/ 1968
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CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS OF THE ARCHITECT NIKOLA DOBROVIĆ IN PRAGUE (1922–1933)

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Beginnings of the history of construction projects of the architect Nikola Dobrović can and should be observed as an integral part of the complete production of this Yugoslav architect. Still, his earliest or the “Prague” period carries unique historiographic value in the studies of any and all syntagmas of the later works of Dobrović, which emitted clear massages of the early purist space shaping, extensive aesthetics of the façade canvasses and expressionist moments in shaping such a specific artistic language. His construction works immediately after his studies in Prague and special studies in Paris, which have not yet been fully researched up to this date, are revealed to us in less known archive documents and in relatively well researched technical sources from the period 1922–1933. It is indicative that, in this period, his most important construction projects of the early artistic phase, like the Yugoslav Home of King Aleksandar Karađorđević (1929–1933), have always caused intense attention of the expert and scientific public, both national and international, and especially of the contemporary Check historiographic school of thought. In the context of period studies, open issues impose themselves about the authorization and intensity of professional engagement in designing and about the realization of several buildings within the medical complex of the Masaryk home in Kerch near Prague, which was also topic of some Dobrović’s commentaries.

/ 1968
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BASIC PRINCIPLES IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF NIKOLA DOBROVIĆ

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Over fifty years since the death of architect Nikola Dobrović (1897-1967), his rich architectural practice has prompted a number of serious historical and scientific researches. In one of the first detailed studies, in an article entitled “Nikola Dobrović or On the Increase With Time”, nine key principles of Dobrović’s architecture have been distinguished in a summary of previous studies. This paper is conceived as an imaginary dialogue with the author of the study, Ranko Radović (1935-2005), who was also an excellent architect and urbanist, professor and theoretician of contemporary architecture, as well as Dobrović’s student and collaborator. Considering results of more recent researches, this work seeks to document and critically observe Radović’s early insights and interpretations. Also, it aims to acknowledge, once again, yet from a new historical perspective, the value of Dobrović’s “messages and news, words and ideas, drawings and buildings, ‘proper’ space that is always part of the world” – as Radović has precisely pointed out.

/ 1968
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NIKOLA DOBROVIĆ 2017

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The opus of Nikola Dobrović may seem equally actual today as it used to be over the past few decades. However, if the phenomenon is considered in detail, this impression does not really correspond to the realities of 2017. By compartmentalizing his opus into construction works, architectural, urbanistic, written, historiographic, pedagogical or theoretical work, and by taking into consideration the current situations in the newly formed countries which nominally claim his heritage, we find a much more sceptical image than the one which has prevailed in the Serbian public until recently. The fate of his main architecture project – the former complex of the General Headquarters and the Ministry of Defence in Belgrade, is a paradigm of the fate of his entire production today. In this sense, it is necessary to reconsider the idea of “active heritage” as an antinomy of what we would consider to be a virtual “memory of heritage”. The twilight of urbanism in Serbia is another negative phenomenon which has indirectly influenced the heritage of Dobrović, as well as his personality as a pioneer of modern urbanistic thought in Serbia. The third segment of this study is consideration of how the structure of his entire opus has been valued so far in Serbia and if such values have been objectively juxtaposed, with a special regard to the period after the war, his project realized in Montenegro and the projects unrealized in Belgrade.

/ 1968
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BARANJA DURING THE GRAND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY IN NOVI SAD AND THE CREATION OF THE YUGOSLAV STATE IN 1918

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This paper covers a brief but dynamic period in the history of Baranja, at the time of creation of the first Yugoslav state. When it comes to the area of southern Hungary (Banat, Bačka, Baranja), the crucial events took place in the Grand National Assembly on November 25, 1918, when the decision was made to separate these territories from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and to incorporate them into the Kingdom of Serbia, i.e. the future Yugoslav state. The aim of the paper is to synthesize and explain the processes and the events that occurred in Baranja immediately before and during the Grand National Assembly in Novi Sad until the First December Declaration when the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians was established. In this research, archival materials, contemporary newspapers and publications and relevant historiographic literature were used in order to analyze the historical period as accurately and comprehensively as possible.

/ 1968
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RUSYNS FROM BAČKA AND JOVAN HRANILOVIĆ, AT THE TIME OF THE UNIFICATION OF VOJVODINA WITH THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA

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At the Great National Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs from Bačka, Banat and Baranja, held in Novi Sad on November 25, 1918, the Rusyns were among ethnic groups who took part. Historiography states that among 757 attendees, 21 were Rusyn. Owing to their participation in the Great National Assembly, this small Slavic national community (in 1921, there were 12071 of them living in Bačka) made its contribution to the unification of the territories of the future province of Vojvodina with the Kingdom of Serbia. The author of this paper, on the basis of archival materials that remained unknown until now, aims to illustrate the circumstances of the arrival of the Rusyns to the Great National Assembly in 1918. Their delegates came from the municipalities of Ruski Krstur, Kucur, Stari Vrbas, Đurđevo and Novi Sad. Apart from Krstur, the Rusyns of Bačka lived together with people of other nationalities and religions, and the election of assembly members reflected the national distribution of the population in these towns and communities. Đurđevo was seat to a joint Serbian-Rusyn local council (this was an institution of the transitory government at the time of the collapse of Austria-Hungary) which organized the election of the assembly members. In Kucura, where the Rusyns were the majority population, the selected delegates included three Rusyns, a Hungarian and a German delegate. The multinational population of these Vojvodina towns showed solidarity even at times of political crises, acting as a unified political community. Among the most renowned members of the Great National Assembly was also a Greek Catholic priest from Novi Sad by the name of Jovan Hranilović (1855-1924). This poet, journalist and politician of Yugoslav persuasion left a notable mark on the cultural and social life of Novi Sad. Hranilović opened the Great National Assembly and acted as one of its chairmen. The author of this paper shows that Hranilović in fact represented the Rusyns at the Great National Assembly and that he was their champion and their organizer. He worked for several decades as a Rusyn priest in Novi Sad, an archdeacon in the Greek Catholic eparchy of Križevci for Bačka and Syrmia. To this day, researchers were unaware of the fact that Hranilović was elected as a member of the Assembly on November 23, at the assembly of the Rusyns from Novi Sad. This fact, along with numerous others, disputes a widely held belief that the Greek Catholic clergy among Rusyns were against the unification with the Kingdom of Serbia.

/ 1968
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YUGOSLAV IDEALISM OF SERBIAN PATRIOTISM – DEMOCRATS IN VOJVODINA 1918

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In October 1918, after the successful military operations following the breaking of the Thessaloniki front line, representatives of the Serbian political elite in Vojvodina, having been forced into isolation during the Great War, but having also demonstrated loyalty to Vienna, started forming national committees. Their aim was to separate the territories of Banat, Bačka and Baranja from the existing state and to connect them into a new union state which would resemble the military and political aspirations of the Kingdom of Serbia. This was a long-awaited moment for the Serbs across the state borders for unification with compatriots into a single state. During this enterprise, there emerged various problems from which the opposition of the Hungarian population and their revolutionary government lead by Mihalj Karolji was the most serious. Although in these circumstances people expected a firm attitude, it was found only in the consensus on unification. Differences have appeared in the way of accomplishing the pursuit. The majority, led by the Radical party, advocated for merging of Vojvodina with the Kingdom of Serbia, while a number of Serbs, led by the pre-war Democratic Party representatives, favoured Vojvodina’s annexation to the National Council of Slovenians, Croats and Serbs from Croatia, which would, through this body, with the Kingdom of Serbia create a new Yugoslav State. The most influential among the representatives of these political lines were Tihomir Ostojić and Vasa Stajić.

/ 1968
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SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE TIMISOARA SERBS TO JOIN THE KINGDOM OF SERBS, CROATS AND SLOVENES

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At the end of the First World War, as an act of self-determination, national councils were set up on the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the parts inhabited by Serbs. It cannot be said in all certainty that the Serbs from Timisoara were nationally conscious, although they did express their wish to join their compatriots. Due to the longstanding Hungarization and Germanization, they mostly communicated in Hungarian, they did not carry Serbian emblems, and there were not any newspapers written in Serbian in Timisoara. The Serbs present in the Council, influential citizens of Timisoara and national activists took pains to change such state of affairs. In response to the call from the People’s Board in Novi Sad, Timisoara also sent their representatives to the Great Peoples’ Assembly in Novi Sad. The session of the Great Peoples’ Assembly held on November 25, 1918 was to represent an exceptional historical act by which the regions of Banat, Bačka and Baranja were to unite with the future State of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenians. Timisoara, as part of the Banat region, was also to join the new state as the territory conquered by the Serbian army, where the Serbian population expressed the wish for it. However, the Peace Conference in Paris was to give this city, along with the Serbs who lived in it, over to the Kingdom of Romania.

/ 1968
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DR. IGNJAT PAVLAS – THE NEGLECTED UNIFIER OF VOJVODINA WITH SERBIA

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After the breakdown of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy on October 31, 1918, the liberated areas of Banat, Bačka and Baranja were recruited by the army of the Kingdom of Serbia. These areas were de facto managed by the Serbian National Council from Novi Sad, headed by Jaša Tomić. Therefore, on November 25, 1918, in Novi Sad, the Great National Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs from Banat, Bačka and Baranja convened, chaired by Ignjat Pavlas. The Assembly declared a decision to join these three regions to the Kingdom of Serbia. Later, in Belgrade, on December 1, 1918, unification was proclaimed with an independent State of Slovenians, Croats and Serbs, led by the Yugoslav Committee in Zagreb, thus forming a unique Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians.

/ 1968
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THE RADICAL PARTY CONCEPT FOR VOJVODINA`S UNIFICATION WITH SERBIA IN 1918

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When the World War I broke out, the Radical Party ceased operating along with all other Serbian organizations in Austria-Hungary. Its leaders spent the subsequent war years in the internment. The above mentioned Radicals reactivated during a rather tumultuous autumn in 1918. The Radicals from Srem, led by Žarko Miladinović, started their cooperation with the National Council from Zagreb. Their main activities were to protect the Serbian national interests and to demand an unconditional unification with Serbia. The Radical leaders from Bačka, Baranja and Banat headed by Jaša Tomić were very cautious in their public appearances because they were not sure of the future of the Hungarian borders. It was not until the beginning of November that the Serbian National Board was formed. A number of such bodies were formed in many places all over Vojvodina. The culmination of these activities was the Great National Assembly held in Novi Sad on November 25th. Due to the Radicals and Jaša Tomić especially, a decision to annex Bačka, Baranja and Banat to Serbia was made in this Assembly: they decided to join them directly to Serbia and not through the National Council in Zagreb, which was the other alternative. A day before the above mentioned event, representatives of the National Council from Srem also expressed their support to a direct unification with Serbia at their meeting held in Ruma.