Monument to the Winner

Monument to the Victor ( Serb. Victor ) - a monument located in the fortress Kalemegdan in the city of Belgrade , Serbia . One of the most visited places in Belgrade. The Victory Monument was built in 1927 in the Upper Town, part of the Belgrade fortress Kalemegdan, in honor of the tenth anniversary of the breakthrough of Thessaloniki Front. The monument is the work of the sculptor Ivan Meshtrovich and depicts a bronze statue of a man with an eagle in his left hand and a sword in his right. The pedestal in the form of a Doric column with cornices on a high cubic basis was designed by architect Peter Bayalovich ^[1] .

Monument
Monument to the Winner
Serb. The winner
A country	Serbia
City	Belgrade
Sculptor	Ivan Meshtrovich
Architect
Construction	1913 - 1928
Height	14 m
Material	bronze stone

In 1912, the Croatian architect Ivan Mestrovic designed a fountain in honor of the liberation of Serbia from Ottoman rule. The fountain center was supposed to make the figure of the Winner. At the end of World War I, the project was abandoned, and only on October 7, 1928, in honor of the 10th anniversary of the breakthrough of the front in Thessaloniki, the bronze winner took a place on the convoy in Kalemegdan ^[2] . The history of the implementation and construction of the monument dates back to the period between 1913-1928. The first idea came back in 1912. And then, after successes in the First Balkan War, the idea was born of erecting a monument in honor of the final victory over the Turks. In August 1913, the Belgrade City Council decided to mark this significant historical event with the erection of a monument to the Victor. Initially, the monument was designed as a monumental fountain for Teraziye Square (formerly Alexander the throne’s Heir Square) ^[3] . The fountain had to be made of stone in the form of an oval pool resting on the backs of four lions. In the central part of the fountain there should have been a marble column topped with a statue of the Victor. In accordance with the decisions of the Council of October 4, 1913, Meshtrovich also had to create twenty bronze masks for the perimeter of the pool (sea shell) and another fifty for the column. In October 1913, he signed an agreement with the city council and immediately began to work. He worked until the outbreak of World War I, but then, as a citizen of Austria-Hungary, he was forced to leave Belgrade.

A more detailed description of this project was later presented in the Vreme newspaper ^[4] :

... A large pool in the shape of a sea shell, whose outer side was decorated with a relief image of warriors on galloping horses. Along the edge of this sink there would be lion heads (which adorn the current fountain), from which water would flow into the pool ... The column would be surrounded by bronze rings with masks in the form of the heads of the Turks, from which water would flow into the pool under the column ...

Mestrovic moved the workshop to Belgrade in order to complete the work as soon as possible. He worked in the basement of an elementary school at St. Michael's Cathedral . As soon as possible, he completed the statue of the Victor and the lion heads. Sending them to the Czech Republic for casting, he began to work on a large relief of lancers. Sketches of large lion figures were also made. Then the First World War began. The Austrian ultimatum forced Mestrovic to leave Belgrade and stop working. During the occupation by Austrian, German and Hungarian forces, everything was destroyed, except for the statue of the Victor, lion masks and those items that were sent for casting to the Czech Republic. The exact layout of the fountain is known thanks to photographs of the original drawings of Mestrovich from his workshop in Zagreb, which was taken by the sculptor Veselko Zorich ^[5] .

At the end of the First World War, the question was raised again about installing a fountain on Therasia, but the available funds allowed covering only the casting of the Victor and lion heads ^[6] . At this time, the statue was in the warehouse of water pipes in Senyak. Nevertheless, in 1923, an agreement was concluded between the city council and the sculptor, according to which he undertook to erect a monument in Therasia. This decision sparked public debate in 1927. When preparatory work for the foundation began, the Belgrade public condemned the erection of the monument on Therasia for moral and artistic reasons. Regarding these disagreements, the author himself expressed himself ^[7] :

The city council asked my consent to put the Winner on Therasia temporarily. Knowing that our "temporary", as a rule, lasts too long, I agreed with the architect Bayalovich to make a more massive pedestal for the monument. The municipality, as I heard, set to work. And then he stopped working. What can I say? If they intend to put a monument on Therasia, let it be. If they found a better place, let them put it there, although I do not know why he should not stand on Therasia. In the end, you can leave him where he was all the time - in the barn. As for me, most of all I would like to be able to fulfill the whole Fountain, as it was originally conceived.

After much debate, discussion and criticism, the city council decided not to erect a monument on Therasia, but to find a place outside the city. The mayor of the city informed Mestrovich that the construction of the monument had stopped despite his instructions. As a result, the monument got a place in the Upper Town of the Belgrade Fortress . This decision coincided with the completion of work on the embankment of the Sava River and the Great Stairs in Kalemegdan , as well as with the celebration of the anniversary of the breakthrough of the front in Thessaloniki. It was in commemoration of this event that on October 7, 1928 a new part of the embankment was officially opened along with the monument to the Victor.

The sculpture of the Winner was made by Ivan Meshtrovich in 1913, immediately after the cycle of sculptures for the Vidovdan temple dedicated to the battle on the Kosovo field . She ideologically and stylistically continued this cycle, which included such works by Mestrovic as Milos Obilic , Srja Zlopogledzha, and Marko Kralevich . The Victory Monument is a monumental figure of a naked athlete with a hawk and a sword in his hands, directed towards Austria-Hungary ^[8] . The statue stands on a tall column, symbolizing victory. From the point of view of iconography, the personification of the triumph of the victorious nation dates back to antiquity and to the image of Heracles .

After the First World War, a new state and a spiritual climate formed. The original concept of the monument as the “Herald of Freedom” and its original solution in the form of a monumental fountain, which was intended for Terasiye Square as a symbol of freedom and liberation from the Turkish yoke, lost their significance. Therefore, the name of the monument reflected the fact that now it was dedicated to the breakthrough of the Thessaloniki Front and the victory of the Serbian army in the First World War.

The simplicity of the pedestal and its proportional height help to perceive the monument as a whole, and not its details, which creates the desired effect of monumentality, perception of the monument as a sign or symbol. Over time, the Winner became one of the most characteristic symbols of Belgrade and, together with the Monument of Gratitude of France, belongs to a small number of monumental monuments that were built between the two wars in Belgrade that followed modern stylistic trends. The Monument to the Winner was declared a cultural monument of special significance in 1992 ^[9] .