Square of the Republic (Belgrade)

 historic town square, town square

Trg Republike or Square of the Republic (Serbian Cyrillic: Трг Републике) is one of the central town squares and an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, located in Belgrade's municipality of Stari Grad. It is the site of some of Belgrade's most recognizable public buildings, including the National Museum, the National Theatre and the famous statue of Prince Michael.

The square is located less that 100 meters away from Terazije, designated center of Belgrade, to which it is connected by the streets of Kolarčeva (traffic) and Knez Mihailova (pedestrian zone). Many people erroneously consider Square of the Republic to be the center of the city. Through Vasina street it is connected to the fortress and park of Kalemegdan to the west and through Sremska street it is connected to the neighborhood of Zeleni Venac and further to Novi Beograd. It also borders the neighborhoods of Stari Grad and Dorćol, to the north. Today, it makes one of the local communities within Belgrade (mesna zajednica) with a population of 2,360 in 2002.

The present square was formed after the demolition of the Stambol Gate in 1866 and the construction of the National Theatre in 1869. The Gate had been built by the Austrians at the beginning of the XVIII century, and stood in the area between the present monument to Prince Mihailo and the National Theatre building. It was the largest and most beautiful town gate at the time when Belgrade was encircled by a moat. It was named after the road which led through it to Constantinople (Istanbul). The people remembered the Stambol Gate as the place in front of which the Turks executed the "raya", their non-Muslim subjects, by impaling them on stakes. It was also the place where during the attack on Belgrade in 1806 in the First Serbian Uprising, one of the leading Serb military commanders, Vasa Čarapić, was fatally wounded. In memory of this sad event, a street near the square and a monument in the vicinity were named after him.

After the establishment of Serbian rule and the demolition of the Stambol Gate, the site of the present square was not laid out for a long time. The National Theatre was the only large building standing here for more than thirty years and until Communist rule after 1945 it was named Pozorišni Trg (Theatre square). The square gradually started to acquire more buildings after the monument to Prince Mihailo was erected in 1882. The place where now the National Museum is, was the location of long single-storied building which housed, among other things, the famous "Dardaneli restaurant". This was the meeting-place of members of the artistic circles at the time. The building was pulled down to make way in 1903 for the Treasury (now the building of the National Museum). In a small park next to the National Theatre, there were the well-known "Kolarac" restaurant and cinema (owned by Ilija Milosavljević-Kolarac, a merchant and benefactor). The "Riunione" Palace, in which the "Jadran" cinema is located today, was built in 1930.

In the place of today's Press House, there have been old and single-storied buildings with shops, until World War II.

Most of the buildings were destroyed during the German bombing on April 6, 1941. After World War II the tram tracks were removed (until then, a tram terminus was here), and the square, on which for a short time were the crypt and the monument to the Red Army soldiers died during the liberation of Belgrade in 1944, was removed (their remains have been transferred to the Cemetery of the Liberators of Belgrade). Later, the biggest building on this square, the "Press House" was constructed, so as the "City Restaurant" and the International Press Center.

The area of the present 'Plateau of Dr Zoran Đinđić', right across the National Theatre was seen for decades as the site of the future Belgrade Opera. However, this became highly controversial issue, both academic and public, in the 2000s, when city government decided to tear down the Staklenac mall (saying it has done its purpose, even though it was built in 1989) and to construct City Gallery, while the Opera is supposed to be built in the swampy and uninhabited area of Ušće in Novi Beograd. Despite opposition from the population, ensemble of the opera and prominent architects and artists, the city government, most prominently the official city architect Đorđe Bobić, insists that regardless of everything, they already made a decision that the Opera will not be built on the Square.

Ever since the first anti-Slobodan Milošević demonstrations on March 9, 1991, over to the student protest during winter 1996-97 and pro-democracy rallies in September and October 2000, the Republic Square was a central point of all of them. For that matter, opposition leader Vuk Drašković of the SPO party insisted on changing the name of the square to Trg Slobode (Freedom Square) but this was never officially done, even during the SPO's municipal rule in Belgrade (1997-2000).

The Square of the Republic is one of the busiest places in Belgrade, as one of the central business areas in the city. Being the intersection of major traffic routes in Belgrade, it is also one of the most polluted areas, with over 20 bus and trolleybus lines of the city public transportation passing through the square.

On one side, the square extends to the Knez Mihailova street, the pedestrian zone and one of the main commercial sections of Belgrade. On the opposite side, the square is occupied by the Staklenac (Serbian for glassy), the Belgrade's first modern glass and steel constructed shopping mall, built in 1989 for the purpose of the IX Non-Aligned Movement summit in Belgrade. The small flat area in front of Staklenac has been officially named 'Plateau of Dr Zoran Đinđić', after the Serbian prime minister was assassinated in 2003.

The bronze statue of Prince Michael on a horse, by the Italian sculptor Enrico Pazzi was erected in 1882. It was erected in honor of his most important political achievement, complete expulsion of the Turks from Serbia and liberation of the remaining 7 cities within (then) Serbian territory, still under the Turkish rule (1867). The names of the cities are carved on a plates on the monument itself, on the statue's pedestal and prince is sculptured with his hand allegedly pointing to Constantinople, showing the Turks to leave. However, his hand points to the opposite direction, to the north-east instead to the south-east. During recent years, the role and honor of prince somewhat fell into the oblivion and the statue became simply known as kod konja (Serbian for 'at the horse'). Even the nearby restaurant is named that way, Kod konja.

In 2000 a modern clock was installed in the square called the Millennium clock which shows temperature conditions and time. Clock was funded by Delta Holding. The clock is placed on a tall stand. Two major, digital clocks are being turned to the less frequent sides of the square (from Čika Ljubina and Kolarčeva street), while two small, regular clocks are turned to the more frequent sides (from Knez Mihailova and the National Theatre). The clock and its stand are made of chromed steel and glass, which is in contrast to the architecture present around the square.