Commemorate the Past? or Celebrate the Future?

PAST ? commemorate

SUNČICA MILOŠEVIĆ

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COMMEMORATE THE PAST ?

OR CELEBRATE THE FUTURE ?

Exploration of the Abandoned WWII Monuments of Former Yugoslavia This research project is a result of an academic course conducted at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning Author: Sunčica Milošević B.S.Arch. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009 M.Arch. University of Cincinnati, 2013 Professor: Vincent Sansalone, M.Arch Associate Professor of Architecture

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ERUTUF etarbelec

• Commemorating the common traumatic experiences during the Second World War and the partisan battles, thousands of monuments were constructed throughout the regions of former Yugoslavia. They were intended to provide the people of Yugoslavia with pride over a common history and a unifying identity that would be inspiring and productive in its future evolution.

• However, in the late twentieth century, these landscapes were torn by nationalist and ethnic violence. Their monuments are now neglected, sometimes violated, vandalized and even forgotten. The idea of progressive future has been buried beneath the weight of history of these monuments, which once served as machines of sightseeing and photographic image production. They have become obsolete and invisible, yet their futurist designs and their space age associations remain quite intriguing, monumental, and unperceived as they are still beyond our time, placed in some distant future.

• Perhaps their struggle of capturing, stilling a sense of time was their ultimate downfall.

Yet, it was almost necessary to design them in such a futuristic and abstract way that did not speak of a socialist political orientation so that a region that is ethnically, religiously and politically diverse remains accepting of these projects and unitedly works toward diplomacy and progress.

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• This book, much like these neglected monuments, aims to capture a horror filled segment of time in memory of people who sacrificed their lives in brave efforts to liberate their country and people from the terrors Europe endured during the Second World War. Information on these monuments was often sparse and insufficient, which reflects on their neglected and forgotten nature.

However, best efforts were made to bring forth the stories behind these quite beautiful works of art and architecture.

Please enjoy.. .

PAST ? commemorate 12

FOREWARD Trebjesa Monument, Nikšić, Montenegro Sunčica Milošević

ESSAYS 16 SPOMENIK

The Monuments of Former Yugoslavia Willem Jan Neutelings

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PARTISAN MEMORIALS Travel Through Yugoslavian Modernism Robert Burghardt

MONUMENTS 30 MONUMENT CATALOGUE

Exploration of 32 monuments

ARTISTS 184 ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Several significant artists explored

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Slovenia 13 02

22 28

Croatia

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32 12

11

14

26 21 19

Bosnia & Herzegovina

Serbia 30 25 27

29 31

06

18

08

24

05

04

20

07

Montenegro 01

16

15

Kosovo

Macedonia 10

6

17

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LOCATIONS of monuments

01 Trebjesa Monument, Nikšic, Montenegro

17 Monument to the Unbeaten, Prilep, Macedonia

02 Freedom Hill Monument, Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia

18 Popina Memorial Park, Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia

03 Jasenovac Flower Memorial, Jasenovac, Croatia

19 Knin Monument, Knin, Croatia 20 Partisan Necropolis of Mostar, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

04 Bubanj Memorial Park, Niš, Serbia 05 Sutjeska Memorial, Valley of Heroes, Tjentište, Bosnia and Herzegovina

21 Grmeč Monument to the Revolution, Korčanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

06 Makljen Flower Monument, Makljen, Bosnia and Herzegovina

22 Monument to the Revolution, Podgarić, Croatia

07 Monument to the Fallen, Leskovac, Serbia

23 Kavadarci Memorial, Kavadarci, Macedonia

08 Fighters Workers Battalion Monument, Kadinjača, Serbia

24 Slobodište Memorial Park, Kruševac, Serbia

09 Kodžak National Liberation Monument, Maribor, Slovenia

25 Crystal Flower Monument, Kragujevac, Serbia

10 Macedonium, Kruševo, Macedonia

26 Šušnjar Memorial Complex, Sanski Most, Bosnia and Herzegovina

11 Korenica Memorial, Lika, Croatia 12 Monument to the Revolution, Kozara, Bosnia and Herzegovina 13 Monument to Šišak Detachment, Brezovica, Croatia 14 Monument to Kosmaj, Kosmaj, Serbia 15 Monument to the Fallen Miners, Kosovska Mitrovica, Serbia 16 Kolašin Monument, Kolašin, Montenegro

27 Monument to the Brave, Ostra, Serbia 28 Tower on Magarčevo, Petrova Gora, Croatia 29 National Liberation Monument, Vogošća, Bosnia and Herzegovina 30 Stone Sleeper Monument, Kragujevac, Serbia 31 Monument to the First Partizan Squad, Split, Croatia

32 Dudik Memorial Park, Vukovar, Croatia

TREBJESA MONUMENT Nikšić, Montenegro

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

FOREWARD Trebjesa Monument author: Sunčica Milošević

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• Spomenik , a word shared by all six languages of the former Yugoslavian republics, translates to word monum e nt i n t h e E n g l i s h l a n g u a g e.

However, this word pertains a quite narrow, self-definition in English, while the stem word of spomenik, word spomenuti means to speak of, to mention, to be reminded of someone or something. Spomenik always refers to a structure erected in commemoration of someone who has passed away, whether it be a family tomb or a monumental structure in form of a building which commemorates a larger mass of people. In either case, it is a word referring to the commemorative past, yet in direct paradox with their self-definition, the WWII monuments of former Yugoslavia seem to whisper a foreign language, as if they were left abandoned by some visitors from a distant galaxy.

seemed so foreign, even to myself, until one par ticular photo caught my attention. The particular angle of this monument's captured form allowed me to see this enormously tall, perched, brute-concrete bird. The professional photograph had monumentalized this object, and object which I grew up near yet never saw in such way. And that very moment made me realize that, I myself, was one of those people that have abandoned and forgotten its once existent significance. And, likewise, that very moment made me realize that this "ugly" object I climbed upon and played hide-and-seek about, wasn't the only one. There were thousands constructed during the former-Yugoslavia and if it wasn't for these photographs, I would have never been eager to learn about them and to revisit my ignored past.

• Belgian photographer Jan Kempehaers captu red some of the fo r me r Yugoslavian monuments and published a quite intriguing set of these in his book titled Spomenik . Upon my initial exposure to these photographs, I felt awe at how abstract and futuristic they appeared. Kempehaers’s photographs monumentalized these no longer significant, abandoned and vandalized monuments. They all

• Growing up in the 90’s, I experienced the post-communist school system where education about these monuments was considerably disregarded.

On the other hand, my parents have fond memories of school excursions to visit and learn about these World War II monuments. They remember having outdoor picnics, sharing their homemade sandwiches and juice packs with their classmates. They remember

practicing songs and choreographies fo r special commemo ration ceremonies at these monuments. They remember carrying flowers there to pay respect to these graves of fallen soldiers and feeling a sense of pride for their liberation from the fascist and Nazi terrors. However, we, the postsocialist generation, grew up to political graffiti and littered sites along the very few WWII monuments I ever saw.

I grew up not even knowing what their purpose was. For all I knew, it was a great place to climb and play.

• In reality, this ver y monument commemorates the lives of executed citizens of my hometown, citizens who didn’t support the fascist occupying regime. In their memory, there stands an ascription that states in translation: “Toward your courage the future

centuries will look up to and admire it.” Only, my generation has forgotten this, ignored this, and in a way disrespected this resting place and its dark history.

• My personal experiences demonstrate Kempehaers’s stance on how monuments, like the Trebjesa Monument in Nikšić are abandoned in their commemorative sense and left guarded by only the winds, the snow and the rain. What is interesting is that their

shapes are so abstract that their association with the socialist government during which they were constructed is not existent or any longer perceived.

Thus, unlike the case in most previously socialist countries where these so called “communist” monuments have been dismantled and destroyed, ours stay put, only forgotten. Thousands of these monuments were erected during the 1960’s and 1970’s, yet even 40 years later their aesthetic remains futuristic, beyond our time, beyond interpretation. However, now, after I finally paid closer attention to them, I am starting to see some meaning and analyze these abstractions. The Trebjesa Monument used to be an enormous concrete mass that I found repulsive. Now, understating its purpose I can see the brave, perching bird, standing upright and strong, despite its wings being broken.

• The following two essays by Willem Jan Neutelings and Rober t Burghardt further explain the purpose of these monuments and their contradicting relationship between the commemorative past and the anticipation of a progressive, modern future.

“May the future centuries look up to you and admire your courage”

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ESSAYS

on the monuments’ significance

image : http://www.balkanforum.info/f16/titos-freunde-69878/index16.html

SPOMENIK The Monuments of Former Yugoslavia author: Willem Jan Neutelings • In the rugged, mountainous regions of the former Yugoslavia, Spomeniks are everywhere. You’ll see them on strategic outcrops, lofty passes and sweeping plateaus: gigantic sculptures, firmly anchored to the rocks.

They are objects of stunning beauty.

Thei r abstract geometr ic shapes recall macro views of viruses, flowerpetal goblets, crystals. They are built of indestructible materials like reinforced concrete, steel and granite. Some are solid, others hollow.

The largest Spomeniks even afford access to the public, teetering on the boundary where sculpture becomes architecture.

• Hardly anyone outside of the former Yugoslavia is aware of their existence, and within the present ex-Yugoslavia, no one really wants to be reminded that they are there. Twenty years ago there were thousands of them, of every conceivable size, shape and description, but in the early 1990s the majority of them were destroyed, dismantled or in the best case, abandoned to the natu ra l el ement s.

Only those large and heavy enough to thwart vandals are still standing today, derelict and forsaken. Yet these objects were built just a single generation ago, in the 1960s and 70s, as memorials to the Second World War.

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Those who commissioned them have since passed away, but their architects and sculptors are still living. In the 1980s the monuments still attracted millions of visitors, but a decade later their appeal vanished. They have become submerged in a new age, rendered unintelligible to the current generation. Their symbolism has been lost in translation as the visual language has changed, their signals muffled by a shifted worldview. The monuments have been the objects of blind fury, and now of indifference.

What remains is pure sculpture in a desolate landscape.

• The Spomeniks’ background unfolds a strange stor y. Other monuments dating from the same period, such as the Atomium in Brussels, remain crowd pleasers. Comparable works of sculpture by Western artists of the same era are universally respected and warmly embraced by the public, having become part of the art historical canon. It is only very rarely that they fall victim to acts of blind destruction, as was the fate of monumental sculptures by Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet and Fritz Koenig, which had the misfortune to be located next to Al- Qaeda’s target in New York.

Incidentally, Fritz Koenig has cre ated memorials for the Mauthausen

concentration camp and for the Munich Olympic Massacre. It is one of history’s off twists that it was in fact a non-memorial work of his, the eightmetre-high ‘Sphere’ from 1967, that was salvaged, heavily damaged, from the wreckage of the World Trade Centre and turned into the memorial for the victims of 9/11. It stands in Battery Park, in all its scarred glory, like a Spomenik in reverse.

• It is understandable that statues of Stalin or Saddam, no matter how well they may have been crafted by their creators, have been pulled from their pedestals as icons of dictatorship. What is remarkable about these Spomeniks, however, is that they are completely abstract, devoid of the cult of personality often found in Eastern Europe. They are not busts of great leaders, they bear no symbols like stars or sickles, do not depict workers or farmers’ wives brought to life in muscular marble. The objects reveal an iconography of festive decorations: flowers, streamers, lanterns. Their stance is neutral, referring to nothing but themselves. They fit seamlessly into the Sixties-era aesthetics of Barbarella movies, Paco Rabanne dresses and Lava lamps.

And yet, every single one of them is a memorial monument to the most

atrocious events of the Second World War, marking the sites of bloody battles and sinister concentration camps.

In multicultural Yugoslavia, however, the Second World War was a layered and ambiguous situation. Not only a war of liberation against the aggressor Nazi Germany, but also a civil war with complex oppositions between ethnic population groups who fought one another from different points on the ideological spectrum, such as the Partisans, the Ustashe and the Chetniks. For this reason, the war monuments could assume neither a heroic nor patriotic guise. In other words, they had to be neutral enough to be acceptable to both victims and perpetrators. After all, once the slaughter was over, the former opponents had to collectively form the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia together. Hence the choice of a neutral, almost frivolous visual language, whereby the Spomeniks look more like sculpture in an open air museum than the usual war memorials full of military pathos and thundering cannons as were erected at Verdun or Stalingrad. The good intentions of the artists and the politicians ultimately proved to be the tragedy of these objects. The Spomeniks were places of forgetting, while they should have been the places of remembering.

They formed a cheerful backdrop for the bright future awaiting the socialistic model society, the official policy line of which was to smooth over all of the former conflicts. Many commentators on the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990’s thus declared that the events unfolding were the inevitable extensions of the Second World War. The fury unleashed upon the Spomeniks after 1992 was not merely settling the score with the old socialist system, but was also exposing that hidden history that had led to the reopening of Pandora’s box in the first place.

• The Antwerp-based photographer Jan Kempenaers undertook a laborious trek through the Balkans to photograph a series of these mysterious objects. He captures the Spomeniks in the misty mountain landscape at sundown. Looking at the photographs one must admit to a certain embarrassment. We see the powerful beauty of the monumental sculptures and we catch ourselves forgetting the victims in whose name they were built. This is in no way a reproach to the photographer, but rather attests to the strength of the images. After all, Kempenaers did not set out as a documentary photographer, but first and foremost as an artist seeking to create a new image.

An image so powerful that it engulfs

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the viewer. He allows the viewer to enjoy the melancholy beauty of the Spomeniks, but in doing so, forces us to take a position on a social issue.

The photographs raise the question of whether a former monument can even function as a pure sculpture, an autonomous work of art, detached from its or iginal meaning. Can a Spomenik follow the opposite trajectory of Koenig’s ‘Sphere’? Can it live on, after its ideological progenitors are dead and gone and its symbolism no longer intelligible? It has been known to happen. Thing of the Casa del Fascio in Como, the headquarters of the Italian fascist party that was built in 1936 by the architect Giuseppe Terragni, and has come to be revered worldwide as an icon of the modernist architecture of the 20th century.

Along the way, it has managed to completely disassociate itself from the original clients and the sinister plans that they hatched within the walls.

• The Spomeniks have not quite reached this stage yet. They currently stand forlorn and forgotten, where they once would have been encircled by signing young pioneers and long-skirted oldsters with flowers and candles. No people appear in the photographs.

They have the air of the morning after a party: the smell of cigarette butts

Monument to the Revolution, Pogarić, Croatia

and stale beer, sodden streamers and guttered lanterns. It is the memory of the socialist party that is allover now. And yet, this is precisely what enriches the monuments’ meaning. In their dilapidated condition, they are no longer symbols of victory, but for the first time, true symbols of a newfound mourning. They seem to grieve for the horrors that took place where they stand, 60 years ago. Perhaps this makes them richer, more seasoned, beautiful and effective now. They no longer charm with their pristine beauty, but their gritty countenance commands respect. That is the conjurors’ trick of the Spomeniks, which Kempenaers masterfully reveals in his photographs.

Tower on Magarčevo, Petrova Gora, Croatia

Bubanj Memorial Park, Niš, Srbija

article and images: Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26.

Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

PARTISAN MEMORIALS Travel through Yugoslavian Modernism author: Robert Burghardt • Even from afar the pricks are visibly peeking through the forest. I am standing upon the edge of a small town Sopot, along the perimeter of the mount Košmaj, 60 kilometers south of Belgrade, along the path toward the first stop of my trip, trip to the monuments that mark the events of the Second World War. Prior to this trip Yugoslavian modernity was published in architectural magazines of the socialist Yugoslavia. Košmaj’s pricks had poked me and caught my attention of these monuments. I decided to travel the region which had created its own and interesting modern estate (Yugoslavian, socialist, which stood undeclared between the east and the west). I left Belgrade with a rented car, covered 4,000 kilometers through the former Yugoslavia and visited 12 monuments and 1 Patisan cemetery.

Monument to the Fallen Fighters, Košmaj, Belgrade

MONUMENTS AND MODERNITY: • What Spomeniks have in common is their abstract, often monumental, but always unusual and peculiar formal vocabular y in common. Most are reminiscent of the events from the Second World War, and some mark the most significant fronts of the partisan mythology. They are located in the centre of Yugoslavian modernism, because they mark its starting point

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and they announce the modern outlook. In doing so, they still proclaim a future, which already has become past. They are expressions of this future and they refuse to stop epitomizing its coming. They keep calling: Ahead!

Spectres still inhabit the monuments, but their context, their audience has been lost.

image: Burghardt, Robert. Digital image. Flickr. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbfzz/with/2934755979/>.

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In the whole of Yugoslavia 20,0 0 0 monuments and memor ials have been raised, in the forties and fifties many still in the style of socialist realism, while the larger and most important memorial sites have been built from the beginning of the sixties. The selection here dates from the latter period, which followed the emancipation from the Soviet-Union and the development of Yugoslavia’s own road to socialism along the line of “self-management”. These monuments belong to the most important witnesses of Yugoslav memorial culture and stem from the most active period of Yugoslav modern art which has been described as socialist modernism or socialist aestheticism.

• As War-monuments they are unique: They do not express the fighting and death, but life, resistance and the energy by which they were carried.

They are directed forward while they mark the starting point for a new society, whose products they are. In their abstract vocabulary they allow for an appropriation of meaning that bypasses official narrations, especially today, after their context has become invisible. They open the scene for numerous associations; they could be ambassadors from far-away stars, or from a different, unrealized present.

The openness which originates in the abstract language of the monuments is a visual manifestation of the emancipation from the Stalinist dominance of socialist realism in the eastern bloc, in which future is represented only in a happy-overreaching form of the present. The monuments invoke a utopian moment, stick to an iconism, and translate the promise of the future into a universal gesture.

• Even within its wholesome concept, spomeniks turn to life because they weren’t only meant to commemorate, but above all places for excursions.

Often they are located in appealing natural environments, often upon hilltops, within national parks, in mountains and quite secluded forests.

Situated in well designed parks with tables and benches for the visitors, they inevitably became tourist attractions. Obviously not everyone visited them at own will. Within the former Yugoslavia at their sole mention the response is often: “Yes, we always had to visit there through school excursions.” The educative mission is also accentuated by the simple amphitheater (seats in a semicircle, sometimes articulated, like a theatre, sometimes abstract) which we can see at almost all spomeniks. Along the natural spotlights and a stage open to the sky

and the beauty of the natural site, it is easily imaginable how spectacles of theatre, public reading and summer academia were conducted in the open.

MOVEMENT: • The shapes of spomeniks are quite dynamic and often are opening from within. At Tijentište, in eastern Bosnia, above the valley are two stylized cliffs 15 meters tall that mark the Battle of Sutjeska. This battle marked the turning point toward the liberation war as the Partisans were able to fight through this valley of Sutjeska.

Monumental stones hold the experience of a mountain ter rain that appears different from every moving angle. This monument sits in the central point of the valley, along the symmetry line. The seemingly symmetric cliffs from afar are actually quite different geometries. From the rear the cliffs fold inward and sink in, while from the front they look like a pair of wings, a gesture of openness. If the symmetry line is passed and the monument viewed from the side, the massive cliffs melt into dynamic fingers.

• Past the monument one may see the enveloping mountains and its designed park within which sits a

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hotel and a museum comprising this complex. The museum building, within which should be a large mural depicting this heroic battle, is unfortunately closed. The structure, however, is attention worthy as it is constructed in concrete material yet borrows style of the traditional mountain vernacular. The beton-brut chunks of the roof construction support the roof and in a sharp V cascade almost to the ground in a woven manner. Through the gaps peek glazed windows and even the door is decorated with abstract – tectonic ornaments.

• Kozara sits in northern Bosnia. Upon a small plateau among the mountainous terrain, the large monument is reminiscent of the many partisans and civilians who lost their lives during the Second World War. The entire complex is successfully embedded within the forest where from the large parking lot with its restaurant and hotel, one gains access to the monument through a long and wide stone stairway. Trees are well integrated so that the woods are not interrupted, only slightly less dense. During sunset, the sun rays penetrate the trees and their spots fall upon these stone steps, creating a pretty play of horizontal and vertical lines.

Monument to the Fallen Soldiers and the Sutjeska Museum, Tjentište, Bosnia 1971

images: Burghardt, Robert. Digital image. Flickr. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbfzz/with/2934755979/>.

• At first you stand slightly confused before this grand, oval, completely abstract subject. A cylinder roughly 20 meters tall is composed of arrow like shapes evenly distributed in a loop which don’t even out at the top, but some protrude further than others creating an asymmetrical ensemble.

Remaining are the long conical slits which when approached are so wide that a person can easily pass through.

This oval space is open to above. The tight lonely space makes you feel as if you are looking up an open chimney yet when standing in the very center, you may observe an eruption of paysage views at all angles, like still shots on a film strip.

• Upon a wooden kiosk we find a suggestion in the shape of a tombstone. In the window sits a book on whose cover page is a group of people dancing the “kolo” in front of this structure. Kolo is a national dance (danced in a circle) in all regions of the former Yugoslavia and it has its characteristics in each region. Following the World War II a unifying kolo was developed which brought together the elements form all the republics. In the region about Kozara, a mixed population lived consisting of Bosnians, Croats and Serbs who all sacrificed themselves together in the Partisan front lines.

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Monument to the Revolution, Kozara, Bosnia 1972

images: (1) Burghardt, Robert. Digital image. Flickr. Web. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbfzz/with/2934755979/>.

(2) http://www.flickr.com/photos/gruzen/1776897224/

• Even the spomenik on Kosmaj demonstrates refinement once experienced from the inside. At first it is invisible, concealed by the thick forest while the plateau of the hill is only a little higher than the plateau upon which sits the monument. On first glance, the monument is reminiscent of a space capsule ready to land on the Moon.

The evenly dispersed pricks pierce into the sky. They appear as if they are pushing against each other, forming a machine that is ready to explode and take off. We are getting closer. In the middle is an opening gap that is increasing in size as we are approaching and these pricks are starting to look like a set of hands whose fingers are statically and bravely raising towards the sky.

BOGDANOVIĆ:

Bogdan Bogdanović and Jasenovac Flower Memorial, Jaseonovac, Croatia 1966

• We should give credit to the architect who conceptualized and built many of these Partisan monuments – a B e l g ra d e a rch itect B o g d a n Bogdanović. Probably his most famous monument is the concrete flower in the Jasenovac memorial center and perhaps the most beautiful is the Partisan cemetery in Mostar, which today, unfortunately sits abandoned.

W ith h i s i nte res t s i n Baby l on i a n, Egyptian and Greek myths, he was

images: (1) http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL269067A/Bogdan_Bogdanovi%C4%87 (2) Burghardt, Robert. Digital image. Flickr. Web. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbfzz/with/2934755979/>.

always somehow outside the main Yugoslavian architectural scene. Very early he became a critic of the strict functional rationality in modernism.

Instead he sought inspiration in his mythical worlds, which drew to quite creative, metaphorical elements in his monument designs. His humor and liberal cosmopolitan stature prevented him from becoming egocentrism. It is interesting that Bogdanović was a voiced critic of the official building tradition as well as the political dogmas, yet, in spite of that, he was commissioned on numerous locations for construction of official state representational monuments. From 1982 to 1987 he was even the mayor of Belgrade, just prior to the early 1990’s when he exiled to Vienna.

DESTRUCTION: •

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The situation today var ies among regions and their specific context.

Most of the monuments are abandoned, some are vandalized and even destroyed. Only the ones I mentioned in Macedonia were well kept, and it wasn’t by accident: Partisan history is highly revered as a narrative to the sovereign Macedonian nation. It was through the autonomy within the socialist Yugoslavia that Macedonia gained its independent national state.

• At the same time the spomeniks are also approaching the destruction of the Yugoslavian universalism, tragic b reakage of one count r y which through its specific modernism had a bright future, but now as a torn up region has barely any perspective. The destruction is quite painful from the Yugoslav position, especially since its non-aligned path presented itself with an alternative to the bureaucracy of the Soviet Union and the foreignness of the western capitalism, and perhaps a path which could have been maintained as one of the better systems. Along this path, modernism was used as an educational medium that connected a quite isolated country with an international stage as well as with development of a society within.

Spomeniks stand as physical witnesses of that time and still are gearing toward something that even today isn’t existing. They create an invisible net that spreads through the entire territory of the former Yugoslavia and in the meantime blur the divisions of once unified space. My dear friend from Belgrade, a cosmopolitan, confided in me when I spoke to her of my travels that she could never endure it because it would cause her too much emotional sentiment and pain.

article : Burghardt, Robert. “Partizanski Spomenici - Putovanje U Jugoslovensku Modernu.”

Trans. Dragoslav Ruzic. KVART (2008): 72-77. Web. 22 Feb. 2012. <http://www.rb.fzz.cc/pdf/spomenici_KVART.pdf>.

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MONUMENTS

image : http://miodrag-zivkovic.com/velike%20skulpture/spomiprostor/kadinjaca.htm

FREEDOM HILL MONUMENT Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia 1965 sculptor: Janez Lenassi

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

• Freedom Hill or Brinškov Hill rises above the Illyrian Bistrica, which is a regulated park area with walking paths. The Freedom Hill Monument is regarded as one of the most beautiful monuments in Slovenia and also the only partisan monument built there. In 1965 this particular monument was ranked as the 8th tallest in the country, at 8 meters high and was dedicated in memory of the third shock brigade from overseas.

Some of the more shocking and disturbing vandalization efforts include traces of fascist grafitti and symbols.

• Quotes and verses on the monument are the work of poet Bordon. Inscribed is a deditaction address, which translates as following:

“To the dead soldiers of the fourth Yugoslav Army, it’s fighters and locals.”

• The monument was designed by a Slovenian sculptor Janez Lenassi and was erected in 1965. Even though it appears as if it is quite untouched due to it’s beton-brute style, the monument has been repeatedly vandalized.

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images: http://spomeniki.blogspot.com/2011/11/ilirska-bistrica.html

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image : http://spomeniki.blogspot.com/2011/11/ilirska-bistrica.html

JASENOVAC FLOWER MEMORIAL Jasenovac, Croatia 1966 architect: Bogdan BogdanoviÄ&#x2021;

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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• Jasenovac Memorial Site lies in the immediate vicinit y of the fo r mer Jasenovac concentration camp, specifically Camp III ( or Brickworks).

Within the Memorial Site the original sites of buildings and execution sites within the camp itself are marked by earth mounds and hollows. The path to the Flower Memorial is paved with railway sleepers. They symbolically denote part of the preserved railway track used to transport prisoners to the camp.

• Jasenovac monument is a monument devoted to the victims of Ustasha genocide during World War II in Jasenovac.

Designed by Bogdan Bogdanović and unveiled in 1966, it serves as a reminder of the atrocities perpetrated among Slavs themselves in the Jasenovac concentration camp.

images : (1) http://www.flickr.com/photos/20923094@N04/2427347283/ (2) http://croatia.hr/en-GB/Destinations/Town/Jasenovac?ZHNcNDEzLHBcNw%3D%3D

• During the entire time that Jasenovac concentration camp was in operation, the inhabitants of Jasenovac and the surrounding area lived under a special regime. The whole region was under special guard and protection, as a “safety zone”. The Command H eadq ua r te r s of the Ja senovac Assembly Camps, the Ustasha hospital and Ustasha prisons were located in Jasenovac itself. The Serbian population of Jasenovac was taken to Camp III (Brickworks) on 8 May 1942 and their houses looted. The women and children were deported to Stara Gradiška Camp, and the men to Zemun (Sajmište) from where they were deported to forced labour in Germany and Nor way. The fate of the inhabitants of Jasenovac was directly linked to the nearby camp.

They would witness prisoners being brought to the camp and liquidated on a daily basis. They tried to help, as often as circumstances would allow, however they risked their lives in offering even crumbs of bread or scraps of fruit, by carrying messages or performing other small services.

• Between 1941 and 1945, 367 inhabitants of Jasenovac died in camps, prisons or Partisan units. Most died in Stara Gradiška Camp and Camp III (Brickworks). Among them there were

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image: (1) http://fzz.cc/issue02PART.html

54 children under the age of 12.

• This was one of the most notorious camps of all. The cruelty it witnessed was unsurpassed and the number of killed the greatest. The inmates were sent to hard labor and forced to work under such terrible conditions that more often than not one half of them never returned to the camp, as they either died at work or were killed on the way back. The methods of killing were similar to those in the Pag camp.

The scene of the killing was mostly at the bank of the Sava river. When Jews were the victims, the killing by cutting of throat was called “ritual throat cutting.” Many inmates were kept in bunkers and were left without food and water to starve. The hunger in the camp was simply unbelievable.

The hygienic conditions were on the

image: (2) http://www.jusp-jasenovac.hr/Default.aspx?sid=7552

lowest possible level making it a fertile ground for diseases which took a very high toll.

• The corpses of those killed or who died were burned in an improvised crematorium. The children were, as a rule, liquidated in a closed room by poisonous gas or simply strangled.

• In April 1945 about 1200 inmates were still alive in the Jasenovac camp. The Ustashe were just about to liquidate them but the Par tizans’ advance proved to be speedier than expected.

A lthoug h una r med, the i n mates decided to attempt a break-out. Most of them were killed as a result, but a small number, 30 Jews among them, got through and escaped to freedom.

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• Bogdan Bogdanović designed the Flower Memorial in Jasenovac. The memorial is made of reinforced concrete. It consists of a base with six niches separated by concrete walls, along the bases of which are basins for water, and a central column with extends into the developed mantle of the Flower.

• Six trapeze - shaped slabs extend to the ceiling part of the niches. The crypt of the monument is paved with railway sleepers and on the north side, there is a bronze plaque on which verses from the poem Jama (The Pit) by Ivan Goran Kovačić are etched in relief.

images: (1) http://fzz.cc/issue02PART.html, (2) http://www.unesco.org/new/en/venice/about-this-office/single-view/news/international_conference_on_national_history_museums_in_south_east_europe_thessaloniki_greece_18_19_october_2010/

image: (3) http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbfzz/2935584170/

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image : http://daca-rajkich.deviantart.com/art/Jasenovac-Detail-203016836

THREE FISTS - BUBANJ MEMORIAL PARK Niš, Srbija 1963 scultor: Ivan Sabolić

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

• Bubanj Memorial is a park located on a forested hill southwest of the Nš central city zone.

• During World War II this was one of the biggest execution sites in Yugoslavia.

The first execution by a firing squad was organized in 1942, when a group of inmates were taken there from the concentration camp in Red Cross.

• After the Februar y 1942 escape, the number of executed persons sometimes reached a hundred a day. In only two days, on the 16th and 17th of February in 1942, over 1,400 prisoners were executed here. The total number of persons shot cannot be accurately determined, as the bodies were first buried with the aid of bulldozers. In an attempt to cover up their crimes,

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in August of 1944, just before the end of the war, the Germans dug out and burnt numerous bones at this site and this burning of remains took 20 days.

• An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people are believed to have been killed here.

The memorial park contains a number of parts symbolically representing the horrors of this place.

• The forest represents the central location where partisans fought for the liberation from fascists while the path leading to the monument symbolizes the path they had to take to liberty.

• The monument consists of a horizontal white marble relief showing scenes of the peril of the subjugated nation and its ultimate victor y leading to

images: http://fzz.cc/issue02PART.html

freedom. It is followed by the verses of Ivan Vučković from Niš, reading in translation: “From the blood of communists and patriots fists were born: fists of revolt and warning, fists of the revolution, fists of liberty. We were shot, but never killed, never subdued. We crushed the darkness and paved the way for the Sun.” • The second part of the monument takes the shape of 3 monumental fists of varying heights, symbolizing a child, a woman, and a man shot at the location. The sculptures are work of the Croatian sculptor Ivan Saboliċ and they were first presented to the public on Niš liberation day, 14 October 1963.

image on following page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marko_zivanovic/687154832/

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

SUTJESKA MEMORIAL Valley of Heroes,Tjentište, Bosnia 1971 sculptor: Miodrag Živković

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

•

Tjentište is a village in the municipality of Foča, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Tjentište, at the time Yugoslavia, was a famous tourist spot, known as the Valley of Heroes, with the annual visit of around 30,000 tourists.

• In 1971 the imposing monument and the ossuary of dead soldiers from the Fifth enemy offensive were erected as part of the Valley of the Heroes Complex. The museum and a monument inscribed the names of 7,000 fallen soldiers in the legendary battle of Sutjeska.

• The Fifth Enemy Offensive often identified with its final phase, the Battle of the Sutjeska and code named Fall Schwarz, was a joint attack by the Axis taking place from 15th of May to the 16th of June in 1943, which aimed to destroy the main Yugoslav Partisan force, near the Sutjeska river in south-eastern Bosnia. The failure of the offensive marked a turning point for Yugoslavia during World War II. • The Axis rallied 127,000 land troops for the offensive and over 300 airplanes while the Yugoslav National Liberation Army had 22,148 soldiers in 16 brigades. In total there were 7,543 partisan casualties, more than a third of the initial force. The German field commander, General Rudolf Lüters in his final report

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images: http://miodrag-zivkovic.com/strane/tjentiste.htm

described the so-called “communist rebels” as “well organized, skillfully led and with combat morale unbelievably high.” The successful Partisan breakout helped their reputation as a viable fighting force with the local population. Consequently, they were able to replenish their losses with new recruits, regroup, and mount a series of counterattacks in eastern Bosnia, clearing Axis garrisons of Vlasenica, S reb ren i ca, O l ovo, K l a d a n j a n d Zvornik in the following 20 days.

•

The battle marked a turning point toward Partisan control of Yugoslavia, and became an integral part of the Yugoslav post-war mythology, celebrating the self-sacrifice, extreme suffering and moral firmness of the partisans.

images: (1) http://fzz.cc/issue02PART.html, (2) http://miodrag-zivkovic.com/strane/ tjentiste.htm

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image : http://miodrag-zivkovic.com/strane/tjentiste.htm

image : http://www.flickr.com/photos/eniax/1052899037/

• “At Tijentiste, above the valley are two stylized cliffs 15 meters tall that mark the Battle of Sutjeska. This battle marked the turning point toward the liberation war as the Partisans were able to fight through this valley of Sutjeska. Monumental stones hold the experience of a mountain terrain that appears different from every moving angle. This monument sits in the central point of the valley, along the symmetry line. The seemingly symmetric cliffs from afar are

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excerpt from article : Burghardt, Robert. “Partizanski Spomenici - Putovanje U Jugoslovensku Modernu.”

Trans. Dragoslav Ruzic. KVART (2008): 72-77. Web. 22 Feb. 2012.

actually quite different geometries.

From the rear the cliffs fold inward and sink in, while from the front they look like a pair of wings, a gesture of openness. If the symmetry line is passed and the monument viewed from the side, the massive cliffs melt into dynamic fingers.â&#x20AC;?

images by Marko KrojaÄ?: (1) http://www.flickr.com/photos/23162282@N05/3079677151/ (2) http://www.flickr.com/photos/23162282@N05/3080512580/in/photostream/ following page image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15968368@N00/2757766566

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MAKLJEN FLOWER MONUMENT Makljen, Bosnia 1978 sculptor: Boško Kućanski

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

• Makljen was an extraterrestrial flower for the wounded comrades.

• This impressive monument was built in honour of the battle of Neretva and is situated in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the mountain pass Makljen over the Jablanica-Prozor-Bugojno path.

The monument was ceremoniously opened on November 12th, 1978 by the then president of The Socialist Fede ra l Repub l ic of Yugos l avia, Josip Broz Tito. It is situated at the place of one of the fiercest battles of World War II between the Axis powers and the Partisans, in which the Partisans fought to save thousands of their wounded comrades. This battle was the motive behind the partisan

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blockbuster movie ‘Battle of Neretva’ (1969.), at the time the most watched film of socialistic cinematography, in which, amongst others, starred Yul Br ynner, Orson Welles and Franco Nero.

• Although for many years it was thought that the 14m high, 12m wide and 200ton heavy ‘Makljen’ represented the clenched fist of Tito or a torch, its author, sculptor Prof. D r Boško Kućanski imagined it as a flowerlike form of extraterrestrial proportions.

The monument was mined in year 2000, a destructive action for which nobody was held accountable. Now situated in its place is leftover concrete construction.

images: http://www.prozor.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1579&Itemid=12

image : http://openbuildings.com/buildings/makljen-memorial-profile-39350

MONUMENT TO THE FALLEN Leskovac, Serbia 1971 architect: Bogdan BogdanoviÄ&#x2021;

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image: http://www.panoramio.com/user/87771/tags/Bogdan%20Bogdanovic%20 -%20spomenici

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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images: http://www.panoramio.com/user/87771/tags/Bogdan%20Bogdanovic%20 -%20spomenici

FIGHTERS WORKERS BATTALION MONUMENT Kadinjača, Serbia 1979 sculptor Miodrag Živković

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neu image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

Amsterdam: Roma

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image : http://fotografijesrbije.blogspot.com/2008/11/kadinjaca.html

• Kadinjača is a village, 14 km from the city of Užice, Serbia. It is famous for its memorial of Kadinjača.

•

The memorial complex near Užice Kadinjača testifies about the days of the November 1941, when members of the Workers Battalion of Užice Par tisan Detachment, which was commanded by Andrija Đurović, provided fierce resistance to far superior enemy, who at that time carried out offensive against the liberated territor y “Republic of Užice”. Workers Battalion's brave fighters were killed in the battle of Kadinjača on November 2 9, 1941. O pposi ng fo rces b roke through the last defense of free Užice, but the heroism remained remembered in the years that followed.

• The complex is an intricately organized architectural museum, which comprises of the segments built between 1952 and 1979. In the first phase, in 1952, the Kadinjača monument itself was constructed under a pyramid shape which ser ves as the cr ypt where the remains of the members of the Workers’ battalion who were killed during the Battle of Kadinjača lie.

• Significant expansion of the complex occurred in 1979, when the undulating stone scuptures were built as a pathway toward the pyramidal crypt.

This project 's authors were sculp tor Miodrag Živković and architect Aleksandar Đokić. The entire memorial complex was officially opened by the then president of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, on September 23rd, 1979.

image : http://www.flickr.com/photos/23162282@N05/3079676787/ image on following page: http://pcfoto.biz/digitalnifotoaparati/ostale-teme/kadinjaca/

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image: http://pcfoto.biz/digitalnifotoaparati/ostale-teme/kadinjaca/

• Then, the Kadinjača Memorial was declared a Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and it is currently protected by the Republic of Serbia.

• Upon this monument are inscribed verses of a local Užiice poet, Slavko Vukosavljević:

“My home land, have you known, that here has fallen, a whole batallion, red blood has, seeped then, through the blanket of snow, white and cold. through the night, wind has blown, but through the south, our army walks, fallen has, the fourteenth kilometer, but never can fall, our Kadinjača!”

• A special segment of the exhibition includes hundreds of displayed items and authentic documents, mostly related to members of the Workers Bat tal ion. They incl ude per sonal documents, photographs, archival materials, weapons and other threedimensional objects.

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images: http://miodrag-zivkovic.com/velike%20skulpture/spomiprostor/kadinjaca1.htm

KODŽAK NATIONAL LIBERATION MONUMENT Maribor, Slovenia 1975 sculptor: Slavko Tihec

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image : http://www.willgoto.com/1/145841/liens.aspx

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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• Kodžak National Liberation Monument is an impressive World War II Monument in Maribor, Slovenia. It is located on the Freedom square (in Slovenian-Trg Svobode). It was designed by Slavko Tihec who was a famous and Maribor born, Slovenian sculptor.

• The sculpture was officially presented in 1975 (the photo on the left is from that day). This monument intended comemoration of the Slovenian liberation movement and the death of 667 Slovenians who were executed by the Nazis between 1941-1945. It is regarded as one of Tihec’s masterpieces, but some people say the location and scale are not appropriate. However, Maribor at that time didn’t have a large open public square to display the monument to the public in all its glory, so this much smaller square was an only option, and thus the monument also faces Maribor’s medieval castle. The monument was renovated in 1990/91 and there were also some more recent renovation in the previous few years.

point in Maribor because the monument and its location are quite easy to remember.

• The monument is characterized by a steel and bronze construction with patterns of commemorated soldiers in the recessed sections. Inside the monument are graphical copies of public proclamations about the shooting of hostages and rebels, who during World War II were condemned to death (667 were killed), as well as, a farewell letter by Jože Fluks, a man who was condemned to death.

• People in Maribor call this monument “Kodžak” or “Kojak”, named after a detective in a TV show from the 1970s, as his character portrayed a man who was bald. This square, even today, is a common and a well known meeting

images: http://mykafkeasquelife.blogspot.com/2010/11/world-war-ii-monument-maribor.html image on following page: http://chrisinbrnocr.blogspot.com/2011/10/maribor-slovenia.html

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

MACEDONIUM Kruševo, Macedonia 1974 sculptor: Jovan Grabulovski architect: Petar Mazev

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

• The Macedonium monument is located in Kruševo, a town in the Republic of Macedonia, and is one of a quite unusual look that evokes an abstract sun or a bizarre spacecraft. Likewise, this monument may be one of the only, if not an only monument which was not related to WWII, but another liberation movement.

• The monument is dedicated to the Ilinden Uprising which is the largest and most significant event in the history of Macedonia. It was driven against the Ottoman empire for the liberation of Macedonia and Thrace region that were occupied by the Ottoman rule.

• At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire was collapsing and the land held in Eastern Europe for over 500 years was becoming independent. Macedonia, Thrace, Kosovo and Sandzak were the only regions that remained within the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Within Macedonia and Thrace grew the desire for liberation, and it was strongly supported by the newly liberated neighboring countries. The consequences, however, were tragic. They include 12,000 burned houses and 70,000 people left homeless. 8816 men, women and children were killed.

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image : http://fzz.cc/slides_PART/KRUslide04.html

• A Monument of the Ilinden Uprising and Krushevo Republic was established on August 2nd, 1974 on the 30th anniversary of the first session of ASNOM (Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia), as well as the 71st anniversar y of the Ilinden uprising.

• The author of this monument is Jordan G rabulovsk i, who conceived the m o n u m e nt a s a s y m b o l of t h e Macedonian people’s invincibility, struggle, and age-old aspiration for national liberation.

• The artistic and aesthetic expression of the monument complex, which covers 16 hectares, starts with broken chains, continues with a crypt and a colorful mosaic of ceramic material, and ends with a giant dome placed on a sloping platform above the ground.

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images: (1) http://www.pbase.com/image/80821080 , (2) http://www.thereplicapropforum.com/f9/firefly-tv-bills-anyone-do-any-35226/

image: http://fzz.cc/issue02PART.htmlt.

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image : http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1229079

KORENICA MEMORIAL Lika, Croatia sculptor: Vanja Raduš

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

MONUMENT TO THE REVOLUTION Kozara, Bosnia 1972 sculptor: Dušan Džamonja

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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• Kozara is a mountain in western Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1942 Kozara was the site of the Battle on the Kozara, a pa r t of the Yugos lav Nationa l Liberation War and Partisan resistance during World War II where the fascist forces killed thousands of civilians. On top of Mrakovica, near Prijedor in 1972, this monument was built in honor of the fallen victims. Right next to the imposing monument, is an equally impressive staircase and a memorial wall, in which are carved nearly 10,000 names of the victims.

• The Battle of Kozara, also known as O p e rat i o n We s t - B o s n i e n by t h e Axis, was an important battle of the Yugoslav Partisan resistance movement in World War II, and so it later became an integral part of Yugoslav post-war mythology. Certain sources mistakenly identify the Battle of Kozara as the Third anti-Partisan Offensive.

• In the spring of 1942, Yugoslav Partisans in central and west Bosnia liberated regions of Bosanski Petrovac, Drvar, Glamoč and Prijedor. On May 20th, the 1st Krajina Assault Brigade was founded, and the next day it obtained tanks and a modest air force. The freeterritory stretched from the river Sava south across the mountains Kozara and Grmeč. During the winter,

Partisans inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans.

• Germans engaged 15,0 0 0 soldiers, the Independent State of Croatia engagedabout 2 2,0 0 0 soldiers, Chetniks about 2,000 soldiers, and

image : (1) http://fzz.cc/issue02PART.html (2) http://www.flickr.com/photos/26850859@N04/6053317702/, (3) http://turizamlaktasi.rs.sr/83/laktasiturizam/Trips#.T1xTbocge8A

Hungarians participated with 5 monitor ships.

• The Partisan group had only about 3,000 soldiers, but recruited reserves from the 60,000 civilians in the free territory.

It is estimated that during the battle, the Par tisans lost about 1,70 0 soldiers, while the Axis forces lost about 7,0 0 0. During and after the battle, many thousands of Serbian civilians from Kozara were sent to the Ustaše Jasenovac concentration camp.

About 900 Partisan soldiers survived and founded the Fifth Krajina Brigade.

• Approximately 25,0 0 0 people were killed in the operation, mostly in concentration camps.

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image: http://fzz.cc/issue02PART.html. image on the following page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26850859@

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MONUMENT TO ŠIŠAK DETACHMENT Brezovica, Croatia 1981 artist: unknown

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

MONUMENT TO KOSMAJ Kosmaj, Serbia 1971 sculptor: Vojin Stojić architect: Gradimir Medaković

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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â&#x20AC;˘ Kosmaj is a mountain south of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. With a site elevation of 626 meters, it is the highest point of the entire Belgrade City area. â&#x20AC;˘ In 1971st the monument was erected to commemorate the 13 fallen soldiers of the Kosmaj partisan division from WWII. With its impressive dimensions, the monument is visible during the clear nights from some parts of Belgrade. The monumentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legs symbolize sharp opposition of the people in their struggle against the occupiers and domestic traitors. Another interpretation has been that the 5 detached wings represent five young birds in a nest with their mouth wide open, craving for freedom.

images: (1) http://daca-rajkich.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3d8adu (2) http://www.flickr.com/photos/sdimitrije/6215225746/

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image : http://modernsauce.blogspot.com/2010/05/i-squee-for-former-soviet-architecture.html

image : http://daca-rajkich.deviantart.com/art/Kosmaj-Monument-203601851

MONUMENT TO THE FALLEN MINERS Kosovska Mitrovica, Serbia 1973 sculptor: Bogdan BogdanoviÄ&#x2021;

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

KOLAŠIN MONUMENT Kolašin, Montenegro sculptor: Marko Mušić

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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• Kolasin is a small town in the central region of Montenegro. During WWII, the Kolašin region suffered heavy human casualties and destruction.

Following the Italian capitulation, on the 15th and 16th of November, 1943, the First Session of the National Antifascist Council of Montenegro and Boka was held here. Then, Kolašin was the war capital of Montenegro and a place of heavy resistance.

• The ver y town of Kolašin changed hands several times between 1941 and 1944. It was bombarded 18 times by the Germans and Italians. Finally, on December 29, 1944, the town was liberated by the soldiers of the Fifth Montenegr in Proletar ian Br igade.

During the national liberation struggle, the period of 1941–1945, more than 1400 soldiers from the Kolašin region took par t in liberation effor ts and about 400 died. Around 250 patriots lost their lives in various torture chambers and on execution sites.

• This monument, designed by Slovenian architect Marko Mušić, commemorates the 400 lives lost toward liberation of Montenegro and the several heroes busts are placed around this memorial hall.

image : http://majesticplumage.blogspot.com/2011/06/glorious-beton-brut-kolasins-spomenik.html

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image: http://majesticplumage.blogspot.com/2011/06/glorious-beton-brut-kolasins-spomenik.html

MONUMENT TO THE UNBEATEN Prilep, Macedonia 1961 sculptor: Bogdan BogdanoviÄ&#x2021;

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image: http://flavorwire.com/84930/yugoslav-partisan-memorials-obsession#5

POPINA MEMORIAL PARK Vrnjačka Banja, Serbia, 1981 architect: Bogdan Bogdanović

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image: http://forum.net.hr/forums/t/288267.aspx

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image: (1) http://www.pionirovglasnik.com/print.php?content=557

image: (2) http://www.pionirovglasnik.com/print.php?content=557

KNIN MONUMENT Knin, Croatia architect: Đorđe Romić

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

PARTISAN NECROPOLIS OF MOSTAR Mostar, Bosnia 1965 architect: Bogdan BogdanoviÄ&#x2021;

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image: http://dbpedia.org/page/Partisan_cemetery_in_Mostar

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

â&#x20AC;˘ Mostar is one of those Yugoslav centers where the national liberation movement developed with the greatest intensity. City of Mostar, until the liberation, in early 1945, has possessed a strong and well established occupying garrison. â&#x20AC;˘ A number of o rgani zations of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia developed resistance movements by the citizens of this city immediately after occupation. During the initiation of the uprising Mostar was the seat of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the entire Herzegovina region in 1941. Many communists and patriots from Mostar joined these par tisan units. Fighters from Mostar formulated a special battalion of Mostar. Through the duration of WWII, this battalion fought and organized many battles of the national liberation movement.

Specifically it was part of mass political actions and it carried out numerous sabotages, diversions and other combat actions. Thus, this monument was built to honor the Yugoslav Partisans of Mostar who were killed in the National Liberation Front.

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â&#x20AC;˘ This site is a memorial cemetery dedicated to those who died defending Mostar. Ii is shaped in abstract terraces of white stone that are covered with grass areas.

images: (1) http://fzz.cc/issue02PART.html, (2) http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/bogdan-bogdanovic/

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images: (1) http://www.ostblog.ch/?p=155, (2) http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_III/ Geschichte/Suedosteuropa/kriege-erinnern/commemorating-wars/diary-mostar.html

â&#x20AC;˘ The man behind this masterpiece was architect Bogdan BogdanoviÄ&#x2021; and this Partizan memorial cemeter y is considered to be the crown on his lifetime achievements. In 1992, the cemeter y was badly damaged by war and dynamiting during the Bosnian civil war. After the war, the cemetery further deteriorated due to severe neglect, vandalism and devastation.

The place that was once dedicated to heroes had lost all its dignity and fallen in despair. In 2011 measures were taken and this memorial has been cleaned and is now open to visitors again.

GRMEČ MONUMENT TO THE REVOLUTION Korčanica, Bosnia artist: unknown

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

MONUMENT TO THE REVOLUTION Pogarić, Croatia 1967 sculptor: Dušan Džamonja

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

• Monument to the Revolution is a very hypnotic, gigantic sculpture located in Podgaric, Croatia. It was created in 1967 by sculptor Dušan Džamonja and is dedicated to the Revolution in Moslavina.

• Podgarić location was chosen as on this location a Partisan revolution took place in 1941. It was also the location of a Partisan cemetery. As was appropriate by the grandeur of this monument, its grand revelation was attended by the then president Josip Broz Tito. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Podgarić Monument was left to decay, and now attracts on l y a few vi sito r s, w ho wande r through this walled town.

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image: http://daca-rajkich.deviantart.com/#/d3d8bnz image on the following page: http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datoteka: Spomenik_Pod-

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

KAVADARCI MEMORIAL Kavadarci, Macedonia architect: Peter Mazev

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image : http://www.domusweb.it/en/book-review/socialist-architecture-the-vanishing-act/

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

SLOBODIŠTE MEMORIAL PARK Kruševac, Serbia 1965 architect: Bogdan Bogdanović

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image : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Slobodiste_01.jpg

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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image : http://www.panoramio.com/user/87771?with_photo_id=40474982

• The hill Bagdala, near Kruševac, served as a camp and an execution site during the fascist occupation from 1941 to 1944. Prior to World War II, this was a place where the construction of a penal institution was started. Thus, the german forces used this unfinished building and turned it into a camp for political prisoners from the town of Kruševac. Behind this building at the former camp, along the slope of the Bagdala hill, Germans had carried out executions of partisan and civilian populations. Mass shooting occurred on the June 29th, 1943 when fascists shot 324 people. The camp building was demolished in 1949, and in this space, taking up an area of 10 hectares, is now the memorial park Slobodište which includes two mass graves of partisans and civilian victims of fascist terror. The memorial complex includes two large amphitheaters: the Valley of the Past and the Valley of the Living in addition to the auditorium. Complex is entered through a circular gate called the “Gate of the Sun,” leading into the Valley of the Past which is characterized by a flock of stone birds whose wings aim up, towards the sky. At the entrance is an oval stone with an inscription that reads: “Beneath this sky, men, raise up” as this park also serves to celebrate the survivors and those who are living.

image on the following page: http://sfrj4ever.xphpbb.com/viewtopic.php?p=176&si d=0c2ef9415c914b023457e0468a49d13d

CRYSTAL FLOWER MONUMENT Kragujevac, Serbia 1968 architect: Neboša Delja

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image: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/50889565

ŠUŠNJAR MEMORIAL COMPLEX Sanski Most, Bosnia 1971 sculptor: Petar Krstić

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

• Memorial Complex Šušnjar is located in a town called Sanski Most in Bosnia a n d H e r ze g ov i n a . T h e co m p l ex includes a very large, futuristic sculshapede monument dedicated to the victims of fascist terror and the fighters of the liberation of Sanski Most. It was built in 1971 and only thirty kilometers away from this site are two more World War II monuments discussed in this book - those on mountains Kozara and Grmeč.

• The Sanski Most location bears memor y of a WWII massacre. Then, the Ustasha forces killed 2,862 people and recorded the names of girls who were raped in the town Kljevci and the neighboring towns. The terrible massacre led to 7,000 and 10,000 killed Serbs and Jews of what was then the District of Sanski Most.

• Allegedly, during the construction of the Sušnjara monument, while pouring the concrete pillars of the tombs, red liquid started to run from the earth. It was determined that the liquid was unsettled pure human blood which had not yet settled in the earth which was mostly composed of clay.

• The monument was designed by the sculptor Petar Krstić. Its central element is a 15m high flame-like obelisk structure. It is made of steel plates,

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image : http://skd-kljevci.com/istorija?page=0,4

representing the resistance of the people and their victory over fascism.

The paths which crisscross the site are lined with stone tablets bearing the names of those who died. Around it are tube-shaped concrete seats. The obelisk is of irregular form and, in the words of its designer, symbolizes the life and suffering of the people of the area.

image: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Bosnia_and_Herzegovina/photo746865.htm

MONUMENT TO THE BRAVE Ostra, Serbia 1960 sculptor: Miodrag Živković

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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image: http://spomeniki.blogspot.com/2011/11/ostra.html

image: http://miodrag-zivkovic.com/velike%20skulpture/spomiprostor/ostra.htm

TOWER ON MAGARČEVO Petrova Gora, Croatia 1981 sculptor: Vojin Bakić

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

• Petrova Gora is a mountain range in central Croatia. During World War II, Petrova Gora was the location of the communist Partisans' central military hospital which consisted of an underground system of chambers and log cabins scattered throughout the mountain range. The hospital was never discovered by any of the armed forces of the Axis powers and remained in operation until May 1945.

• Atop of Petrova Gora a monument was erected commemorating the partisans and the civilian victims of World War II. It was built by a majority of the Karlovac town residents, where each employee has waived a day’s salary toward contr ibution of constructing the monument. Factory flatware from Karlovac had contibuted a tremendous amount of their production materials and the whole monument is dressed in stainless steel. The monument is 37m high, and within it, there is a communication tower. It's rooftop offers a fantastic view of the wider countryside.

• During the 198 0’s, dutiful par ties of schoolchildren in former Yugoslavia would journey to Petrova Gora to visit the extraordinary, futuristic monument – or spomenik. As with many such spomeniks built during that period, its

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construction was presumed to help consolidate a view of the recent past, while reaffirming a national vision of both the present and the future.

• Today, the site altogether, and the abandoned monument are vandalized and left unguarded. Large stainless steel plates were removed and stolen, interior has been completely destroyed, along with the catering facilities.

image : http://fzz.cc/issue02PART.html image on the folllowing page: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

NATIONAL LIBERATION MONUMENT Vogošća, Bosnia artist: unknown

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image: http://www.flickriver.com/groups/907256@N24/pool/interesting/

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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image : http://www.zonerica.com/priroda-i-pejzazi-f6/spomenik-nob-a-t437/

STONE SLEEPER MONUMENT Kragujevac, Serbia 1969 architects: Gradimir and Jelica BosniÄ&#x2021;

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image : http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

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image : http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=706754&page=233

• During a major offensive against the forces of liberated Partisan territories of Serbia, from October to November of 1941, German troops were inflicting reprisals against the population at an enormous scale. The commandment was that for each killed German soldier, a 100 Serbs would be killed.

• Following heavy fighting on the outskirts of Kragujevac town, on October 20th, 1941, the German forces had joined the mass arrest of all adult males to both show and collect in their documents, the appropriate number of “Serbs” and “communists” as reprisals for the killed and wounded in battles with Germans. The arrests were carried out on the streets, in stores, in institutions, private homes, schools, etc. All of the arrested citizens were immediately escorted to the camp on the outskirts of town, where they were then executed in droves. It is estimated that on October 21st 1941, 7,000 citizens of Kragujevac were executed.

• Among the 7,000 citizens of Kragujevac there were several hundred students.

The German soldiers took them to the scaffold from the classroom during the school hours along with 18 teachers and the high school principals. The students and professors at the shooting range had sang the Yugoslav

national anthem “Hey, Slavs” while executions were occuring. In addition to their bodies, the massacre was covered with books and school supplies that students brought from school.

Thus, the Stone Sleeper monument commemorates those thousands of innocent lives that were lost that day.

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image: http://sfrj4ever.xphpbb.com/viewtopic.php?p=176&sid=0c2ef9415c914b02 3457e0468a49d13d

MONUMENT TO THE FIRST PARTIZAN SQUAD Split, Croatia 1961 Scultptor: Vuko Bombardelli

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image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

• Košute, near town of Split, was a well known par tisan stronghold during WWII. Thus in 1961, this site was chosen as a place of commemoration for the fallen soldiers of the Split partisan detachments. This spomenik was work by sculptor Vuke Bombardellija, and stood 17 m tall in the triple form of an obelisk. In August of 1992, during the 1990's war among ex-Yugoslav states, the monument was placed under a large amount of explosives with its remains further graffitied upon.

• This monument was originally erected on the hill south of the road Rijeka - Trilj, the hinds, where Split's first partisan detachment struggled on August 14th, 1941. This battle was an all day struggle against a much stronger and better armed adversary, the gendarmes, the Ustasha and the Italians. Only 13 of the 45 Partisan soldiers had managed to break through and return to Split.

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• At the foot of the monument (which is 17 meters high) is lies a rock slab with the commemorative inscription which still reads:

“To those who brought us freedom, who gave their youths and their lives, so that we may live our the lives worth living”

image: http://www.slobodnadalmacija.hr/Nedjeljna/tabid/95/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/23097/Default.aspx

image: http://www.ratnakronikasplita.com/prilozi/spomenici

DUDIK MEMORIAL PARK Vukovar, Croatia 1980 architect: Bogdan BogdanoviÄ&#x2021;

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image : http://www.af-z.ch/bogdanovic

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

• At about five kilometers from the town of Vukovar in Croatia, is a memorial park Dudik, named after the mulberry trees that were planted there since earlier times.

• Dur ing Wor ld War II, in the per iod between 1942 and 1943, the members of the Župska region within ​​the Independent State of Croatia murdered the members of the National Liberation Movement on this site.

C o - w o r ke r s a n d c i v i l i a n s w e r e arrested in retaliation for their supportive actions of the partisan movement

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against the fascist occupation.

• The arested civilians were transported by special trains to a concentration camp in Vukovar where they were further subjected to physical torture.

After a short legal trial, the arrested civilians were banned right of adequate defense, sentenced to death and in the evening hours, transported to mount Dudik by factor y “Bata” trucks. At Dudik, they were forced to get rid of clothes and other personal belongings. The groups were brought and lined up behind excavated grave

image my Marko Krojač : http://www.flickr.com/photos/23162282@N05/3079588773/ in/set-72157610619105737

pits, after which they were executed.

455 victims were shot dead (mostly civilians) on this site, of which 384 were from Serbia, 71 from Croatia and 2 from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

• Following the WWII, through the efforts of the Commission for Establishing War Crimes, from April 25th to May 3rd, 1945, the exhumations were carried out and the remains of 384 victims were buried in the ossuary dedicated to the victims of Dudik, near Vukovar.Meanwhile, in the Dudik Memorial Park, a commemorative monument, was constructed

by a well known Serbian architect Bogdan Bogdanović.

• The monument is a set of 5 torches - five stylized slender cones surrounded with dozens of abstract stone flowers. Upon these stone flowers are epitaphs that read: “Dear voyager, on your path to the future, please stop to refresh with this spring’s clear water, the beauty of freedom, and the love of those who gave their lives for it,” and “Oh mulberries, you old mulberries, your souls bleed for those who have fallen here and whose blood has nourished your earth, their souls are not only within this quiet grass, but within the stellar tracks of unforgivableness ... “ • During the armed conflicts of the 1990's, this memorial complex was completely devastated and now lies abandoned.

image : http://www.aas.org.rs/dela.html

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sketch by architect Bogdan BogdanoviÄ&#x2021;: http://www.pionirovglasnik.com/print.php?content=533

ARTISTS

some of the sculptors and architects

BOGDAN BOGDANOVIĆ

• (1922 Belgrade, Serbia - 2010 Vienna, Austria) was an architect, artist and a philosopher.

• After leaving high school Bogdanović was admitted to the Technical Faculty of the University of Belgrade, but when he joined the Par tisans in 1944 he broke off his studies.

• He was injured in eastern Bosnia in 1945 and demobilised with the rank of lieutenant. He received a medal for bravery. After the war he continued his studies and graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade in 1950. He was a junior lecturer in the

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Urbanism Department, later a professor (from 1960 onwards) and Dean of the Faculty (from 1970).

• From 1970 to 1981 he was a member of the Serbian Academy of Science and Art, and in 1994 was made a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Architecture. He was a founder member of the International Academy of Architecture.

• Between 1982 and 1986 he served as Mayor of Belgrade but left politics in 1987, as a fierce opponent of nationalism in Serbia. In the early 1990’s he was evicted from his studio and from Mali Popović, the alternative school in which he taught, near Belgrade, after which attempts were made to break into his home. He was threatened with lynching and defamatory graffiti was daubed in the stairwell of his apartment building. Since 1993 he has lived with his wife in Vienna and in 2002 was awarded a prize by the Austrian government for a lifetime of work in science and art.

• He is the author of a series of publications and expert papers. He has designed several memorials, such as those in Prilep, Kruševac, Kosovska Mitrovica, Leskovac, Štip, Travnik, Belgrade, Vlasotince, etc.

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

BOŠKO KUĆANSKI

• (1931 Krbavica, Croatia) a Bosnian sculptor and fine arts professor.

• Taking up a quite unusual path, Kućanski g ra d u ate d f ro m t h e F a cu l t y of Dentistry, University of Belgrade in 1958 and the Medical Faculty in Sarajevo in1972.

Academy of Fine Arts, University of Sarajevo. Likewise, he is a member of the Association of Visual Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the International Association of Plastics

by UNESCO. He is a regular member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1978.

• By now he has had over seventy solo exhibitions at home and abroad.

For his artistic achievements he won numerous national and international awards and recognitions, as well as the Grand Prix at the World Bienalle exhibition in Budapest in 1973. His works are in galleries and museums in the country and abroad.

• He then studied ar t histor y at the Philosophical Faculty in Belgrade and spent his youth residing in Italy, France, Hungary, Spain, United States and Canada. He followed his studies with a defended doctoral dissertation in 1965 and the examination of the specialty of oral surgery in 1971.

• Cur rently, he is a full time professor at the Faculty of Dentistr y and also a professor by invitation at the

image : Kempenaers, Jan, and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26. Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010. Print.

VOJIN BAKIĆ

• (1915 – 1992) was a prominent Croatian sculptor of Serbian descent.

• Bakić was an important figure, particularly in the 1950’s and 1960’s Croatian contemporary art scene. He collaborated with the group EXAT-51 and the "Nove tendencije" (New Tendencies) movement.

• H e executed many pub l ic scu l p tures notably, the Call to Arms (the man from Bjelovar), Bjelovar (1946), the Monument to the Revolution in Kamensko (1958–1968), the Monument to the Train Accident Victims in Zagreb (1975 –1978), as well as monuments in Kragujevac, Dotrščina (Valley of Graves) and on Petrova Gora (1982).

Petrova Gora Monument is outlined in this book.

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• After 1945 he gravitated towards the impressionistic treatment of the surface. This period is primarily marked by his portraits of Ivan Goran Kovačić (1946) and Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević (1948). During the 1950's Bakić reduced the volume of his sculptures by the use of sharp fractures as edges, and later by merging the details of the sculptural mass. During that time, he made an entire series of bull sculptures in various dimensions (Bull, 1950, 1956).

With the series entitled Nudes, Torsos and Heads he completed his focus on organic, associative shapes, and from 1958 he turned towards the challenge of open forms, inner spaces and light reflections.

• Further professional development made him the first artist in a local context to follow the principles of geometric abstraction and to start the study of optic effects. By alternating concave and convex surfaces, he made “light shapes” which were close to constructivist poetics. In Elaborated Surfaces (1960 –1964) he articulated strict and consistent units made of lined-up elements, whereas in Lightbearing Shapes (1963 –1964) he created effective structures by means of modulating identical mirror units, for which he also used new materials, such as stainless steel.

PETAR MAZEV • (1927 Kavadarci, Macedonia - 1991 Skopje, Macedonia) was an academic painter and founder of the mode r n and avant- ga rde a r t i n Macedonia.

• He graduated from the Academy of Painting Arts in Belgrade. He taught as a professor at the Architecture Faculty in Skopje, teaching arts. He exhibited at many exhibitions in the country and abroad including: Dijon, Rome, Torino, Nuernberg, Stutgart, Berlin.

•

He al so wo r ked on mosaics and ceramic art. The expressionism was a subject of constant internal presence in the painting art of Mazev. His art was always welcomed as an artistic phenomenon fertile of convincing artistic values. He created a number of monumental compositions such as at the Steal Mills in Skopje, Stopanska Bank, Macedonium - The I linden and People’s Liberation Monument in Krusevo, the Skeleton Memorial in Veles etc.

• H e wo n t h e “O ctob e r 11t h” a n d “November 13th” rewards, as well as other rewards at the DLUM exhibitions.

He died in 1991 in Skopje.

JANEZ LENASSI • (1927 Opatia, Croatia) a Slovenian scultpor and professor of fine arts.

• From 1947 to 1951 he studied at the L j u b l j a n a Aca d e my of F i n e A r t, where he graduated under Prof. Peter Loboda. From 1953 to 1955 he taught drawing at the lower gymnasium in Radovljica. In 1956 he completed specialization studies under Prof. Boris Kalin.

• In 1959 he took part in the first symposium of sculpture in St. Margarethen, which was organised by Karl Prantl.

Together with sculptor Jakob Savinšek, he was the initiator of the international symposia of sculptors Forma viva in Slovenia, which were first organised in Kostanjevica na Krki and in Seča by Portorož in 1961. In 1966 he received the Prešeren Award and in 1981 the Jakopič Award for fine art. In 1982 he qualified as senior lecturer at the Academy of Fine Art but he never took over a professorship. He passed on his knowledge to students at the Kornari international summer school of sculpture in Marušiči (1980-1990).

• From 1985 to 1989 he was president of the Association of Societies of Artists of Yugoslavia. From 1986 to 1996 he was

a regular lecturer at the International Summer Academy in Salzburg. He has cooperated at numerous sculpture symposia and has also several times been a mentor at them.

MIODRAG ŽIVKOVIĆ

IVAN SABOLIĆ • (1921 Peteranec, Croatia - 1986 Zagreb, Croatia) was a Croatian sculptor, professor and dean of the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb, head master of the workshop in 1975.

• Self-taught, he made his first works in clay, including portraits of his father, mother and grandfather, which make up his oldest surviving works. Sabolić was a member of the postwar generation of sculptors who from the mid-20th century sought to escape from the strict framework of socialist realism and commissioned art, and remain faithful to the Croatian tradition.

• He made a monument of “Three Fists” on a hill in Bubanj Memorial Park, Palilula municipality of Niš which opened on October 14, 1963.

• (1928 Leskovac, Serbia) a sculptor and professor at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade.

• In 1944 Immediately after the liberation of Yugoslavia, he moved from his hometown to Belgrade where he completed four years of high school.

In 1946 he began his first year of college at the School of Applied Arts in Belgrade. During his fifth year of study, in 1951, he created the sculpture of fighter two meters tall in bronze, which was set in place in town of Raska.

• In 1952, he graduated from the Sculpture Depa r tment at the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade.

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• He worked as an art teacher in high school in Mladenovac then in primary school “Žikica Jovanovic-Spaniard”, New Belgrade until 1957.

• In 1957 he retired and became a free artist. During this period, he managed, as President of the Association of Applied Artists of Serbia in two electoral terms (four years). He engaged in the promotion of applied arts, the introduction of design in the Serbian economy and the realization of humanization of the art in living and working spaces.

In 1968 he was elected an assistant professor at the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade in Applied curriculum plastic. From 1974 to 1977 he served as the Dean of the electoral mandate of the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade.

• Many of his notable works include monument sculptures such as the Monument to the Brave in Ostra, Serbia Sutjeska Memorial in Tjentiste, Bosnia, Fighters Workers Battalion Monument in Kadinjaca, Serbia along with many others not covered in this book.

ALEKSANDAR ĐOKIĆ • (1936 Belgrade, Serbia—2002 Belgrade, Serbia) was a Serbian architect who gained fame for his original designs created in the Brutalist and post modernist styles.

• A n at i ve of t h e Se r b i a n ca p ita l, Belg rade, Alek sanda r Đok ić has designed numerous structures and edifices considered to be straddling the boundary between post-Modern and neo-Romantic architecture. His most-publicized creation, the Center of Nor wegian-Yugoslav Friendship in the Rudnik-Vujan mountain town of Gornji Milanovac, has been compared to the works of his younger Japanese contemporary, Makoto Sei Watanabe, who incorporates tigers and dragons into his art, as Đokić has included Serbian log cabins and Viking boats into his designs for the Center.• • Ðokic emerged on the Serbian architectural stage in the early 1960’s, mostly accompanied by sculptors, sometimes shadowed by them. Only later, once he was engaged in works on Yugoslavian monuments and memorials did his work come to full light.

SLAVKO TIHEC

• (1928 Maribor, Slovenia - 1993) was one of the most important post-was sculptors.

• He graduated in 1955 in Ljubljana and continued his studies in Par is. He began his creative journey with delicate feminine images in clay. He was also attracted by the area and construction of the statue. In the sixties, the resulting cycle of vegetative forms, lights and lyrical verticals in which the use of iron and concrete.

• At the end of the sixties and early seventies, he dedicated himself to art and created a moving Aquamobile, facilities polyester moving through the water. With these works he created an entirely new attitude towards art and included within the scope of art as a purely rational know the physics. Has

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an important place in his oeuvre and wood. Mid-seventies focused on the basic geometric shapes, especially on the ball and block. There have been series of stratified and magical forms, containers and halftone portraits. It is also the author of several wall composition.

• His works can also be seen in Maribor, among them is the monument in the square Trg svobode erected in memory of national freedom fighters, who died in World War II. The sculptor’s concept of a monument dedicated to the national liberation struggle was realized in bronze, a concept opening up new monumental vistas and creative dimensions. Of special interest are the facial images of partisan heroes that seem to come to life when viewed at certain angles.

• With his keen and innovative work is breaking the established image of the sculpture, experimenting with materials and forms, and also remained an esthete and devotee of classical beauty. Included in all national surveys of contemporary art. He has participated in numerous exhibitions (159) home and abroad, representing the Yugoslav sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1966 and 1980. For his work has received numerous awards,

PreĹĄeren Foundation Award in 1967, JakopiÄ? Award 1973 and 1983 and the largest award in the arts Preseren Award in 1983. Yeah, the author of numerous public monuments to name but a monument to Osankarici, 1960, the National Liberation War Memorial in Maribor, 1975, and Ivan Cankar monument in Ljubljana, 1982. .

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ERUTUF etarbelec