BELGRADE CIVITAS

Belgrade has been selected by Roberto Amati in relation to the real history of european integration, then enlisted in the CITY OR CIVITAS category, accompanied by own fact SHEET useful to the comprehension, completed of historical MAPS AND IMAGES or with a direct linking to the related Blog contents dedicated to the the aeternitas and the future of Europe.

Belgrade is one of the most ancient cities of the history of European integration, signed in great part by Christianity. From the ancient site of Vinča culture in the VI millennium B.C., the Belgrade area evolved when Illyrians tribes inhabited and, after 279 B.C., the Celts settled in the city naming it Singidūn: name conserved by the Romans when conquered and founded Singidunum in I century A.D., making it a strategic point at the joining of the ancient roman Gemina way, starting from Iuvavum (Salzburg) and passing through Emona (tha actual Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia) and Syrmium then connecting the Amber Road towards Carnuntum and the Baltic sea banks, and the Militaris way ending in Perinthus on the Aegean Sea and passing through Serdica (Sofia).

At that time Belgrade was a castra of the Roman Respublica, inhabited by the locals tribes and Italics legionaries: within the reform of Augustus (see Roman Empire), it became a fortress of the Pannonia province at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. There could live together the Romans colons with locals, so that at the end of the century Belgrade was elevated as Colonia, so with the reform of Constantine I (see Christian Empire) Belgrade was included in the imperial Illyricum Diocesis as a Christianity's champion cause of its big christian community. But during V and VI centuries A.D. was invaded and ravaged by the Huns of Attila, the Ostrogoths led by Theodoric "the Great" and the Slavs, who settled in the civitas under the dominion of the Byzantine Empire known as 'white Serbs' and elevated to capital of the Thema Belgrado by the basileius Heraclius I.

Included in the Principade of Serbians ruled by the Vlastimirovic dinasty, at early IX century A.D. the Bulgars conquered and annected the 'white fortress' of Belgrade to the Bulgarians Empire, recognized by the Roman Church as a christian civitas under the kzar Boris I, even if Belgrade had been contented with the Byzantines and the Magyars all along the Middle Age. Until 1083 A.D. when Serbia got independent as christian regnum ruled by the Nemanja dinasties, who could expand all over Balcanic and Illyric regions to form the 'Great Serbia' Empire at the end of the XIV century A.D., holding their capital in Beograd (in Serbian language).

But in XV century A.D. the whole Serbia felt under the Ottoman's Sultanat and Belgrade became the simble of the Serbian resistence especially when Stefan Lazarević built a castle with a citadel and towers, of which only the Despot's tower remain visible nowadays. Only in August 1521 A.D. the fort was finally captured by Suleiman 'said the Magnificent' and subsequently, most of the city was razed to the ground and its entire Orthodox Christian population deported to Constantinople, to an area since then known as 'the Belgrade forest'. The city was made seat of the Pashalik (also known as the Sanjak of Smederevo) and quickly became the second largest Turkish town in Europe: so that in 1817 A.D. Belgrade was elevated as capital of the Principade of Serbia-Montenegro ruled by the Karageorgevic and Obrenovic dinasties.

The same dinasties conducted Serbia to the final independence in 1878 A.D. as kingdom they ruled in alternance, with Belgrade capital. In those years, the urban planner Emilijan Josimović had a significant influence on the city: he conceptualised a regulation to replace the town's crooked streets with a new grid plan, to resemble Wien right down to building grand boulevards inspired by its Ringstrasse. Then an interest in joining the European mainstream allowed Central and Western European architecture to flourish so that the amount of neoclassicist and baroque buildings rose, exemplified by St Michael's Cathedral (in Serbian: Saborna crkva). All that remains of muslim city today are two mosques, the citadel and a fountain with Arabic inscriptions. With the full independence, Belgrade once again became a key city in the Balkans and developed rapidly: conditions in Serbia remained those of an overwhelmingly agrarian country, even with the opening of a railway to Niš, eventhough at the end of XIX century A.D. the capital had only 70,000 inhabitants.

But most of the city went destroyed once again during the First World War, when its northern side was occupied by Austrian troops until 1918 A.D. and the former Austrian-Hungarian Empire territories became part of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovens with capital in Belgrade. That remained the capital of Yugoslavia until its dissolution in 1993 A.D. when was founded the Republic of Serbia-Montenegro, followed by the actual state of Serbia in 2006 A.D. In all its history, cause of a fatally originary strategic position, the city has been battled over in 115 wars and razed 44 times, being bombed five times and besieged many times: a sad destiny repeated in 1999 A.D., during the Kosovo War (the last war in Europe!) when the O.N.A.T. bombing campaign targeted a huge number of buildings in Belgrade and killed over 2,000 civilians, causing an high number of refugees having settled in the city.

Nowadays Belgrade is the capital of Serbia and of the Belgrad district, seat of central government, administrative bodies and government ministries, as well as seat to almost all of the largest Serbian companies, media, and scientific institutions and of the University Clinical Centre of Serbia, a hospital complex with one of the largest capacities in the world. Having been the seat of serbian Orthodox Patriarchate for centuries, Belgrade host the Church of Saint Sava as one of the most important Orthodox church buildings in Europe. It is one of the five most creative cities in the world, by hosting many annual international cultural events and several famous serbian artists over the National Museum, owner of a collection of more than 400,000 exhibits!, the Ethnographic Museum, that contains more than 150,000 items showcasing the rural and urban culture of the Balkans, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, that was one of the first museums of this type in the world since 1965 A.D. and has amassed a collection of more than 8,000 works from art produced across the former Yugoslavia. There is no patron on Belgrade, so is accepted Saint Sava 'the Enlightener' monk and first archibishop of the autocephalous Serbian Church and writer of the Serbian law.

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