And he didn't hold a grudge against King Alexander...

Vladan Đorđević did a lot of important things for local medicine, for the development of the capital and the country, for literature, and yet, until recently, the public belittled and misvalued his work. Dr. Jelena Jovanović Simić, senior curator of the Museum of Science and Technology, recently spoke about this at a meeting organized by "Lunjina", the Serbian-Cincar Society (later we will talk about why Cincari).

photos: museum of science and technology

Vladan Đorđević (1844–1930) was a doctor of medicine by education, the first Serbian specialist in surgery, he initiated the establishment of the Military Hospital in Niš, he founded the Serbian Medical Society and the Red Cross of Serbia and the First Belgrade Society for Gymnastics and Wrestling, which was the core of the development of Serbian falconry.

He was the mayor of Belgrade for one year, and during that time he laid the foundations of the capital city's communal development. He was minister of education and church affairs, representative of the minister of national economy, royal representative in Athens and Constantinople, and finally prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. He wrote short stories, plays, travel novellas.

And yet, until about twenty years ago, his name was associated with a derogatory name - vladanovština. "Cointed in the yellow press immediately after the resignation of the government, the term was once used as a synonym for a repressive regime. As the prime minister who failed to oppose the court in many issues, Vladan Đorđević certainly had moral responsibility for certain events, but he was not their initiator or the main actor. The negative reputation he gained at that time overshadowed Đorđević's entire work and largely contributed to his suppression from the memory culture of the Serbian people", Jelena Jovanović Simić assesses.

His first major biography was published only in 2007, authored by Dr. Suzana Rajić. Then the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts declared 2020 as the year of Vladan Đorđević, a large meeting was held about him, and that year busts with his image were unveiled in the grounds of the Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Clinical Center of Serbia. Two exhibitions were also held, first by Ivana Gruden from the National Museum in Nis, and then by Jelena Jovanović Simić. Portrait of a tireless creator (SANU and Museum of Science and Technology), who is also the author of the catalog from which we quote:

MAYOR OF BELGRADE

"He was appointed to this position as a political figure, a member of the Progressive Party, but also as a successful health service reformer who was rightly assumed to be able to manage the planned modernization of the Serbian capital." Đorđević himself emphasized that he accepted the post 'solely with the intention of using a great example to show how healthcare reforms should be carried out'. It was proposed by Stojan Novaković, Minister of the Interior.

As soon as he took office, Vladan Đorđević, in a medical way, began to establish status quo of all municipal affairs. He established that the municipal administration operates without any legal framework, that the number of employees is huge (as many as 672 people), that more than half of the municipal budget is spent on salaries, and that there are 6.000 unexecuted judgments, and that the amount of unpaid taxes reaches a fifth of the budget. He instituted strict work discipline - the clerks had to submit work reports to him personally every day. The result was not lacking - in just four weeks, 468 cases were resolved and 30 percent of the tax arrears were collected.

The most extensive and important jobs - the construction of water supply and sewerage - were supposed to be completed in four years. Two ways were considered for the introduction of modern public lighting, electricity and gas. The decision was made in favor of gas as a cheaper, more reliable and commercially profitable product. The city's gas plant was supposed to be put into operation in 1886. Two types of materials were chosen for paving the streets, stone blocks for the main ones, and macadam for the secondary ones. The planned works also included the construction of hygienic school buildings, covered markets, the arrangement of quays and parks, and the construction of a modern wharf on the Sava with large warehouses for goods, which would position Belgrade as an important trading port.

In parallel with the work on the communal systems project, Đorđević prepared proposals for two new laws - the Draft for the Law on the Municipality of the Capital and Capital City of Belgrade and the Organization of the Belgrade Municipal Excise Tax (excise tax law). Both proposals were submitted to the Government with a request for a solution as soon as possible. However, just at that time there was a conflict between Prime Minister Milutin Garašanin and Stojan Novaković, which ended with Novaković's resignation. Đorđević sided with Novaković, his best friend, and his brothers, and that meant losing the support of the government, which was now doing everything to practically make it impossible to pass the law, and thus the prepared reform. In such a situation, Đorđević had no choice but to resign."

Jelena Jovanović Simić emphasizes in the catalog that although the big jobs remained in the preparatory phase, "Vladan Đorđević managed to achieve significant results during the one year of managing Belgrade." The cemetery was finally moved to the outskirts of the city and was named the New Cemetery, and Belgraders called it Vladanovac for a long time; the city cleanliness service was founded; about 80.000 square meters of streets were paved; the municipal building was renovated; the park on the Great Market was arranged - today the Student Park; 1.300 trees were planted and the number of street lights doubled. Everything that Vladan Đorđević planned was realized much later - the Law on Belgrade Excise Duty was adopted in 1890, the water supply was put into operation in 1892, Belgrade received modern lighting, but electric, in 1893, while the construction of the sewage system only started in in 1905."

MINISTER OF EDUCATION

As soon as he was appointed Minister of Education in 1888, Đorđević sent two tenders, he writes in the catalogue: "one to the rectors of the Great School and Theological Seminary and the administrators of secondary and elementary schools, and the other to Metropolitan Teodosi, in which he instructed them to become teachers, i.e. priests they choose moral personalities who will be dedicated to their duties. Convinced since his youth that the role of the school is 'character formation', he stressed the importance of the educational role of teachers and the necessity of introducing teaching methods that will really enable students to acquire knowledge. For the main tasks of the educational program, he determined the implementation of the Law on Compulsory Primary Education from 1882, the increase in the number of primary schools, the opening of schools for girls, the construction of hygienic school buildings and the reform of the curricula for primary and secondary schools. By converting semi-gymnasiums and secondary schools into vocational and business schools, he wanted to achieve two goals - reducing the clerical apparatus and creating professional staff to boost the economy, which he worked on at the same time.

The balance of Đorđević's ten-month work in the department of education consists of 29 newly opened primary schools, the extension of high school education to eight years, the establishment of the Geodetic Institute of the Great School and the sending of 15 scholarship holders abroad to study natural sciences, mining, economics, statistics, pedagogy and other sciences. He established a system of aid to Serbian schools in Old Serbia and Macedonia."

PRIME MINISTER

In the summer of 1897, King Aleksandar Obrenović reconciled with his father, King Milan, who, after years spent abroad, wanted to return to Serbia and join state life. "At that time, the Radical Party was in power, opposed to King Milan for years, so it was necessary to replace the Radical government with a neutral government that would implement the policy of the court." Vladan Đorđević was undoubtedly proposed by King Milan as the new government's representative. Apart from being a 'trusted Obrenović', Đorđević was a man of conservative political beliefs, and officially, since leaving the Progressive Party in 1889, a non-party person.

Although he was very well aware of the political conditions both internally and externally, Vladan Đorđević accepted the position of Prime Minister with a certain amount of idealism. He truly believed that he was given the opportunity to realize ancient ideas and plans for the improvement of Serbia, and he invested enormous energy in his work. However, the arbitrariness of the two kings, financial difficulties, Russia's hostility and the Ivanjdan assassination limited his narrow space for action. As prime minister in an autocratic regime, Vladan Đorđević was not a person who makes major decisions. And yet, after the fall of the government, he bore most of the burden of its unpopularity, even the derogatory name for the entire regime – 'authoritarianism' – was derived from his name. How did it come about?

In order to achieve his intention, the marriage with Draga Mašin, in June 1900 King Alexander removed Vladan Đorđević and King Milan from Belgrade by sending them on vacation abroad. The day after the announced engagement, Đorđević's government resigned, refusing to wait for the formation of a new cabinet, which is why the king lashed out at her in the official newspaper. While it was in power, he stated, the former government "put him in front of itself" and thus "put it in the crosshairs", and then it allowed itself "unconstitutional behavior" – "shameful escape from duty". The first man of that vilified government became the main target of newspaper articles, and the very term 'government' was coined by Božidar Savić, the owner and editor of the Small Journal. Savić was guided by personal hatred, because during Đorđević's management of the health department, his scholarship was taken away due to unscrupulous studies at the Faculty of Medicine in Vienna."

Jelena Jovanović Simić further states that Vladan Đorđević returned to Belgrade in mid-August, after the king's wedding. "Since he was a bitter opponent of Queen Draga, the king saw him as his greatest enemy. When the king by decree took away his rank of reserve medical colonel and then his pension, he went into 'voluntary exile' in Vienna. By writing articles for Viennese political newspapers, he supported himself financially until after nine months, by decision of the State Council, his pension was returned. Accustomed to "giving a public account" of everything he did, he began work on a book in which he described and documented in detail all the events from the time he was in charge of the government. The book, published in 1905 in Belgrade, bears the title The end of a dynasty.

When, after the May coup and the accession to the throne of Petar Karađorđević, Vladan Đorđević entered into negotiations regarding his candidacy for the presidency of the Municipality of Belgrade, it was too much for the ruling Independent Radical Party, which apparently feared that people from the old regime might become serious about it. competition. The way to prevent Đorđević from participating in political life was found by Jovan Žujović, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Since they are in the book The end of a dynasty printed and individual reports of the former Russian deputy in Serbia Žadovski, the government filed an indictment against Đorđević for publishing confidential documents that are the property of the state. Đorđević was not tried under the Criminal Code, but under the Press Act from 1884, which was no longer in force because it contained a charge of publishing official correspondence without the approval of the authorities. In his defense before the court, which he thoroughly prepared and published, Đorđević pointed out this fact, but it did not help - he was sentenced to six months in prison in the famous Glavnjača, from March to September 1906. The diary that he kept in prison in the form of letters to Vukašin Petrović was published in 1909 under the title Minister in prison. "

photo: Museum of Science and Technology

THE FAMILY

Apart from Vladan Đorđević's career, the public also misinterpreted his private life. Jelena Simić says that Janko Veselinović is him in the novel A hero of our time presented in the character of Sreten Srećković how he leaves the lady he wanted to marry because a better opportunity came his way, and that Đorđević's cousin Aleksandar Deroko in the book And then a plane flew over Belgrade turned to Paulina, Đorđević's wife, saying that she had twenty-four children, so he did not know how many there were or which one was which. None of that was true.

"In the fall of 1865, Vladan Đorđević, a medic in his third year of study, met Paulina Bittner, an eighteen-year-old girl from an officer's family, in Vienna. From Vladan's and Paulina's relationship, a "student marriage", as he said, two children were born in Vienna, daughter Stajka and son Đorđe. As a state scholarship recipient, Vladan could not even think about marrying and living together with Paulina. That's why, shortly after her birth, they gave their daughter to a foster family in a village near Vienna, where they visited her on weekends. The girl did not live long, and her death brought her parents even closer. When Đorđe was born, Vladan was at the end of his specialist studies and decided to marry Paulina. He managed to break the resistance of his father, who suggested that he "pay" Paulina and that she marry in Belgrade "as befits him", a girl from a "better house".

Vladan and Paulina were married on November 23, 1871, in the Church of the Ascension in Belgrade. Their wedding was a sensation in the conservative Belgrade bazaar because it has never happened that a young, educated man marries his "lover", with whom he even has a child. Paulina was a prudent woman with a cheerful disposition who was her husband's best friend during the six decades of their life together. Together they went through all Vladan's ups and downs in his career and shared difficult moments of illness and death of children. Of the eleven children they had, eight died during their parents' lifetime."

ORIGIN

Vladan Đorđević is of Zincar origin, so that was the reason for the mentioned, recent lecture by Jelena Jovanović Simić about him, which was organized by the Serbian-Zincar Society "Lunjina".

Jelena Jovanović Simić states that "his parents, Đorđe and Marija, came from Cincar families who, due to the Turkish-Albanian pogroms, left their homeland in northwestern Greece, then in the Ottoman Empire. Vladan's paternal grandfather, Dimitrije Čuleka, was from the village of Furka in Epirus. He had a large estate that was cultivated by "hundred workers" in the summer and a stable of horses, and he was also involved in trade, doing business as far away as Vienna. Vladan Đorđević u Memories states that during one of Dimitrije's journeys, Ali Pasha Janjinski's troops ransacked his home, killed his father and son-in-law, and took his youngest daughter into slavery, and that Dimitrije and his family immediately fled to Serbia.

photo: Museum of Science and Technology

Vladan's maternal grandfather, Marko Leko, was from the well-known Cincar village of Vlahoklisura. At the beginning of the 19th century, he settled in Bela Crkva, then in the Habsburg Monarchy, where he got married. He had a son and three daughters with his wife Anna. After the family moved to Belgrade around 1820, Marko successfully engaged in trade, and after his death, his son Toma developed the business even more. From the Leko family, which in the 19th century was among the most respected Belgrade families, came numerous intellectuals, the first of whom was the chemist Marko T. Leko.

Unlike the Leko family, which kept its surname even in the new homeland, in the Chuleka family the surname changed. It appears to have originally read Jimo. Dimitrije used his father's nickname, Čuleka, as his last name, a word that in their region meant someone who was "haughty and proud". Vladan's father Đorđe was the first to take the last name Đorđević, and his brothers followed him.

In the marriage of Đorđe and Marija Đorđević, six children were born, but only the second-born Vladan lived to adulthood. Giving him the name 'father of medicine' at his baptism, the godfather Konstantin German wished the boy that one day he would surpass his father through education and become a 'real' doctor. Hippocrates really did become a doctor, but before that he changed his name to Vladan and became one of the people who built modern Serbia."