Pobednik () is a monument in the Upper Town of the Belgrade Fortress, built to commemorate Serbia's victory over the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires during the Balkan Wars and the First World War. Cast in 1913, erected in 1928, and standing at high, it is one of the most famous works of Ivan Meštrović. It is also one of the most visited tourist attractions in Belgrade and one of its most recognizable landmarks.
It is a standing bronze male figure in the nude with a falcon in the left hand and a sword in the right (as symbols of peace and war), modelled by the sculptor Ivan Meštrović, set on a pedestal in the form of a Doric column on a tall cubic base, designed by the architect Petar Bajalović.CHPBI Documentation. The statue looks forward across the confluence of the Sava and the Danube, and over the vast Pannonian plain, towards the very distant Fruška Gora mountain (until 1918 a domain of Austro-Hungarian empire), it is probably the most powerful, most popular visual symbol of Belgrade.
The statue was removed from the column in October 2019 for repairs. It was returned on the pedestal after the restoration on 14 February 2020.
History Origin
The history of the monument goes back to the period between 1913 and 1928, even though the initial idea was born in 1912, when Serbia's success in the First Balkan War inspired proposals for erecting a monument in Belgrade to honour the final victory over the Ottomans. In August 1913 Belgrade city council made the decision to mark this momentous event by erecting a monument to Victory. Headed by the mayor Ljubomir Davidović, the council decided to rename the Terazije square and build the fountain with the monument in it. They also awarded the construction of the monument to Meštrović, without architectural competition.
Meštrović accepted the job and quickly presented his design. The original concept was that of a monumental fountain which was to be placed in Terazije or what then was the Square of Crown Prince Alexander.Danijela Vanušić, “Podizanje spomenika Pobedi na Terazijama” Nasledje IX (Belgrade 2008), 193–210. The fountain was to be built of stone in the form of an oval basin, with in diameter, resting on the backs of four lions. At the centre of the basin was to be a marble column surmounted by the -tall statue of the Victor. According to the city council resolutions of 4 October 1913 Meštrović was also to produce twenty masks for the rim of the basin and fifty masks for the column, all in bronze. The column was to have 5 segments, representing 5 centuries of Ottoman occupation. On 19 October 1913 the city contracted with Meštrović and he set to work on the fountain but, being an Austro-Hungarian subject, he had to leave Belgrade at the outbreak of the World War I.
Construction
Background information about the fountain and its more detailed description were brought out by the newspaper Vreme:M. Popović, “Kako ce izgledati Meštrovićev Pobednik na Terazijama?”, Vreme, 12 May 1927. ...a large basin (shell) the outer side of which would be decorated with a relief depicting warriors on galloping horses. Affixed along the rim of the shell would be lion’s heads (from the present-day jet fountain) spouting water into the shell. [...] The column would be girdled with spaced hoops to which Turkish head masks would be affixed, and each would spout a jet of water into the basin below...
In order to finish the work as quickly possible, Meštrović moved his studio to Belgrade. He worked in the semi-basement of the Elementary School King Petar I by the Cathedral Church, actually in the school's gym. Due to the size of the statue, the school's roof was partially removed. Within a short time he completed the figure of the Victor and lion's heads. Having sent them to Bohemia for casting, he began to work on the large reliefs of lancers. Sketches for the large lion figures were also done.
Meštrović's statue of the Victor was done in 1913, immediately after and as a continuation, in concept and style, of the cycle of sculptures intended for his large-scale project for a shrine commemorating the Battle of Kosovo (Vidovdanski hram), which includes representative sculptures such as Srdja Zlopogledja, Miloš Obilić and Marko Kraljević. Conceived as a colossal athletic male nude set up on a tall column, the monument symbolically represents the iconic figure of victory. In iconographic terms, the personification of the triumph of a victorious nation can be traced back to classical antiquity and its mythic hero Hercules.
Then the First World War broke out. The Austrian ultimatum forced Meštrović to leave Belgrade and almost all finishing works had to be ceased. During the occupation by Austrian, German and Hungarian troops, all was destroyed except for the statue of the Victor and lion masks, which were away in Bohemia for casting. The exact appearance of the fountain is known from the photographs of Meštrović's original drawings taken in his Zagreb studio by the sculptor Veselko Zorić.M. Radošević, “Meštrovićevi crteži terazijske fontane”, Politika, 14 December 1988.
The project of erecting the fountain in Terazije was revived after the First World War, but the available funds could only cover the casting costs for the Victor and lion masks.On the history of and the debate over the erection of the Victor monument after the First World War see Duško Kečkemet, Život Ivana Meštrovića 1883.–1962.–2002 (Zagreb 2009), 437–443; Radina Vučetić-Mladenović, “Pobednik: polemike uoči postavljanja Meštrovićevog spomenika”, Godišnjak za društvenu istoriju VI:2 (1999), 110–123. The statue arrived in Belgrade in the late July 1923 and was stored in a storehouse for plumbing pipes in Senjak. Yet, in 1923 the city council and Meštrović reached an agreement that he should do the monument in Terazije, but the sculpture remained in the storehouse for the next 4 years.
Scandal
However, the beginning of preparation works for the monument's foundation in May 1927 caused a public controversy. The public challenged the erection of the monument on moral and artistic grounds. Instigated by the author and jurist Petar Odavić, the campaign against the monument began. Odavić published an article in the Vreme magazine, attacking the sculpture claiming it insults the moral of chaste Belgrade ladies, so as the memory on Serbian soldiers which it was to represent, by not having "symbols of the Serbian soldiers", like the šajkača hat or the opanak footwear, and that it doesn't represent a Serbian hero but rather some ancient one. Still, the design was endorsed by numerous members of Serbian academia, like Bogdan Popović, Stevan Hristić, Branislav Petronijević, Ksenija Atanasijević, Zora Petrović, Beta Vukanović or Stanislav Krakov, but also by certain women organizations and parts of the clergy. Division among public, elite and church soon gained political connotation. There were various, jokingly suggestions, like the proposition for the super-high pedestal so that its nudity won't be visible from the ground or that, since it is already nude, it may be placed in a swimming pool.
Meštrović also had his say:Gustav Krklec, “Sa g. Jovanom Dučićem u Zagrebu kod Ivana Meštrovića”, Politika, 14 July 1927. Belgrade City Council asked my consent to set up the “Victor” in Terazije temporarily. But aware that our “temporarily” tends to last too long, I have made an agreement with the Belgrade architect Bajalović for a more solid pedestal for the statue. The Council, so I’ve heard, set to work. And then stopped. What have I to say? If they intend to set up the statue in Terazije, let them set it up. If they have found a better place, let them set it up there. After all, it may as well stay where it has been for all this time – in a shed. As far as I am concerned, I’d like it best to have the opportunity to do the whole Fountain the way it was originally conceived.
Especially vocal against it were the members of several female organizations. They considered the placing of a figure of a nude man in the center of the city is "rude" and that it will damage the moral of the girls. After much controversy, debate and criticism, the city council decided not to set up the monument in Terazije, but to find a location outside the city. As soon as Kosta Kumanudi took over as a mayor of Belgrade in 1926, he pushed to project to finally get it done. Belgrade municipality officially purchased the monument. Also, by this time the city decided to scrap the fountain and the lion heads at the monument's base due to the money reasons. The Arts Commission, formed by the city, decided in September 1927 to relocate the monument and place it "on the ridge of the Belgrade Town, at the mouth of the Sava and the Danube". As Kumanudi had other duties in the state government, this decision was confirmed by his deputy Kosta Jovanović, and Kumanudi was neither aware or notified about it at the time. Kumanudi then informed Meštrović that the preparatory work on erecting the monument had been ceased contrary to his instructions. This decision of the city council coincided with the completion of the Sava Avenue and the Great Stairway in Kalemegdan Park as well as with the celebration of the anniversary of the Salonika front breakthrough. It was in commemoration of that event's 10th anniversary that on 7 October 1928 the freshly refurbished part of the Sava Avenue was inaugurated and the Victor unveiled.
Recent history
Measurements from 1989 showed that the "Victor" is partially standing on the embankment and partially on the medieval rampart, which is why it is tilting. The technical documentation for the pedestal is lost so the Institute for the protection of the cultural monuments has done its own research. It showed that the core of the pedestal is made of concrete while from the outside it has been slab-sided with the stone. The monument was partially repaired in the 1989–1991 period. Within this project, in 1990 it was cleaned from the graffiti and dirt.
In 1996, the Institute tried to improve the static of the monument and to stop further tilting, but eventually unsuccessfully. The foundations were strengthened and the piles were placed to prevent the tilting. Still, the monument hasn't been fully straightened and remained in partially tilted position, as the piles were pushed into the soft section of the rampart and the subsidence of the terrain continued. Researches in 2007–2009 showed that it was tilted .
In 2015, when the broken plates were being removed and replaced at the foothill of the statue, it was discovered that the earth beneath is sagging. The measurements were conducted and an underground room, dug in the 1950s, was discovered beneath the plateau. That delayed the works on the plateau itself, which were finished in September 2016: the new marble plates were placed, so as the decorative lights, while the problem of draining the atmospheric waters was solved, but the monument itself (both the pedestal and the sculpture) were not renovated. That same year the Belgrade University Civil Engineering Faculty concluded that the "tilting is a process which continues and shows no signs of slowing down or stopping".