decided to erect the Monument to Karađorđe (author Sreten Stojanović), but instead in the park named after him, the monument was erected on the Vračar plateau, across the "Nebojšina" street, in front of the Temple of Saint Sava.

Neighborhood

Today, Karađorđev Park in the term of neighborhood covers larger area than the park itself. It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Vračar on the north, Neimar on the east and Autokomanda on the south, but the term spread on the area west and northwest of the park (former sections of Zapadni Vračar and Englezovac/Savinac, respectively), so basically all the area along the Boulevard of Liberation from Autokomanda to the Slavija square is today called Karađorđev Park.

It is one of the busiest parts of Belgrade with very dense traffic as the Boulevard of Liberation is one of the major routes to downtown Belgrade. Area is mostly non-residential, with public buildings (the Faculty of the veterinarian medicine of the University of Belgrade, many clinics of the Belgrade Clinical Center, Children University Hospital, Belgrade Meteorological Station, etc.).

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/Vracarskozvono/Vracar/h5.html Karadjordjev Park] ("in Serbian")