spring and autumn, as well as individual and group showings of foreign and Serbian artists.
Back at the entrance to the park, the main path leads to an impressive statue of a female figure, the Monument of Gratitude to France (Spomenik zahvalnosti Francuskoj), erected in 1930 as a symbol of Serbia’s recognition of French help in the First World War. Serbia felt culturally close to France, more so than to the Anglo-Saxon countries. Many Belgrade scholars attended French universities in the early twentieth century, and writers and artists would visit and take inspiration from the latest stylistic developments, while French fashions set the tone for Belgrade’s high society. Two compositions in relief on the base of the pediment express these feelings. The suffering of Serb and French soldiers is depicted on one side, and a woman with children representing the help given by France to Serbian refugees is on the other side. Behind the statue a path leads in rapid succession through two gates built as part of the Austrian defences in the eighteenth century. The first is Karađorđe’s Gate and the second is the Inner Istanbul Gate (Unutrašnja Stambol kapija). The Clock Tower (Sahat kula) stands further on and it houses a small exhibition of Kalemegdan’s development over the centuries.
The writer Sveta Lukić in his 1995 book of memoirs has a description of Belgrade in constant turmoil, but guarded by the fortress of Kalemegdan looking like an armour-plated boat when spied from the confluence below:
... its deck is the Upper Town, the Rose Church and Clock Tower are like chimneys, on the bridge stands the Victor, Meštrović’s sculpture turned toward his Yugoslav brothers over the Sava. The boat sails on unfalteringly, as if bewitched. There is no other course than across the Pannonian Sea to Europe.
The central plateau of the Upper Town is gained once more on the other side of the Clock Tower where a six-sided Turkish mausoleum or
turbe
made of stone stands on the grass in a fairly central position. Ottoman Belgrade contained about ten of these ornamental graves of which only two remain—this one and another on Student Square. This
turbe
is the burial chamber of Damid Ali Pasha, a successful soldier against the Austrians in the eighteenth century. Two other prominent Turks, Selim Pasha and Hasan Pasha Češmelija, were interred alongside him in the midnineteenth century. The
turbe
inspired the author Ivo Andrić to write his short story “The Excursion” (Ekskurzija).
T HE E XCURSION
Andrić (1892–1975) is the best-known writer to have lived in Belgrade during the twentieth century. His place as a writer of world renown was affirmed with the award of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1961. His novels and many of his short stories have been translated into English, but not this one. There are very few works of Serbian literature in which Kalemegdan is a major setting. The whole fortress, Upper Town and Lower Town, was closed to the Serbs during the many centuries when it was a centre of colonial power for Turks and Austrians. It was handed over to the Serbs when the Ottoman Empire quit the city in 1867 and although much of it was designated as a public area from the 1870s it continued to be used as a military base until finally demilitarized in 1946, when the last soldiers, including a contingent of Soviet troops, left their barracks. Then, it was truly opened up for all to enjoy.
The park is mentioned in literature from the beginning of the twentieth century as a place where lovers would take a stroll, but Andrić’s short story, first published in 1955, marks the first time it receives more than a passing reference. The story gives a vivid impression of the atmosphere of the park and has a ghostly feel with its reference to Damid Ali Pasha’s burial chamber.
The story opens with the arrival of a group of children from a school in Vojvodina to the north of Belgrade. Andrić writes:
The day was very
Back at the entrance to the park, the main path leads to an impressive statue of a female figure, the Monument of Gratitude to France (Spomenik zahvalnosti Francuskoj), erected in 1930 as a symbol of Serbia’s recognition of French help in the First World War. Serbia felt culturally close to France, more so than to the Anglo-Saxon countries. Many Belgrade scholars attended French universities in the early twentieth century, and writers and artists would visit and take inspiration from the latest stylistic developments, while French fashions set the tone for Belgrade’s high society. Two compositions in relief on the base of the pediment express these feelings. The suffering of Serb and French soldiers is depicted on one side, and a woman with children representing the help given by France to Serbian refugees is on the other side. Behind the statue a path leads in rapid succession through two gates built as part of the Austrian defences in the eighteenth century. The first is Karađorđe’s Gate and the second is the Inner Istanbul Gate (Unutrašnja Stambol kapija). The Clock Tower (Sahat kula) stands further on and it houses a small exhibition of Kalemegdan’s development over the centuries.
The writer Sveta Lukić in his 1995 book of memoirs has a description of Belgrade in constant turmoil, but guarded by the fortress of Kalemegdan looking like an armour-plated boat when spied from the confluence below:
... its deck is the Upper Town, the Rose Church and Clock Tower are like chimneys, on the bridge stands the Victor, Meštrović’s sculpture turned toward his Yugoslav brothers over the Sava. The boat sails on unfalteringly, as if bewitched. There is no other course than across the Pannonian Sea to Europe.
The central plateau of the Upper Town is gained once more on the other side of the Clock Tower where a six-sided Turkish mausoleum or
turbe
made of stone stands on the grass in a fairly central position. Ottoman Belgrade contained about ten of these ornamental graves of which only two remain—this one and another on Student Square. This
turbe
is the burial chamber of Damid Ali Pasha, a successful soldier against the Austrians in the eighteenth century. Two other prominent Turks, Selim Pasha and Hasan Pasha Češmelija, were interred alongside him in the midnineteenth century. The
turbe
inspired the author Ivo Andrić to write his short story “The Excursion” (Ekskurzija).
T HE E XCURSION
Andrić (1892–1975) is the best-known writer to have lived in Belgrade during the twentieth century. His place as a writer of world renown was affirmed with the award of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1961. His novels and many of his short stories have been translated into English, but not this one. There are very few works of Serbian literature in which Kalemegdan is a major setting. The whole fortress, Upper Town and Lower Town, was closed to the Serbs during the many centuries when it was a centre of colonial power for Turks and Austrians. It was handed over to the Serbs when the Ottoman Empire quit the city in 1867 and although much of it was designated as a public area from the 1870s it continued to be used as a military base until finally demilitarized in 1946, when the last soldiers, including a contingent of Soviet troops, left their barracks. Then, it was truly opened up for all to enjoy.
The park is mentioned in literature from the beginning of the twentieth century as a place where lovers would take a stroll, but Andrić’s short story, first published in 1955, marks the first time it receives more than a passing reference. The story gives a vivid impression of the atmosphere of the park and has a ghostly feel with its reference to Damid Ali Pasha’s burial chamber.
The story opens with the arrival of a group of children from a school in Vojvodina to the north of Belgrade. Andrić writes:
The day was very
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