Pobednik
The statue of Pobednik ( Serbian - Cyrillic Победник , German: The winner ) is a monument in the Upper City of Belgrade's Kalemegdan fortress . It was built in 1928 on the occasion of the ten-year breakthrough of the Salonikifront .
The male bronze figure with an eagle in his right hand and a detached sword in the left was created by the sculptor Ivan Meštrović . The pedestal in the form of a Doric column with fluting on a high cubic base comes from Petar Bajalović . As early as 1912, the statue was originally intended to be dedicated to the liberation of “ Old Serbia ” and Kosovo from the 350-year-old Turkish yoke in the First Balkan War . Proposals were collected for the erection of the monument in honor of the final victory over the Turks. In August 1913, the Belgrade municipality decided to erect the Victory Monument.
A controversy about the portrait of the naked man and its planned location on Terazije in the middle of Belgrade delayed its installation, so that it was only installed in 1928. Now with a new agenda: the tenth anniversary of the breakthrough of the Allied armies on Kajmakčalan and the victory of the English, French and Serbian soldiers on the Balkan front over Austria-Hungary .
Originally conceived as a monumental fountain on the plateau of Terazije square (or the heir to the throne Aleksandar, as the square was called then). The fountain should be made of stone with a pedestal of four lion figures with oval basins on their backs. A marble column with the pobednik on top should rise from its center. In addition, it was decided to manufacture twenty bronze masks for the shell rim of the pool and fifty bronze masks for the column. Meštrović started the realization in October 1913. The production of the fountain is described as follows: ... A large basin (shell), the outside of which would be decorated with a relief depicting warriors on running horses. On the edge of this basin would be lions' heads (those of today's fountain) that would spew water that collects in the shell ... The column would be spaced with bronze rings on which masks of Turkish heads would be attached, each of which would have a jet of water would spit in the basin under the pillar, surrounded ...
The precise appearance of the fountain is known thanks to photographs of the original drawings by Meštrović from the studio of Ivan Meštrović in Zagreb, made by the sculptor Veselko Zorić. Meštrović moved his studio to the basement of the primary school near the Belgrade Cathedral, where he completed the pobednik and the lion figure. After sending it to the Czech Republic for casting, he worked out the reliefs of the lancers and completed the designs for the lion figures.
At the beginning of the First World War , Meštrović, as an Austro-Hungarian citizen, had to leave Belgrade and leave almost all of the finished works behind. During the occupation, Austrian, German and Hungarian troops destroyed all the figures, except that of the pobednik and the lion masks that were being poured.
After the First World War, the idea of building the fountain on Terazije Square was resumed, but only the casting of the figures of the pobednik and the lion masks could be financed. During this time the figure was in a warehouse for water pipes in the Senjak urban area. According to a 1923 contract between the Belgrade Municipality and Meštrović, the monument was to be erected on Terazije Square. In the course of the preparatory technical work in 1927 a scandal broke out and the public protested for moral and artistic reasons against the erection of the monument in the central square. On the occasion of this polemic, Meštrović said: The Belgrade municipality has asked for my consent to set up the “Pobednik” on Terazije Square, at times. But after I know that our “at times” often lasts far too long, I came to an agreement with the Belgrade architect Bajalović about a more solid pedestal on which the figure should be placed. I heard the church started the work. Then she stopped working. What do i have to say If you want to place the figure in Terazije Square, you should do so. If you have found a better place, you should put it there - even if I don't see why it couldn't be in Terazije. Ultimately, it can stay where it was before - in the shed. As for me, I would like it best if there is a way to make the whole fountain as it was planned ...
After long polemics, arguments and criticism, the Belgrade municipality refused to erect the monument on Terazije in favor of another location outside the city. The mayor of the municipality, Kumanudi, informed Meštrović that work on the erection of the monument on Terazije Square had been stopped, contrary to his orders. Eventually the sculpture got its place on the plateau of the Upper City of the Belgrade Fortress. This decision of the municipality on the location of the construction of the Pobednik coincided with the completion of the work on the design of the Sava Promenade and the Great Staircase on Kalemegdan as well as the anniversary of the memory of the breakthrough of the Salonikifront. To commemorate this event, on October 7, 1928, the new section of the Save avenue was opened and the Pobednik monument was unveiled.
In Ivan Meštrović's work, the sculpture made in 1913, which was made immediately after the cycle of sculptures for the Vidovdan Temple, ties in with the ideas and style concept of the cycle mentioned, which includes his representative sculptures by Miloš Obrenović, Srđa Zlopogleđa, Marko Kraljević count on. The monument itself was conceived as a monumental figure of a naked athletic male figure standing on a high column and symbolically representing the iconic figure of victory. As an iconographic solution for the personification of the triumph of a victorious nation, the symbolic motif of the mythical hero Hercules was taken from the legacy of the classical vocabulary.
The pobednik became one of the symbols of Belgrade's cityscape and, along with the monument of thanks to France, is one of the small number of Belgrade monuments erected in the interwar period that are characterized by modern stylistic efforts.
The Pobednik monument was declared a cultural asset in 1992.
literature
- Duško Kečkemet, Život Ivana Meštrovića (1883.- 1962.-2002.), Zagreb 2009.
- Danijela Vanušić, Podizanje spomenika pobede na Terazijama, Nasleđe IX, Belgrade 2008, 193-210.
- Radina Vučetić-Mladenović, Pobeđeni Pobednik Polemike uoči postavljanja Meštrovićevog spomenika, Godišnjak za društvenu istoriju VI 1999, No. 2, pp. 110-123.
- Dokumentacija Zavoda za zaštitu spomenika kulture grada Beograda.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Документација Завода за заштиту споменика културе града Београда.
- ↑ Danijela Vanušić, Podizanje spomenika pobede na Terazijama, Nasleđe IX, Belgrade 2008, 193-210.
- ↑ М. Popović, Kako će izgledati Meštrovićev Pobednik na Terazijama? Vreme, May 12, 1927.
- ↑ М. Radošević, Meštrovićevi crteži terazijske fontane, Politika December 14, 1988.
- ↑ For the history and the polemics regarding the erection of the Pobednik monument after the First World War, see: Duško Kečkemet, Život Ivana Meštrovića (1883.-1962.-2002.), Zagreb 2009, 437–443; Radina Vučetić-Mladenović, Pobeđeni Pobednik Polemike uoči postavljanja Meštrovićevog spomenika, Godišnjak za društvenu istoriju VI 1999, No. 2, pp. 110-123.
- ↑ Gustav Krklec, Sa g. Jovanom Dučićem u Zagrebu kod Ivana Meštrovića, Politika 14. јула 1927.
- ↑ Official Gazette of the City of Belgrade No. 26/92.
Coordinates: 44 ° 49 ′ 23 " N , 20 ° 26 ′ 52" E