Nacionalizam i Arhitektura

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Nationalismn d rchitectureTheCreationfa NationaltylenSerbianrchitectureand tsPoliticalmplications

BRATISLAV ANTELIC,BelgradeFewcultureshave been so preoccupiedwithhistoryas thatof Serbia. For almost a century, from the 1850s to the late1930s, Serbia's artistic and literary scene was overwhelminglyfocused on the medieval past. This persistent historicism canbe attributed to the difficult and slow process of culturalrenewal that followed the emergence of this Balkan country asa sovereign nation-state in 1830. Emancipation from longtimeTurkish influence demanded the formulation of a nationalculture that would stimulate national and ethnic identity amongthe population. The origins of that culture were sought in theremotest layers of collective memory, in the semimythicalglory of bygone times in which historical facts are interspersedwith popular legends and folklore.

This revivalisttendency was most evident in architecture inthe so-called Serbo-Byzantine style, an idiom that its practitio-ners believed to be regionally specific. Universally and un-equivocally accepted as the national style, it dominated archi-tectural production from the middle of the nineteenth century.Even today, it remains the canonical style for churches.Few scholars have investigated problems surrounding thecreation of a national style in Serbian architecture.' Thislack of interest was certainly due to the proscription of histori-cism, with its nationalistic connotations, after the CommunistParty assumed power in 1945, so that even the occasionalstudies that broached this question could not avoid reflectingofficial antagonism to this kind of investigation. From theperspective of Marxism, nationalism and its cultural mani-festations were products of bourgeois ideology. For theoristssteeped in Modernism, such denunciations served to dismissthe architecture of the Serbian revival as backward and reac-tionary.2

The Serbo-Byzantine movement has produced no greatmonuments, but it merits examination as a paradigm of thisunusually tradition-minded people whose fascination with theirown cultural history has been remarkably tenacious. Althoughpart of a pan-European trend in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries, Serbian historicism was almost completelydetached from architectural developments in other countries

and displayed a distinctly local character. Architectural style inthe Serbian context is charged with meaning. Unlike mostother revivalist movements it transcends architectural theoryand takes on bold political and ideological connotations.Aesthetic or functional considerations were of secondary inter-est to nationalist architects; rather, their aim was to define astyle that would be particular to the Serbs and convey abstractconcepts such as national spirit or national character througharchitectural form.This study will examine the formation of the Serbo-Byzantine stylewithin the context of the broader sociopoliticaland cultural milieu. Specifically, it will follow the evolution ofthis architecture from its beginnings as a progressive Romanticideal of the liberal middle classes in the second half of thenineteenth century to its later reflections as an expression ofreactionary ideas propagating religious and ethnic exclusive-ness in the first decades of the twentieth century.HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDIn order to examine the cultural milieu in which Serbianhistoricism originated it is necessary to present, at least inbroad outline, the historical background of Serbia. Situatedin the center of the Balkan peninsula, on the historic borderof the western and eastern Roman empires, Serbia was aconverging point of different cultures and religions: Ortho-dox Byzantium and the Catholic West during the Middle Agesand Catholic Austria and the Islamic Ottoman Empire inthe postmedieval period. This unique position is significantfor understanding the Serbs' constant wavering betweenEastern and Western values in seeking their own culturalidentity.Of special interest for this study are the developments thatfollowed the collapse of the Byzantine empire in the fifteenthcentury.3 The advance of the Ottoman Turks into Europe ledto the political disintegration of the Balkanmedieval principali-ties and their incorporation into the Ottoman Empire. Serbia,the largest and most powerful Slavic kingdom in the region,attempted to resist the Turkish armies, but after several mili-tary defeats followed by territorial losses was reduced to a smalldominion in the north. Serbia was finally subjugated in 1459.

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FIGURE : Anonymous builderor workshop, Konak(palace) of PrincessLjubica,Belgrade,1829-1830, mainfacade

In the centuries that followed, as a province of the OttomanEmpire, it shared the destiny of neighboring Orthodox Chris-tian lands.

One event in the postmedieval period is of prime impor-tance for the modern history of the country: the so-calledGreat Migration of the Serbs.4In 1690 forty thousand familiesfled west across the Danube in fear of reprisalsfor assisting theAustrian army in an abortive Turkish campaign.5 Led by theirpatriarch, the Serbs settled in the Banat, a rich agriculturalregion in southern Hungary and part of the Hapsburg em-pire. The process of adaptation from feudal society to modernabsolutist state was complicated by the Austrian Serbs' needfor a diplomatic strategy to deal with the complex spheres ofinterest within the multiethnic monarchy. Not long after theGreat Migration, the Serbs succeeded in attaining significantconcessions from the Austrian authorities.6 Among the mostimportant of these was an unusually high level of autonomy inreligious affairs,which served as a guarantee against Catholicproselytism; thus as earlyas 1713 a Serbian Orthodox archbish-opric was established in the Austrian town of Karlowitz (nowSremski Karlovci). Besides religious sovereignty, the Serbiancommunity obtained a form of self-government: vital ques-tions concerning religious, political, and cultural life in thediaspora were discussed by popular delegates at congregationsknown as "national assemblies." From this time onward theSerbs were almost completely drawn into the cultural orbit ofCentral Europe.7 The raising of the archbishopric in SremskiKarlovci to the rank of patriarchate in 1848, which in effectmeant the relocation of the supreme national and religious

institution from its medieval seat in southern Serbia, signaledthe acculturation of the Austrian Serbs in their new country.An Austrian-bred intelligentsia, educated in Vienna and othercenters in the empire, established the groundwork of modernSerbian culture. Even after the liberation of Serbia proper andits emergence as an autonomous state in 1830, practically allintellectual, cultural, and political activity was centered inVienna, Budapest, and the Serb-populated towns in theBanat.8By the middle of the nineteenth century the Austrian Serbsbecame one of the most powerful national groups in theempire; almost eighty percent of the southern trade was in thehands of the Serbian mercantile classes. Faced, however, withwhat they perceived as a constant threat of cultural assimila-tion, the Serbs from the 1820s onward strove to preservenational identity through schools and publishing houses orga-nized around cultural and literary societies. IndependentCyrillic presses were established in Vienna and Budapest,opening the way for publication of a secular literature. Theywere accompanied by Serbian-language newspapers and thefirst secular school. An equally important step toward secular-ization was the reform of the liturgical Slavonic language byVuk Karadzii and the creation of a modern literary language.These marked the first phase of curtailing the traditionalauthority of the clergy in secular affairs,a process stimulated inthe late eighteenth century by the reforms devised by Em-peror Joseph II to neutralize Russian influence on the em-pire's Orthodox subjects. Growing affluence of the western-ized middle classes inevitablyled to a change in the established

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order, so that by the 1860s a central cultural role was assumedby the lay intelligentsia, while the focus of patronage in the artsand education shifted from the church to middle class pa-trons.9

Across the Danube, in Serbia proper, Ottoman rule meantthe preservation of the medieval structure of society.'0Generaleconomic stagnation led to a situation in which all social andcultural activitywas centered on monasteries, the only institu-tion that had survived the demise of the medieval state. Thisbackward and profoundly patriarchal agrarian society domi-nated by medieval cultural patterns produced a folk culturebased on popular customs and traditions and imbued with astrong religious bias."1The modern history of Serbia began in 1804 with a peasantrebellion against Turkish rule.12After nine years of revolt theTurks regained control of Serbia. A second uprising, led byKnez (prince) Milo' Obrenovi' in 1815, was more successful.Large parts of Serbian territories in the north were liberated,and Milo' was recognized as hereditary prince. In 1830, afterreceiving guarantees of autonomy from the Ottomans, Serbiawas declared a semi-independent princedom."3 The rebellionturned into a revolution, for it resulted in a fundamentaltransformation of peasant society. The true victors of therevolutionary struggle were the Austrian Serb middle classes,which, having achieved economic power and a relatively well-developed class identity, had been severely constrained by theabsence of political institutions that would promote theirinterests in the monarchy. This expatriate bourgeoisie, whichreturned to the liberated country to settle there as the newelite, encouraged the development of capitalism and thetransformation of patriarchal rural communities into a mod-ern secular society.14

Such an ambitious enterprise required political reforms. Agroup of distinguished citizens known as the Defenders of theConstitution articulated the initial demands for the formationof a legislative assembly and limitation of autocratic power.Between 1838 and 1858 they formed a government that fash-ioned an ambitious program to uproot the Turkish feudalsystem and reorganize the country on modern economic,social, and political principles. Formation of state institutionsand a professional bureaucracy in the mid-nineteenth centurycurtailed the traditional role of monasteries; cities now be-came the administrative centers, and the middle classes, chieflycomposed of merchants and civil servants, replaced clerics asthe most influential segment of society.1The general trend toward secularization and moderniza-tion seemed irresistible: almost immediately following therecognition of Serbian autonomy in 1830 the Gymnasium wasformed as the first secular school. It was followed by theLyceum which later evolved into a university, and by suchinstitutions as the National Museum, the National Theater,

and the Academy of Arts and Sciences (originally the SerbianLearned Society). But against ideas promoted by the Viennese-educated liberal intelligentsia stood those of traditionalists forwhom national emancipation meant simplytransferral of powerfrom Turkish feudal lords to their Serbian equivalents. Forthese local authorities, who still wielded considerable influ-ence in the countryside, despotism was the only understand-able form of government. They were even more estrangedfrom the liberalism promoted by the first generation of schol-ars returning from their studies in France and Germany.16Clerical and patriarchal in orientation, they felt an aversiontoward the refined manners and tastes of the enlightenedyoung literati. Pervaded by religious-national sentiments basedon semimythical and folkloric philoslavism and Orthodoxy,these groups formed a strong lobby which looked towardRussia as the leader of all the Orthodox Slavs.

Notwithstanding this polarization of society, the mecha-nisms of social change could not be reversed. Believing that amodern and organized state was best represented by a well-ordered city, political groups in Serbia at this time promotedthe regulation of cities, which were to become the backbone ofpolitical and industrial renewal. Consequently, urban systemati-zation was begun early in the century with the replanning ofBelgrade, the national capital: the old mazes of narrow anddark semiprivate alleys and cul-de-sacs were removed or re-stricted to areas inhabited by the remaining Turkish popula-tion. They were replaced with new grid plans with wide boule-vards and avenues intersecting at right angles and squares andpublic parks at key locations.'7 The city now reflected theunderlying mechanism of social dynamics and newly acquiredambitions of the educated middle classes.In short, the political situation in the Balkans around themiddle of the nineteenth century saw the awakening of na-tional identity and formation of small independent states suchas Serbia from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Whetherethnic or national awareness came first is of no account: theunderlying force in the creation of the new states was national-ism.

Long before the advent of Romantic liberal nationalism,traditional sentimental patriotism based on Slavic messianismand the cult of the medieval past prevailed among the ruralpopulation.This patriotism had been sustained for centuriesby the Orthodox church, but after the liberation and espe-cially after the Revolution of 1848 the young liberal intelligen-tsia formulated similar sentiments into an ambitious strategyfor the cultural and political renaissance of the nation. Incitedby the events of 1848, a group of young intellectuals in NoviSad who called themselves the United Serbian Youth defined acultural program thematically centered on the Battle of Kosovo(1389), the decisive medieval Ottoman victory over the Serbi-ans.18Their goal was to arouse national awareness among the

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population through the glorification of the national past andto propagate the unity of all Serbs, those in Serbia proper andthose living in the Ottoman and Austrian empires.19 Suchnotions were stimulated by European Romantics who had onlyrecently discovered the Balkans.20In particular the program-matic ideas emanating from the German cultural nationalismof Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schlegel supplantedRussian influence based on religious kinship.21 Ideas such asthose ofJohann Gottfried von Herder, "that the vigorous andyoung Slavs should replace the tired Latins and Germans,"were powerful stimuli for the awakening of national sentimentamong the peoples of the Balkan peninsula.Such tendencies were perceptible in all social strata, butonly as promoted by bourgeois theorists do they emerge as aclearly defined ideology that was to legitimize the newly estab-lished position of the middle classes: Romantic nationalismwas the spiritual framework around which the ideology of thenew elite was formulated." In time the sense of the past wascarried into semimythical theories of cultural uniqueness andethnic-religious exclusivity, and manifested through a pro-gram of exaggerated and uncritical glorification of nationalhistory. Critics belonging to the more sober Realist school ofthought warned that this patriotism was becoming excessivelyhistorical. But the trend was irreversible. The fact that morethan half of the Serbian territories in the south were still underforeign rule stimulated growing nationalistic aspirations--grounded in naive and utterly unrealistic ideals but true to theRomantic spirit- such as the restoration of the historicalboundaries of medieval Serbia.23

The recreation of the national past was closely connectedwith the establishment of a new social and economic orderthat divided public life into two spheres: the spiritual and thematerial. A representational typology was created to conveythe symbolic value of each. The national element, denotingeverything Orthodox and Slavic,was equated with the spiritualdomain, while the foreign element, representing the materialsphere, included more routine aspects of everyday life. Lan-guage reflected this dichotomy. Thus, repeating the pattern ofcultural influence, German came to be the technical languagewhile French was the language of the court and diplomacy;French was also accepted as the polite language of the middleclasses. The church, on the other hand, as the spiritual do-main, retained a variant of Old Church Slavonic, a language inuse among the Slavssince the ninth century.

Similar principles were applied in the classification of archi-tecture. State and public buildings were designed in a varietyof eclectic period styles strongly influenced by contemporaryCentral European architecture, especially Viennese classicism,while the Byzantine stylewasreserved for churches and schools,since they belonged in the spiritual realm.24The inclusion ofschools and churches in the same category can be explained

by referring once more to language. In accordance withHerder's doctrine language was considered a vital element ofnational survival, one of the main characteristics of a nationand its greatest cultural achievement. Just as the Serbianlanguage had once been sustained in monasteries in theMiddle Ages, and later during the Turkish occupation, it wasnow taught and upheld in schools, which thus became thechief promoters of national culture, and so belonged in thespiritual domain. Indeed, one of the principal points of dis-pute between the conservatives and the liberals was the issue oflanguage reform. Opponents of modernization and seculariza-tion supported by the Orthodox church strongly objected tothe revision of the liturgical Slavonic and creation of a modernliterary language.25

Although it is a difficult task to isolate individual determin-ing factors amidst the complex currents of social evolution,one can see the immediate connection between regionalismin architecture and the general political and ideological incli-nation in the second half of the nineteenth century. The 1830smark the beginning of this development. With the establish-ment of stronger ties between the Austrian Serbs and theirSerbian homeland, Central European architecturalforms cameto be accepted as an emancipation from the traditional formsof Balkan folk architecture that had become orientalizedunder Ottoman influence. The Konak (palace) in Belgrade[Figure1], built by a traditional workshop in 1829-1831 as theresidence of Knez Milos's consort, is an example of the curiousresults that could be achieved in what was termed the Turkishmanner.26"But this slightly westernized Balkan folk architec-ture was not considered appropriate for monumental architec-ture in a well-ordered citybecause of itsTurkish-Islamiccharac-ter.

More fitting were the various academic idioms practiced bytrained architects who came from across the Danube at theinvitation of middle-class patrons anxious to display theirnewly acquired wealth. From the 1830s Western European-style residences increasingly replaced traditional Balkan housesin Belgrade and other urban centers.27 Most of these privatehouses and apartment buildings displayed a bland and anemicbrand of neo-Renaissance classicism, carried out in belatedEmpire or Biedermeier interiors that appealed to the taste ofthe Serbian nouveau riche elite. From around the middle ofthe nineteenth century the architectural scene of Serbia dis-played the full range of classical and postclassical revivalism.28These styles were used for public as well as private buildings.This enthusiasm for Western forms at first included churcharchitecture. A particular blend of late baroque and classicalforms termed Serbian Baroque, which had been widely ac-cepted by the Serbs in the diaspora, was imported in the 1830sto replace the unassuming churches built in the Turkishperiod.29This style is exemplified by the cathedral of Belgrade

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FIGURE:Anonymous possibly ranzancke), athedral f St.Michael, elgrade,1837-1840, iew rom hesouthwest

[Figure2], built between 1837 and 1840 by German masonsfrom the Banat to the designs of an Austrian military engi-neer.30DEFININGA NATIONALSTYLE:THEOPHILVON HANSENAND VIENNESENEO-BYZANTINE,1850-1900The Serbian Baroque was short-lived. As soon as the culturalagenda of the Serbian Revival was formulated around themiddle of the century, this style was abandoned. Henceforth,under the influence of growing regionalistic tendencies thatpervaded the political and cultural climate, the principalorientation among patrons and architectural theorists wastoward national and regional identification. It was not archi-tects who initially demanded architectural differentiation butrather intellectuals whose ideas extended far beyond architec-tural theory. They approached the national Romanticism ofJohann Gottlieb Fichte, for whom architecture was a medium

through which lofty ideals of nation and state could be con-veyed. This idealistic attitude wasfirstexpressed by the origina-tor of the Serbian revivalist movement, the art historian andarchaeologist Mihailo Valtrovi'. His pioneering research onSerbian medieval architecture in the 1870s was motivated byantiquarian interest but also by "its revival and implementa-tion today because architecture most clearly characterizes thespirit of the nation.""' In those same years Felix Kanitz, theAustrian researcher of Serbian antiquities, enthusiastically sup-ported the revivalof medieval forms while dismissing SerbianBaroque churches as "South Hungarian" in style.32

It is difficult at times to distinguish between academichistoricism and traditional forms, since dependence on medi-eval models was a constant feature of Balkan church architec-ture during the centuries of Ottoman rule. A crude idiom onlyvaguely reminiscent of its medieval origins, divested of allornament and reduced to elemental forms, lingered onthroughout the postmedieval period. This survival was cer-tainly due to lack of contact with Western architectural devel-opments among the isolated Christian communities in theBalkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire. But above all it wasthe result of firmly established conservatism and traditional-ism. Gathered around the few functioning monasteries, theChristian population developed a sentimental reverence forthe national past. The medieval ruins scattered throughoutthe countryside were powerful symbols of ethnic and religiousidentity, so that adherence to the forms of the ancient monu-ments was more than a survival; t was a spontaneous romanticattitude unrelated to academic historicism.33

Traditional self-taught masons who had monopolized thebuilding trade under Turkish rule tried to accommodate therevivalistvogue which accompanied urban development. Theydesigned churches for Orthodox Christian communities allover the Balkans in a stylistic miscellany consisting of Byzan-tine, Islamic, and Romanesque forms blended with the vocabu-lary of the Serbian Baroque.34 This provincial eclecticismlacked the refinement and erudition underlying formal aca-demic programs. The age of the master mason was coming toan end: urbane and sophisticated, the new patrons requiredtrained architects who would formulate a national style on thebasis of academic revivalistdoctrines.35

The first monumental church constructed by an academi-cally trained architect and manifesting a regional orientationin conception was the church ofSt. Spiridion in Trieste [Figure3].36 In 1859 the Serbian community in this city, composedchiefly of wealthy merchants, announced an open interna-tional competition for a new church which was to replace anolder baroque structure."7The stipulation that the church bebuilt "in the style of the old national monuments" is notsurprising, but it is extraordinary that the entries were sent forevaluation to the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice instead of

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following the customary procedure and seeking approvalof the patriarch."8By disclaiming the traditional authority ofthe church, the small Orthodox parish of Trieste made apowerful assertion of class and national awareness; self-affirmation was placed above convention. They understoodthat in this environment such a decision could not be left toanyone but professionals considered the highest authorities inquestions of art.

The academy judged that the design most appropriate tothe requirements of the client wasone submitted by a Milanesearchitect, Carlo Maciachini. Trained in Vienna, Maciachiniwas familiarwith Central European revivaliststyles.39AlthoughSt. Spiridion reveals Maciachini's understanding of some as-pects of Byzantine architecture-due surely to his familiaritywith St. Mark'sin Venice-it is still an amalgam of byzantiniz-ing, Romanesque, Gothic, and Oriental (i.e., Near EasternIslamic) quotations in the academic tradition, lacking volumet-ric clarityand structural logic.40Nevertheless, the Greek-crossplan, with a large central dome abutted by two semidomes andsurrounded by four smaller domes rising from the cornersbetween the arms of the cross, was seen in Belgrade as dis-tinctlynational.41 The reactions were positive: St. Spiridion was

enthusiastically accepted as the stylisticembodiment of a newnational style:Serbo-Byzantine.42While asserting the historicaland social role of the middle classes, a regional architecturalidiom as defined by Maciachini's design promoted the self-identification of the small Serbian Orthodox community inthe Catholic milieu of Trieste. However naive and superficial itmay have been from the architectural-historicalviewpoint, thechurch of St. Spiridion answered its specific purpose; it wascertainly more representative of the patrons than the earlierBaroque structure.In the early 1870s, the first generation of Serbian-bornarchitects returned from their studies in Vienna. They were allstudents of Theophil von Hansen, the most prominent expo-nent of the Byzantine style in Austria, and members of theprestigious Hansen-Klub, which upheld and spread the mas-ter's architectural program.43The fact that they chose to studywith Hansen is a good indicator not only of their aesthetictastes and those of the court and their middle-class patrons,but also of the prevailing political and national ideals. Whenlater they attained high positions in the Ministry of Buildingand in the Department of Architecture at Belgrade University,these architects dictated official trends in patronage. Under

FIGURE:CarloMaciachini,t.Spiridion,rieste,1861-1869,view rom he southwest

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their influence, the Ministry of Building authorized only Byz-antine-style designs for churches.44

This decision should be seen in light of political develop-ments that were favorable for Serbia. Although it had beenindependent for some time de facto, at the Berlin Congress in1878 Serbia was officially proclaimed an independent king-dom. Its acquisition of considerable territory in the southbolstered national enthusiasm. This was the high point ofRomantic nationalism in Serbia. Eager to assert cultural andpolitical sovereignty over its entire dominion, the newly recog-nized state sponsored an ambitious program to ensure that "asmany churches as possible in the Kingdom of Serbia be built inthe Byzantine style." The program also included byzantiniza-tion of postmedieval and especially baroque churches, i.e., theconstruction of new Byzantine-stylefacades. Churches were tobe powerful symbols of national identity and the most tangibletestimony to the legitimacy and continuity of the state. Theinitiator and chief administrator of this project was one ofthe foremost architects of the Hansen-trained generation,Svetozar Ivai~kovi&45tandardized plans varying only in orna-mental detail and in size, devised by Ivac'kovid nd his associ-ates between 1882 and 1894, were virtually imposed by theMinistry of Building on over forty village communities.46 As aViennese student, Ivac'koviP ould not shun the compoundidioms termed Byzantine by the academy, yet unlike Macia-chini's, his creative interpretations of Byzantine architectureemploy a relatively consistent repertory of quotations. Aboveall, the cross-in-square plan and the composite masonry tech-nique (alternating bands of brick and stone, some only simu-lated in red and white paint) were intended to recall LateByzantine and Serbian churches.47 These colorful designswere undoubtedly attractive to village communities in thesouthern provinces accustomed to the modest (in many caseseven wooden) structures built under Turkish rule; in factmany of these communities, having only recently been wrestedfrom Turkey and incorporated into the new kingdom, lackedparish churches entirely.

Much larger in scale but still a good example of Ivac'kovih'sarchitecture is the Church of the Transfiguration in Panievo,[Figure4], designed in 1872, not long after he returned fromhis studies in Vienna.48 The polychrome facades, elegantlymodulated with pilaster strips, blind arcades, molded profiles,and restrained relief carvings, were accepted by the generalpublic and the critics as national in character. Although thebuildings designed by Ivakovi.'s studio tended toward a morespecific regional vocabulary than the academic neo-Byzantine,they still included Romanesque and orientalizing elements.But stylistic consistency was not at issue here. Political exigencyafter the Berlin Congress demanded a swift rebuilding of thesouthern provinces and development of a standardized modeof building which would be attractive to rural communities.

FIGURE : Svetozar Iva:kovid,Church of the Transfiguration,Pan:evo, 1874- 1878,detail of mainfacade and belltower from the west

IvaEkovih'smain contribution was that he provided a coherentstructuralorganization for centrally planned domed churches,one that could be carried out by even the least proficientprovincial builders. Central planning and the repertory offorms introduced by IvaEkovi'dominated Serbian ecclesiasti-cal architecture thereafter. But whywas Byzantine architecturetaken as the paradigm in the quest for a style that would beparticular to the Serbs?A critic writing on the occasion of the consecration of theChurch of the Transfiguration in 1879 praised young Ivac'kovihfor choosing to build the church "in the Byzantine style inwhich were built the most beautiful and the most celebratedchurches from the times of the pious Nemanyids."49By refer-ring to the dynastythat ruled Serbia during the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries, the critic articulated the universal desireto build churches that could recall the national past. MedievalSerbian architecture was equated here with Byzantine. True,architectural developments in neighboring Byzantium ex-erted a strong influence on the local building tradition, butonly in the fourteenth century; originally Serbian medievalarchitecture was a variant of Romanesque.50

Why then was not the Romanesque style, which could berightly termed Serbian, taken as the model? The same criticcommended the use of the Byzantine style because it bestsuited the liturgical requirements of the Orthodox rite, but infact liturgy was unrelated to the formal or decorative vocabu-lary or to the spatial organization of the interior. After all, theOrthodox liturgy had accommodated the longitudinal plans

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of Serbian Baroque churches as early as the eighteenth cen-tury. We should therefore seek other reasons for the over-whelming identification of national culture with Byzantinemodels. Itwas surely notjust a matter of ignorance of historicalstyles, although this, too, might be taken into account.

Rather, it is the meaning underlying the notions of Byzan-tium and Byzantine that should be examined. The ideaconveyed through this style was based on religious-historicalaffiliation: it was supposed to provide identification with thegreat Orthodox empire of Byzantium and consequentlywith the Orthodox church during its days of glory. It wasthrough this spiritual dimension-seen in the Gothic Revivalin Western Europe-that national and political aspirationswere imparted. Moreover, the Byzantine style was unmistak-ably different from Western, or Catholic, architecture. ASerbian neo-Romanesque, however closely it would have imi-tated the great national monuments of the Middle Ages,would have been less straightforward in conveying late nine-teenth-century national aspirations. Following this logic, theSerbian students of Theophil von Hansen adopted the Byzan-tine (as interpreted by the Viennese Academy, however eclec-tic it may actually have been) as the closest possible non-Western idiom.

Stylistically more consistent regional designs were madepossible by the extensive and systematic investigation of medi-eval monuments conducted in the 1870s and 1880s by MihailoValtrovidand Dragutin Milutinovidcunder the auspices of theSerbian Learned Society.5' Apart from scientific objectives,these first steps in scholarly research were meant to contributeto a general "renaissance of the Balkans," important to the"moral uplifting of our fatherland."52 More specifically, thisresearch, widely publicized and presented to the general pub-lic through exhibitions and publications, was intended to assistarchitects working in the national style: "to establish andpropagate in Serbian ecclesiastical architecture the use ofancient Serbian forms."53-The considerable, albeit fragmentary, knowledge thusgained assisted in the formulation of what was considered tobe an authentic national style. It was exploited by the Ministryof Building and its loyal architects to impose a style ostensiblycleansed of all orientalizing forms and inspired directly by thelocal fourteenth-century building tradition. In ecclesiasticalarchitecture, the wide range of motifs established through thisresearch eventually led to more accurate reproduction of themedieval vocabulary. Problems arose, however, when it cameto their application in secular architecture.

The first public building to be designed according to theprinciples of regional differentiation was Belgrade University[Figure5], constructed between 1858 and 1863 to the designsof the Czech Jan Nevole, a militant Panslavist who had justbeen promoted to chief engineer in the Ministryof Building.54

Captain Mi'a's Building, as it came to be known from itsdonor's name, is a true Italian palazzo in conception. Compari-son with the Turkish-style Konak, built only three decadesearlier (Figure 1), most vividlyillustrates the dramatic changein the perception of residential architecture that occurred bythe middle of the century. The profusion of arcades, friezes,ornamental detail, and lively polychromy reveals a personalstyle whose remarkable lack of concern for classicist disci-pline signaled the advent of romanticism in secular architec-ture. This uninhibited mixture of Romanesque, Venetian Byz-antine, and Moorish elements was immensely successful amongarchitects and patrons alike and was the prototype for a localidiom that became very popular by the turn of the century.Although publicly celebrated as "victories of the revived na-tional style," such buildings were eclectic compounds oflocal and imported idioms. It seems that abundance of portals,domes, arcades, and the composite masonry were the maincriteria for designating a building "national" or "Byzantine."As long as these elements were prominent, occasional inclu-sions of Romanesque or even Islamic motifs could be allowed.

How did this mixture of idioms come to be appreciatedas nationally specific? While a relatively consistent stylisticapparatus was found for church architecture, nonexistenceof authentic Byzantine or medieval Serbian models fornonecclesiastical buildings allowed architects to express theirideas with considerable latitude; unburdened by establishedconventions, they were free to combine the various eclecticpseudo-historical styles promoted by Central European acad-emies.

The probable formal source for the notion of national inlate nineteenth-century Serbian architecture is the GermanRundbogenstil. In a general sense, the term designated theneo-Romanesque (as opposed to Spitzbogenstil, or neo-Gothic), but was based on vague principles of a southernaesthetic which, in contrast to the northern, is characterizedby an inclination toward roundness of form and the horizon-tal, by rounded arches, and by domes.55 The round-arch styletherefore included also Renaissance, Byzantine, and an arrayof orientalizing idioms. This architectural principle is illus-trated by Hansen's Army Museum in the Arsenal in Vienna(1856), which displays extensive quotations from Romanesqueand Italian Byzantine architecture, and the Altlerchenfelderkir-che, also in Vienna, begun in 1848 by Paul Sprenger in theRenaissance style but completed in 1850 by Johann GeorgMiller in a variant of the Rundbogenstil infused with byzantiniz-ing overtones.

Despite strong opposition on the traditionalist periphery ofthe empire, where the Spitzbogenstil was preferred as nationaland Germanic, the Rundbogenstil persisted in the Hapsburgcapital throughout the second half of the nineteenth cen-tury.56The Byzantine component of Rundbogenstil was other-

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FIGURE:JanNevole,Belgrade niversityCaptainMina'suilding),elgrade,858-1863,mainacade

wise devoid of any religious or political connotations. Becauseof its formal abundance and picturesque polychromy thisidiom was occasionally used to impart a sense of the exotic,especially to non-Catholic churches and public buildings whosepurpose did not require the grave forms of monumentalclassicism.

The Byzantine style as promoted by the Academy in Viennawas far from being archaeologically correct. It was based onRomanesque architecture but embellished with a colorfulblend of the Oriental, by which non-Western idioms wereunderstood, including byzantinesque forms besides those fromthe Islamic tradition.57The same was true elsewhere in West-ern Europe, outside the German architectural domain, whereeven vaguer byzantinisms appeared around the middle of thecentury in such diverse contexts as Leon Vaudoyer's Marseillescathedral, Paul Abadie's design for the Sacre Coeur in Paris,Matthew Digby Wyatt's Byzantine Courtyard of the CrystalPalace at Sydenham, and John Francis Bentley's Westminstercathedral.58Misconception of the Byzantine and its frequentidentification with the Romanesque in nineteenth-centuryWestern Europe was due to the poor knowledge of actual

Byzantine monuments, despite the fact that after 1830, whenGreece became an autonomous kingdom under German pa-tronage, Athens swarmed with German and Austrian archi-tects. These were mostly proponents of the Greek Revival butincluded students of the Byzantine, notably Theophil vonHansen, whose brother, Hans Christian, served as the Greekcourt architect.59

Undoubtedly because of his firsthand knowledge of Byzan-tine monuments, Theophil von Hansen was more methodicaland consistent in his use of the Byzantine architectural tradi-tion than other proponents of the Rundbogenstil, for whomthis wasjust another source of exotic decorative motifs.60HisChapel of the Invalids in Lvov,begun in 1855, and his Evange-list Cemetery Chapel in Vienna, built twoyears later,are highlyeclectic in elevation, with ornamental details derived from theIslamic building tradition, Romanesque corbel tables, andGothic turrets and spires. Nevertheless, they display an uncom-mon understanding of central planning, using both the cross-in-square and the Greek cross, and of the principles of penden-tival structural systems.61 In an alternative design for theEvangelist chapel, Hansen developed a far more consistent

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Byzantine formal vocabulary. But archaeological exactness wasirrelevant here; an eclectic design was closer to the aestheticstandards of the age and more appealing to patrons regardlessof their national background or religious affiliation. Thus thefacade of the building of the Parish and School of the non-Uniate Greeks in Vienna, remodeled by Hansen in 1858,displaysan almost identical stylisticmiscellany.62Hansen's concept of Rundbogenstil as a generalized histori-cizing aesthetic was adopted by his Serbian students andemployed as the foundation for the Serbo-Byzantine style,first in ecclesiastical architecture and soon thereafter in build-ings of all types, public and private. The round-arch style inSerbia was a departure from the rectitude and severity ofclassicism that had dominated public architecture since the1830s. This vivid style imparted a new sense of colorful opu-lence through exuberant ornamental detail and interpenetrat-ing spaces. The Episcopal Palace in Novi Sad [Figure 6],

designed in the 1890s by Vladimir Nikolid, chief architect ofthe patriarchate and exponent of the revivalist neo-Byzantinein its most academic form, is a contemporary example ofHansenesque eclectic morphology that was recognized as adistinctive national feature.63 Some of these ornamental de-vices were vaguely associated with Byzantine architecture, whileothers conformed to the generic concept of the Eastern, orOriental, which included a variety of exotic idioms-Islamic,Moorish, and occasionally even Assyrian. In the same vein asthe Episcopal Palace in Novi Sad are Nikolic's TheologicalSeminary in Sremski Karlovci [Figure7] and the plans for theBuilding of the Eparchy in Ni' [Figure8], by the court archi-tectJovan Ilki', both dating from around 1900.64In some casesthe designation "national" in secular architecture was ex-tended to buildings clearly quoting the Renaissance or ba-roque, such as the house of the patriotic Society of St. Sava inBelgrade [Figure9], designed in 1889 by Ilkid in the Italian

FIGURE:VladimirNikolii,Episcopalalace,NoviSad, . 1901




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........uoriiii~i ii ii~ iiii~iiii~~ii iii ii~

i~i i~~iiiiiii~~iii~i~iiiiii i~ ~iiii~iiiii i~iii~~i~ii~ii~ii ~ ~iiiioiii

FIGURE:Vladimirikolik,heologicaleminary,remskiKarlovci,. t901,detail fmainfacade ndentrance

Renaissance style interspersed with vague Byzantine motifsand stucco medallions containing Serbian medieval coats ofarms. This building was deemed to be in the national styledespite the fact that at the inauguration in 1890 it was charac-terized by the president of the society as a "combination ofByzantine and Renaissance architectural motifs." In an at-tempt to find a pretext for the use of Renaissance forms, thepresident praised the style of this building as an expression ofthe cultural role of the Serbs at the juncture between East andWest.65

Although it is difficult today to understand what is espe-cially Byzantine or even notably Serbian about these or similarbuildings, the architects as well as the public believed in theirregional uniqueness, as we learn from constant panegyricreviewsin the press. The Secondary School in Sremski Karlovci[Figure 10] of 1890-1891 was considered a paragon for allschools and the embodiment of the "medieval national style."At the inauguration ceremony the dean praised the archi-tect-a Hungarian, Gyula Pairtos-for giving the building "anEastern form which awakens in us Serbs beautiful memories ofour wonderful old buildings."''66Although far from pure instyle, the arcuated portals and windows, corbel tables, engaged

colonnettes, bas-relief carvings surrounding the windows, andparticularly the large dome, which conveys to the building adistinctly ecclesiastical character, were deemed evocative ofSerbian medieval architecture. Profiting from newly acquiredarchaeological knowledge, this building marked a departurefrom the eclecticism of the popular Hansenatica and was anearly indicator of the trend toward a more consistent applica-tion of distinctly local motifs.REGIONALISM AND THE RISE OF LOCAL IDIOMS: THEMORAVA STYLE, 1900-1930In 1905 specialized study of Byzantine architecture was in-cluded in the curriculum of the Technical School of BelgradeUniversity, partly to promote research in this field but aboveall to instruct students of architecture.67Already by the turnof the century church architecture had achieved a high level ofhistorical veracity. There was no ambiguity concerningthe style of the mausoleum of the newly installed Karacdordevi3dynasty,the Church of St. George in Topola [Figure11] , begunin 1910. The architect, KostaJovanovi%,was careful to complywith the competition requirement that the church be de-signed in the Serbo-Byzantine style.68Both the structural assem-bly and the formal-decorative scheme, although not entirelyconsistent in application, were fully derived from Byzantineand Serbian models: a Greek cross surmounted by a largecentral dome and four smaller domes surmounting the armsof the cross. Intended to surpass in magnificence and gran-deur even its medieval prototypes, the exterior was faced withwhite marble and elegant relief carvings, while the interior wascovered with elaborate mosaic decoration.69

Considering the highly charged and politically sensitiveatmosphere in which its foundations were laid, immediatelyafter the dramatic events which led to the downfall of theObrenovid dynastyin 1903, it is not surprising that this churchwas imbued with complex and multiple levels of meaning. Thefive-dome design, because of its strong imperial connotations,was surely intended to imply the royal character, while theGreek cross plan may have alluded toJustinian's Apostoleion,the burial church of the Byzantine emperors in Constanti-nople. But, although the adoption of Byzantine imperial sym-bolism corresponded to the general ideological climate, it wastoo vague to offer legitimation within the local political con-text. To legitimize his problematic accession to the throne,after a coup in which the rival Obrenovid dynasty was over-thrown, King Peter I Karadordeviw trove to establish dynasticcontinuity through a direct connection with the first and mosthonored lineage, the Nemanyids.70A more specific link withthe national tradition was achieved through the marble facing,a non-Byzantine element but an important feature of themausolea of the Nemanyid kings. This dynastic symbolism wascarried beyond a generic reference to a medieval paradigm,

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FIGURE :JovanIlki


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FIGURE I: KostaJovanovic,Church of St. George, Topola, 1910-1912, view fromthe west. The mosaic decoration and furnishings n the interior were executed in1922-1930.

FIGURE 2:MilanKapetanovid nd MiloradRuvidid, avilion f the Kingdomof Serbia,Exposition universelle, Paris,1900. Colored photograph of 1900. The buildingwasdemolished after the exhibition.

conveyed by the new dynastic mausoleum was thus unequivo-cally political; it announced Serbia's ambitious political courseunder the new dynasty and the extraordinary economic andcultural prosperity that marked the first decade of the twenti-eth century. To be sure, its dedication to a military saint alsoheralded the expansionist policy of the Karadordevii%ynastyand the wars that were to plague the Balkans in the followingyears.

The focus of nationalist aspirations shifted to the interna-tional scene as Serbia assumed the role of the Southern Slav"Piedmont"-the leader of the Balkan countries and of therevived Panslavic Movement against territorial claims fur-thered by the court in Vienna. These ideas were apparent inarchitecture as early as 1900. The Pavilion of the Kingdom ofSerbia at the Exposition universelle in Paris [Figure12] was apolitical and ideological statement aimed at Austria: it wasconceived as a typical royal foundation of the later Nemanyidperiod, a cross-in-squarestructure with a large octagonal domein the center surrounded by four smaller domes.73 This literaladaptation of a religious architectural form to a new content

was a highly charged equation of national and religious iden-tity supported by the authority of the church-an assertion ofhistorical and national rights amid contentions over geopoliti-cal issues between the Hapsburg Empire and the Balkan states.This excursion into international politics marks the high pointof nationalism in Serbia. The Serbo-Byzantine style, it was nowclear, was an ideological statement in architecture of specificpolitical interests.

Under Karadordevihrule Serbia abandoned itsAustrophilepolicy and directed its energy to liberating the Austrian Serbsin the Banat and Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which hadbeen annexed by Austria in 1908. The foremost goal, however,was restitution of the southern provinces still remaining underTurkish rule. To this end Serbia entered an alliance in 1912with its Balkan neighbors, Greece and Bulgaria, and in lessthan a year more than doubled its territories at the expense ofthe Ottoman Empire. Hostilities were renewed in the follow-ing year, but this time among the Balkan states themselves,because of unsettled territorial disputes concerning the parti-tion of Macedonia.74

Following the heightened enthusiasm for the national causeduring the last decade of the nineteenth century, architecturalcriticism and frequent polemics were marked by appeals for apure style in both sacred and secular architecture. Condemna-tions of foreign, especially Western, influence increased in thewake of the Balkan Wars.The prominent architect and theo-rist Andra Stefanovih criticized the cathedral of Belgrade as a"Catholic-JesuitBaroque monstrosity which has served as anunfortunate model for all our sacred buildings of the time."75Curiously,such extremist disqualifications were extended evento the Viennese neo-Byzantine, the widespread Hansenaticawhich was now condemned as a damaging foreign influence.This position was most clearly expressed by the architectDimitrije Leko, who denounced what he termed Hanseno-

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FIGURE3:DusanZivanovik, hurch f St. Nicholas,Trstenik, 901-1903,viewfrom hewest;FIGURE4:Church fSt.StephenLazarica,rujevac,377/78-1380,view rom he southeast

Byzantinism, and other tendencies to "accept uncritically allsorts of things imported from abroad."76Now the tendencywas to term the style Serbian rather than Serbo-Byzantine, andthe quest for a truly national style, cleansed of all foreigninfluence, Eastern and Western, became the principal preoccu-pation of architectural theorists and the supreme aestheticcriterion. The aversion of patriotic intellectuals to the growinginflux of Western culture and fashion was expressed in thewritingsof the designer and architect Dragutin Inkiostri: "whena foreigner visits our town [Belgrade] he cannot but be

surprised to find a German village instead of a Serbian capital,Parisian vaudeville and Viennese operetta in the theater in-stead of the famous and beautiful Serbian songs, folk tradi-tions, and lore, [and] French and German fashion-even inthe smallest towns and villages-instead of the decent, beauti-ful, and opulent Serbian folk costumes." 77 Liberal culturalnationalism stemming from the European Romantic move-ment was now yielding before a resuscitated archaic breed ofethnoreligious patriotism. Just as supporters of Catholic re-newal in Germany and England had exploited the Gothic inthe mid-nineteenth century, the Serbian and Byzantine archi-tectural tradition was now embraced by conservatives andreduced to a political instrument of aggressive religionationalideologies.78 It is not surprising to find in such a climatemanifestations of outright chauvinism such as the increasinglyfrequent competition stipulations that only architects of Slavorigin would be permitted to apply,or the even more extremedemand by the architect Dragutin Maslad that they be onlySerbs.79

Conforming to the proclaimed agenda for stylistic purity,the Church of St. Nicholas at Trstenik [Figure13], built be-tween 1901 and 1903 to the designs of Dugan Zivanovid,reproduced with unusual consistency one specific medievalidiom, both in structure and in decoration.80 The characteris-tic triconch plan, curvilinear eave lines, and elaborately deco-rated polychrome facades point to the so-called Morava Schoolof architecture as a source of inspiration. This idiom couldrightlybe termed national since its ornamental vocabularywasfar more specific to the local milieu than the Byzantine. Itsregional uniqueness could not be brought into question evenby the most rigorous critics.A consensus seems to have been reached at this timeamong both architects and the general public that this trulySerbian idiom was most suitable for a national style in architec-ture. This collective opinion was best expressed in an unusu-ally forthright programmatic statement of the national revivalentitled Srpski neimar (The Serbian builder), published in1912.81The vogue of the Moravastylewasgreatlystimulated bythe well-publicized restoration of the late fourteenth-centurychurch of Lazarica [Figure14], which displaysthe entire rangeof Morava stylisticqualities.82The valuable knowledge gainedfrom structural investigations of this building promoted thisidiom at the expense of the Viennese Hansenatica.

The highly decorative Morava vocabulary was used widelyin public and residential architecture. The Telephone Ex-change Building in Belgrade [Figure15], designed by BrankoTanazevid in 1906, shows the entire repertory of motifs (ex-cept for several Secessionist masks) drawn from Morava-stylechurches.83 Several other public and private buildings in Bel-grade designed by Tanazevid use the same design formula; anexample is the Ministry of Education facade [Figure 16],




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FIGURE 15: BrankoTanazevi4, Telephone Exchange, Belgrade, 1907-1908, mainfacade; op story added after World War I.FIGURE16:BrankoTanazevid, acade ofthe Ministry f Education,Belgrade,remodeled 1912-1913

redesigned in the Morava style in 1912.84 Except for theTelephone Exchange, whose volumetric clarity discloses anunusually high level of structural logic and functional adapta-tion of medieval planning concepts, most buildings of thisstylistic orientation display a highly ornamental surface-leveltreatment of the facades, which reveals their affiliation withthe German Jugendstil and the Hungarian variant of theSecession. They illustrate one approach to the creation of anational idiom practiced by a small group of young architectsfrom Tanazevih'scircle. Most of these architects were trainedin or were attracted to the Secession.85 They believed in aliberal reinterpretation of decorative motifs drawn from themonuments of the late Middle Ages interspersed with patternsinspired by folk art,which they hoped to adapt creatively to themodern taste using Secessionist formulas. Tanazevid evenwanted to create a "Morava Secession" and for that purposetraveled to Budapest to study Secessionist architecture.86

Besides TanazeviP, the most prominent advocate of this

approach was Dragutin Inkiostri, an artist and theorist whoventured into architecture as a designer of facades. As anopponent of academic discipline Inkiostri embraced the Seces-sion because it seemed to offer unrestricted artistic freedom.Since the official Serbo-Byzantine stylewas becoming too rigidfor his taste he resorted to the "pure and uncorrupted" folktradition to inspire an authentic expression of the "nationalspirit"-a new architecture free from the burden of styles. Inhis words, "we should seek our [national] style among peas-ants and shepherds."87

Although these design principles enabled the first success-ful adaptations of medieval architecture to modern secularedifices, some architects and theorists expressed serious misgiv-ings. In the bitter polemics that ensued, Serbian architectsdivided into two camps. Opposed to the ornamentalist ap-proach of Tanazevidand Inkiostri stood those who argued thatthe creation of a style for secular buildings on the basis of atradition developed exclusively around church architecturecould not be limited to a simple transposition of ornamentaldesigns. They called for a structurally ogical, thus more authen-tic and archaeologically correct reinterpretation of the medi-eval building tradition, one which would reconcile the de-mands of modern secular architecture with medieval planningconcepts.88This debate introduced new problems in the theo-retical domain, where functionalistic considerations prevailedfor the first time over the intense emotions and idealistic viewsthat accompanied Serbian historicism.

Individual convictions and opinions invariably revolvedaround questions of procedure. The goal remained clear: toachieve the highest possible degree of truthfulness to medievalmodels and to the "national spirit."89 Conformity to oldmonuments was not limited to style. Competition require-ments even specified that traditional building techniques andmaterials such as composite brick and stone wall constructionbe employed. They ignored timid attempts by the proponentsof Modernism to make an incursion into the domain of theconservative revivalistsby demanding the use of new materi-als.90

Parallel to attempts at creating a historicallyaccuratevocabu-lary in church architecture to replace the eclectic Han-senesque formula was a tendency to imitate actual historicbuildings.9' Criticisms of this trend were heard from theDepartment of Architecture at Belgrade University, but de-spite unfavorable reactions in professional circles, it met withwidespread public approval and continued well into the twen-tieth century. One instance was the polemic inspired by theconstruction of the Church of St. Mark in the center ofBelgrade (1932-1939) [Figure 17], a pretentious and awk-ward, grossly enlarged version of the early fourteenth-centurychurch of GraEanicaMonastery [Figure18]."92Even before thechurch was consecrated, an article by the prominent architec-

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tural historian Durce Bo'koviP entitled "Crkva sv. Marka uBeogradu kao karikaturaGracEanice"The Church of St. Markin Belgrade as a caricature of GracEanica)nitiated a campaignagainst the building and its architects.93

The practice of copying existing buildings was especiallywidespread in the countryside; village communities frequentlycommissioned architects or even master builders to build theirparish churches as replicas of nearby medieval monuments.Otherwise, provincial building practice was characterized bynaive and superficial pastiches of what wasregarded as "Ortho-dox" and "national" and by direct quotations from historicmedieval churches. Extant contracts or documents concern-

ing the building of parish churches typically contain require-ments set by the community government that the church bebuilt in the style "of our old monuments." This implies thatthe new building not be baroque, since this stylewas identifiedwith Western Roman Catholicism. This spontaneous popularinclination was not directly influenced by Romantic histori-cism or revivalist doctrines; rather, it reflects a genuine con-cern of all segments of society for the creation of a regionalidiom. The consecration of every new church was accompa-nied by lively popular and religious observances dedicated tothe national past and national lore.94Such enthusiastic asser-tions of cultural and ethnic identity were organized even forsecular buildings, so long as they were considered to be in theproper style.ACADEMICISM:ERBO-BYZANTINEAS THE OFFICIALSTYLE, 1930sAfter World War I and the formation in 1918 of the firstYugoslavia, then known as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats,and Slovenes, the tendency was to broaden the range of theSerbo-Byzantineidiom.95 First twasextended to privatehousesand apartment buildings and, during the 1920s and 1930s, tostructures ranging from bridges, railwaystations and hospitals,to public fountains, spas, and even cemetery complexes, all ofwhich displayed an array of blind arcades, rosettes, pilasterstrips, and other devices derived from the Hansenesque andMorava morphology. The Serbo-Byzantine reached its highestpoint in the diverse architectural scene of postwar Belgrade inan assortment of imported eclectic idioms-from the stillpopular Viennese and Budapest Secession to a panoply ofclassical and postclassical styles.96Contending against a highlyformal Beaux-Arts classical style and a specific brand of Rus-sian post-academicism practiced by Russian emigre architectswho found refuge in Serbia after the Soviet Revolution, thenational style of Serbia emerged as the most suitable for publicarchitecture in the Yugoslavcapital. Its success was largely dueto the support of the Karadordeviccourt and the ecclesiasticalestablishment, whose opinion was greatly influenced by theconservative architectural lobby from the Department of Archi-tecture of Belgrade University. The promotion of the Serbo-Byzantine came up against the proclaimed official agendafavoring the creation of an art that would be representative ofall the South Slavs.97

State-sponsored byzantinism culminated in 1927 with theSecond International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Bel-grade, which was attended by prominent scholars, GabrielMillet and Nikolai Okunev among others.98From the extraor-dinary publicity the congress received in the state-controlledpress (the opening ceremonies were attended by the king, thepatriarch, and the archbishop), it can be inferred that scholar-ship was of secondary interest and that the congress was


FIGURE 7:Krsti6 rothers,Churchof St. Mark,Belgrade, 1932-1939, view from thewest; FIGURE18: Church of the Dormition of the Virgin,GracianicaMonastery, c.131I,view from the south



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FIGURE9:VictorLukomskii,atriarchalalace, elgrade,933-1935,detail f mainfacade ndentrance

exploited for political purposes. The intention was to imposethe Serbian (i.e., Byzantine) heritage as representative of allthree national groups in the Yugoslav kingdom. A paradig-matic case was the competition for the Yugoslav pavilion at theInternational Exposition in Philadelphia in 1925. The officialcompetition requirement was formulated cautiously: that thepavilion contain national motifs representative of the style of"our old church architecture." The intentional vaguenesssuggests that even its official promoters had no idea what aYugoslav "national" art would be. Despite the balanced ethniccomposition of the jury-consisting of a Serb, a Croat, and aSlovene-a highly academic reinterpretation of Hagia Sophiainfused with Byzantine-inspired post-Secessionist ornamenta-tion was awardedfirstprize. This controversial decision arousedintense disputes in professional circles (especially discon-tented were the Croats and Slovenes) which had little to dowith architectural theory; they were soon extended into ques-tions of national policy, severely undermining the alreadysensitive ethnic-national balance on which the foundations ofYugoslavia were laid. A compromise solution quelled thesedifferences; from that year Yugoslav pavilions at all subsequentinternational exhibitions were designed in the nationally neu-tral Modernist style.

The official Serbo-Byzantine style was burdened by expec-tations of a monumental and dignified architecture whichwould be an adequate substitute for imported idioms. Fre-quently, it was fused with the worst traditions of Russian

postacademicism, producing bland, uninventive, and pomp-ous structures such as the Patriarchal Palace [Figure 19], aponderous structure built by the Russian Victor Lukomskii in1933-1935, or a less extreme example, the church of Alex-ander Nevski [Figure 20], originally begun in 1912 to thedesigns ofJelisaveta NaEidbut altered in 1926-1929 by PetarPopovih and VasiliiAndrosov into an overly polished academicvariant of the Morava style.99At the contemporary MerchantAcademy, byJezdimir DeniP, the excessively rigorous symme-try displays a similarly insipid academicism [Figure21].100Still,occasional outbreaks of originalitywere possible, aswitness thebizarre but highly expressionistic work of Momir Korunovic.His immense Post Office building [Figure22] and the Ministryof Posts and Telegraphs [Figure23], adjoining the old Tele-phone Exchange, both date from the late 1920s.101

Practically speaking, all governmental and public construc-tion was by then directed by the Ministryof Building. Plans forpublic buildings, if not produced in the ministry's architec-tural bureaus, had to be submitted there for approval. Noteven church architecture was exempted from administrativecontrol; it was monopolized by Russian architects employed inthe ministry who turned out large numbers of standardizedand frequently even unsigned plans which were then dis-patched throughout the country.102Despite support by conser-vative nationalistic lobbies, this pseudo-Byzantine idiom inpublic architecture succumbed before Russian academicism,

FIGURE0:Jelisaveta a'id,Church f AlexanderNevski,Belgrade, 912-1929,exteriorrom he west. ConstructiontoppedduringWorldWarIand resumedn1926 o thedesigns f PetarPopovidndVasilii ndrosov.

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FIGURE1:Jezdimireni',Merchantcademy, elgrade,. 1925,mainfacadewhich, because of its non-national character,wasupheld by theunitarian faction in the Yugoslav establishment. But in anycase, the era of historicism in public architecture was definitelyover; from around 1930 both tendencies were superseded bynonornamental architecture.103CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTSNo building better exemplifies the architectural debates ofthis period than the church of St. Sava,which was intended tobe the largest and most sumptuous church in Serbia. In 1900,five years after the initial proposal for this building, a royaldecree stated that "a magnificent temple dedicated to St. Savais to be erected in Belgrade to the honor and glory of this greatSerb teacher."104The edict proclaimed it a national enterpriseof prime importance. Entries in the open competition weresent to the Russian Academy in St. Petersburg for evalua-tion.105There could be no doubt concerning the reasons forthe choice of the Russian Imperial Academy. Slavic and Ortho-dox, Russiawas gaining a political stronghold in Serbia at theexpense ofViennese influence, especially after the San StefanoTreaty of 1878. Russian political supremacy was channeledthrough Panslavism, a movement based on ethnic-religiousaffiliation, which was to ensure the unity of all the OrthodoxSlavsunder Russian "protection" (purportedly from the Otto-man and Hapsburg threat) but in fact a political scheme of

FIGURE2: MomirKorunovi', ost Office,Belgrade, 928-1929.Photograph.1930.The building as completely emodeled nthe 1950s;FIGURE3: MomirKorunovi',Ministryf PostsandTelegraphs,926-1930,detail f lateralacade

Russian hegemonistic pretensions which fueled the most retro-grade form of populist patriotism.'06

The Imperial Academy thus usurped the position of su-preme arbiter in questions of national consequence. Threedesigns were selected as adequate and "true to the spirit ofSerbia and Eastern Orthodoxy." The premiated entries aroused

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FIGURE24: Aleksandar Deroko, perspective study for the church of St. Savasubmitted for the 1926 competition; FIGURE 5: Bogdan Nestorovid, Perspectivestudyforthe churchof St.Savasubmitted forthe 1926 competition

controversies over stylistic issues that were to last for almostthirty years, involving not only architectural theorists and theclergy, but the general public as well. No decision was reachedover the following years, and new competitions were an-nounced. When the last competition was held in 1926 thestipulations were that the church be a grand structure "in theSerbo-Byzantine style from the times of Prince Lazarus," i.e.,using the Morava formal vocabulary.1'07 he polemic intensi-fied when the submitted designs were placed on public display.The focal point of the discussion was once again the issue ofconformity to medieval models; more specifically,whether theforemost edifice of the nation and a paradigm of the nationalstyle should be based on a stricter and more consistent applica-tion of medieval forms or on their more liberal reinterpreta-tion.108 As if reflecting such theoretical deliberations, theexhibited entries varied from eclectic fantasies derived fromthe Hansenesque vocabulary, to variations on the theme ofHagia Sophia, to outright copies of well-known historic build-ings [Figures 4-25].109

However different the individual stylistic approaches mayhave been, all the designs were of immense scale. Every-

thing, from the volume of the building to individual elementssuch as windows and portals, was blown out of proportion;even the number of domes was increased from the typicaloneor five to ten or even more. This tendency toward magnifi-cation and multiplication reflected the feeling of omnipo-tence and delusions of grandeur characteristic of nationalisticeuphoria.

Only rare individuals dared resist the collective enthusiasmfor this church. One wasDurcTeBo'kovid, who questioned theneed for such an edifice in the modern age and the moralgrounds for this costly enterprise in times of hardship.110Butimmense suffering and the general impoverishment caused bythree consecutive wars made the population even morestaunchly nationalistic and inward turning. The notion nowwas that the church be even larger than originally intended; itwas to be the largest church not only in Serbia, but in the"entire Orthodox world." There were even suggestions thatan "Orthodox Vatican" be built, a complex comprising, be-side the church, a patriarchal palace, theological seminary,museum of the Orthodox church, and library.ll' This was theembodiment of the most ostentatious ideals of Serbian nation-alism at its peak.

Since none of the submissions satisfied thejury, the churchauthorities decided against another competition and commis-sioned a design from two eminent architects, BogdanNestorovi% nd Aleksandar Deroko, who had individually sub-mitted designs in 1926. The contending parties finally agreedthat their design appropriately expressed the reverence of theSerbian people toward their great saint and embodied thenational spirit."2 Since the originally specified Morava stylewas abandoned as too ornamental for such a large building,the two architects were confronted with the stipulation thatthe church be modeled on Hagia Sophia. In the end acompromise wasmade between demands for aspacious, unclut-tered interior, as in Hagia Sophia, and insistence on a "pyrami-dal" form which was a hallmark of Serbian medieval architec-ture. The issue of interior versus exterior was a frequent topicin architectural debates of the time since these were believedto be mutually exclusive concerns. Although in overall formand spatial conception reminiscent of Hagia Sophia, thishighly eclectic design is a summation of the Serbian experi-ence and a fusion of the manifold (equally unsuccessful)approaches to the creation of a national style."3

The fact that a reactionary and uninventive architecturalconcept was accepted is understandable in view of the strongpolitical implications of this enterprise. The intellectual mo-nopoly imposed by nationalistic doctrines and above all thedistorted set of criteria they imposed had a negative effect onarchitectural theory in the following decades; ironically, theaccepted design was praised as being in the "modern style" aslate as 1940.

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National conservatism prevailed to such an extent thateven after Modernism entered the Serbian scene in the 1930sfew architects and theorists had the courage to criticize histori-cism in church architecture. Durde Bo'kovic was among thefirst to call upon prelates to "abandon once and for all therepetition and sterile copying of a dead tradition" and to buildchurches "in a modern fashion," that would "bring togethermedieval mysticism and modern rationalism."'114 More spe-cific was the criticism of the architect Nikola Dobrovid, whoproposed a design along constructivist lines.115The art histo-rian Milan Kalanin made an equally unambiguous statementagainst historicism, arguing that medieval architects nevercopied earlier styles."116he harshest criticism of stylisticimita-tion came from another art historian, Kosta Strajni', whopublished a brochure in which he accused church authoritiesof suppressing artistic freedom. He went even further anddismissed members of the jury and architects involved in theproject as incompetent and proposed awarding the commis-sion to a foreign architect or at least a Yugoslav architect ofEuropean stature such as Josip Ple&nik."117eactions amongconservative circles in the ecclesiastical establishment to suchrevolutionary ideas can be summarized by quoting a churchofficial who stated that an Orthodox church was "a sacred andspiritual building and not a place where modern art can beexpressed." This position was upheld by Aleksandar Deroko,the principal architect of the patriarchate, who insisted thatonly designs inspired by the national architecture of theMiddle Ages would be authorized "since that is our heri-tage."118

Construction of the Church of St. Sava finally began in1935. After a long interruption, initially caused by World WarII and then by the negative attitude of the Communist regimetoward religious architecture, building resumed in 1985, ex-

FIGURE 6: BogdanNestorovi6 andAleksandarDeroko, church of St.Sava,Belgrade,1935-, view from the northwest. Construction was interrupted by the outbreak ofWorld War II. twas resumed in 1985.

actlyninety years after the initial proposal for the constructionof this church [Figure26]. The revivalistdesign of 1930 was notsignificantly altered; more current concepts were not evenconsidered. On the contrary, the historicist concept ofSt. Sava's conformed to the nationalist agenda which, afterforty years of quiescence, returned to life in the guise of aspontaneous resurrection of popular national identity. Stateideology was once again reflected in architecture. The goalsand means have remained the same, only the protagonistshave changed.

An anemic brand of the Serbo-Byzantine remains the onlyproper architecture for churches. This style is still considered asublimation of the "spiritual" characteristics of the nation,since only forms derived from the national past and contain-ing national attributes and symbols are thought to preservenational identity. In the surge of church building that accom-panied the rise of nationalism over the past decade not a singledesign has departed from a generic formula based on theMoravaor Serbo-Byzantine stylisticapparatus and occasionallyon Serbian romanesque architecture. Even more ambitiousprojects involving eminent architects and theorists have con-formed. Thus in a recent competition for a new church in theCukarica district of Belgrade all the entries were revivalist.Thefirst prize was awarded to a design which is only a slightvariation of the twelfth-century church of St. Nicholas atKurwumlija.The president of the jury, a bishop, said that newchurches in Serbia should not be mere copies of medievalmodels, but neither should architects "seek originality at everycost."119A similar position was recently expressed byan officialarchitect of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who maintains thatit is imperative to adhere to the Byzantine tradition and thatthe principle of l'artpour l'art cannot be allowed in churcharchitecture.120

Reduced to banality, this idiom has come to dominate thearchitecture of funerary chapels and monuments (con-structed on occasion as miniature replicas of well-known medi-eval buildings) and most recently, in a bizarre alliance withpostmodern concepts, even residential architecture.

Even historic monuments have been affected by uncriticalglorification of the national past. Under the pressure of politi-cal exigency the Institute for the Preservation of Monumentsof Culture has seriously considered requests to rebuild thechurch and monastic complex of the Holy Archangels nearPrizren despite insufficient archaeological evidence. The insti-gation for this enterprise came from a conservative nationalis-tic lobby of patriotic intellectuals who find this church to bethe "embodiment of the Serbian Empire." Its renovationwould signal for them the "revival of the Serbian people andthe Serbian state."121In a similar tone reminiscent of nine-teenth-century rhetoric infused with religious mysticism abishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church commented on the




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rebuilding of the Trinity Church in Banja Luka in Bosnia,which was destroyed in 1941. He praised it as a "faithfulreconstruction of the earlier temple which was a symbol of ourexistence, of our devotion to God, of our sense for the grand,holy, and beautiful, but unfortunately that house of worshipremains also a symbol of unprecedented suffering and afflic-tion that befell our people, [a symbol] of devastation anddestruction."''122CONCLUSIONThe question now is how the Serbian experience differs fromthat of other nations of Europe in this period. Historicism wasa persistent feature of European architecture through thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though not as deeplyrooted as in Serbia. Historical reminiscences, evocations ofpast glory, and lamentations about loss of freedom duringTurkish rule were crucial in establishing a historical frame as asignificant cultural pattern. This historicist mentality prevailedafter liberation from the Ottoman Turks in 1830. In rebuild-ing their country after almost four centuries of state legal andcultural discontinuity, the Serbs strove to establish a link withthe Middle Ages rather than seek inspiration in moderncultural achievements.

The idea of perpetuating a medieval society as if nothinghad changed was paralleled in architecture: with no inter-vening development, the tendency was to pick up wherearchitecture stopped in the late fourteenth century and con-tinue building in the same style. Despite the fact that itwas stimulated by Romantic notions of the Middle Ages andbased on revivalist academic formulas, proponents of theSerbo-Byzantine think of this style as a natural continuationof the old Serbian and Byzantine building tradition ratherthan a stylistic revival analogous to historicist movementsin Western Europe. Significant differences did indeed exist.Serbian architecture was historicist not by choice but by neces-sity; it was not a fashionable trend, but a product of theinherently conservative cultural milieu. In this sense it isperhaps more accurate to speak of re-establishment thanof revival of the Serbian medieval building tradition. Thistradition survived the decline of the medieval state and contin-ued almost unchanged over the centuries of Ottoman rule.With the resumption of building practice in the nineteenthcentury it was simply reanimated using academic revivalistguidelines.

Perhaps the most significant feature of Serbian historicistarchitecture was its dependence on political agendas. Loftynational ideals and grandiose political ambitions prevailedover architectural or artistic concerns; there were no social,philosophical, and ecclesiological considerations comparableto those of the Gothic Revival in England. Because of the focuson nationalist issues, attempts at defining a purely architec-

tural program resulted in patriotic rhetoric and redundantdiscussions of the accuracy of stylisticimitation.

Architecture in Serbia was thus primarily a means forarticulating national policy. Unsettled national questions thatarose in the Balkans after the formation of independent statesstirred up nationalist sentiment, nurturing antagonism towardboth the Islamic heritage and Catholic influence stemmingfrom Austria-Hungary. Militant nationalism and distrust ofimported culture increasingly became hallmarksof nineteenth-century Balkan politics. Architecture reflected this inclination:ideologists of the national program believed that definition ofa style that would be particular to the Serbs was a matter ofnational survival.To this end they promoted the creation of anarchitecture whose forms would be reminiscent of the glory ofthe medieval past. It was imperative that the new architecturebe clearly distinct from Ottoman Islamic and from what wasperceived as Roman Catholic architecture; only then could itbe recognized by the people as authentically national.Formation of Serbia as a nation-state provided architecturewith a specific role as a bastion against the influx of foreignstyles which nationalists considered to be a threat to nationalidentity. They understood the capacity of architecture to pro-vide a distinctively local iconographic setting that symbolizedthe restoration of Serbian statehood and the resurgence of asovereign cultural expression. Architecture thus became amonumental representation of political power and, as cor-rectly perceived byideologists of nationalism, a powerful instru-ment for maintaining national and religious unity among thiswidely separated group of people.

Underlying this nationalist ideology was a traditionalist castof mind that resisted change. The rise of national exclusive-ness starting in the 1850s was reflected in the increasinglyexclusive position of the Serbo-Byzantine as the only style forchurches and the most desirable style for secular buildings. Itssupremacy was so strong that Modernist ideas could make abreakthrough only after a slow and painful process of forma-tion. Even after it wasrenounced in public and privatearchitec-ture by its most faithful advocates, the Serbo-Byzantine stylesurvived within the most conservative segment of society-theOrthodox church. The petrified forms of medieval monu-ments, immutable as icons, were transformed into powerfulsymbols of national identity.We can conclude the story of Serbian architecture with thestatement that although historicism in Serbia was part of acarefully formulated political strategy, it could not have suc-ceeded without a deeply ingrained popular reverence for thenational past. In contrast to similar historicist styles in WesternEurope, the Serbo-Byzantine was more than an aesthetic cat-egory; for the average Serb it was and still is an emotionalexperience imbued with strong religious and ethnic connota-tions.

36 JSAH / 56:1, MARCH 1997

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