Small, barely a hundred meters, barely five houses

...

This is one of the few streets in the city center that, despite its three-century duration, bears a name that is only a little over fifty years old. Until the first half of the 18th century, there were no houses or streets in this place, but the central Turkish cemetery lay there, i.e. Orta cemetery, as they called him. In their desire to make the best possible use of the space left within the city walls, the Habsburg authorities during their rule in Belgrade in 1717-1739. in this place they designed a street, the same width as the others around it, i.e. somewhat wider than today. However, almost nothing was raised in it for the Austrian government. This enabled the Turks to, after 1739, tears, increasing the area of ​​their houses and yards, leaving between them just enough space for an alley. However, they did not change one thing - its almost straight line. On Stokelo's plan (1789) we see it very similar to today's, together with the alley that still exists today behind "Kolac". In the first half of the 19th century, the area of ​​the upper side of the Great Market, today's Student Square, was one of the most prestigious locations in the town. On the southern corner of this nameless alley and the Great Market in 1835/36. According to the designs of Karel Arendt, the classicist house of the master Jevrem Obrenović, who was always eager to be guided by European models, was built. On the opposite side it is before 1842. the house of the Germana brothers was built, of whom Jovan was the manager of the town (1839) and Jevrem's son-in-law, and Nikola the manager of the customs office and "government banker". Just as solid as Jevrem's, the house of the German brothers figured as a building that could be purchased for the court of Prince Alexander. At that time, construction was still on the same lines as the Turks, so these two new, quality-built one-story houses determined the width of this street in the long term, and thus its secondary role in further history. Namely, the houses were built only 3,3 m apart from each other, which was quite common for Belgrade in the first half of the XNUMXth century (as, after all, for all previous centuries). However, while smaller and more modest houses in the other streets were slated for demolition, these two "two-story houses made of hard material" made it impossible for Emilian Josimović to widen this street when in 1867 made his proposal for the regulation of Varoš in the ditch. Instead, he just adapted to the situation and projected its lines in the extension of the sides of the already mentioned houses. Thus, this street remained a living witness of what the streets of old Belgrade would have looked like had it not been for their expansion in the regulations from the second half of that century. It is not surprising that this narrow alley was easily overlooked in the first attempt to name streets, the one from 1848. years. It was first observed in 1864. when the proposal was made to take the name Millionaireska. This extremely unusual name may have been inspired by the fact that the street, which is described in the list as "between the house of Mr. Mišina and the deceased Vasa Garašanin", stood between the house of Captain Miša Anastasijević (formerly Jevremova) and his son-in-law Vasili Vasa Garašanin, Ilija's cousin, whose marriage with Captain Miša's daughter became the bond between these two powerful families. Moreover, the houses themselves were "millionaire", spacious, lordly, with large gardens that stretched the entire length of the plots, following two-thirds of the length of the street. In accordance with this unimplemented nomination proposal, in 1870. year at the corner of this and Kneza Mihaila Street (today's no. 40), the large palace of the merchant Radovan Barlovac, the first two-story building in this street, was built according to the project of the architect Aleksandar Bugarski, known as the Lahovari Palace, because it once belonged to Simka Lahovari, the granddaughter of Jevrem Obrenović. Following the same "millionaire" thread, in the house of Vasa Garašanin, at the end of the 19th century, the German consulate was located, then the commander of the Royal Guard, Colonel Aleksandar Konstantinović, lived there, and even later, before the First World War and at its beginning, here was the English legation. The street received its first official name in the first comprehensive and successful street renaming in 1872.

Then it was called Malajnička, together with its continuation that was just being created on the other side of Kneza Mihaila Street. Together with that street, in 1896 it will change its name to Uskočka. However, if there was a street somewhere that needed to be divided into two, it was then Uskočka, given that it did not cross Knez Mihailova in a straight line, i.e. that it does not form an intersection with it, but looks like two separate streets that flow into it at a short distance from each other. However, once united, these two branches of the then street shared the name until 1967. There is still one reminder of the previous name. Namely, the cul-de-sac facing the rear facades of the Kolarc Endowment and the First Croatian Savings Bank is still called Uskočko sokače. This dead end is as old as the rest of the street (see above). At that time, there were several houses in it, and until Josimović's regulation in 1867, there was a real possibility that it too would become a real street. However, Josimović believed that those dead-ends in Belgrade's Varosha in the ditch, of which he counted 40, should disappear because they confuse the traffic and in that way hinder it, as well as because they were "bottlenecks for all kinds of impurity".

However, mostly thanks to the building of the First Croatian Savings Bank, which provided more natural light in the counter hall with its third facade, this alley has been preserved to this day. It is not difficult to explain the fact that no one was involved in renaming it, given that this alley previously had no residents or bars, while today there is only the long-standing cafe "Informbiro". The streets got their present appearance between the two wars. First, in 1922, the large palace of the First Croatian Savings Bank was built at 42 Knez Mihailova, the work of the Zagreb architect Dionis Sunko. This was followed by the construction of the New University building on Kraljevo/Student Square, designed by architect Petar Gačić, which was completed in 1927. Finally, on the fourth corner of the street, in 1932, according to the projects of Petar Bajalović, the Ilija M. Kolarc National University was built. These three buildings transformed the street, giving it a metropolitan appearance, which has only been slightly changed to this day. Unfortunately, tall buildings have made this narrow street one of the darkest in the city center. In 1932, when the street had mostly already acquired its present appearance, we came across an interesting inscription about it: "It is small, barely a hundred meters, barely five houses. And in those five houses, behold miracles, music itself. It's that narrow street with no name between the University and the Kolarac endowment, from the square to Knez Mihajlova. In one house is the Concert Hall [“Kolarac”], in the other is the Belgrade Music Society, then “Obilić”, then Kolegium muzicum. So, everything. And in order for the musical nobility to be truly complete, our famous Saloma, Miss Nura Hadžić, also lives there."

We should note that the "Vremena" journalist does not know the name of this street, not even that it has a name, so it must be that it did not have any street sign at that time. That's why the title of this article ("Music Street") may not be there just to entertain us, but is also his suggestion as to how it could be called.

In March 1967, the Association "One Thousand and Three Hundred Corporals" was founded, which brought together still living members of the Skopje Student Battalion, high school and college students who were hastily made into corporals in November 1914 and sent from Skopje to the front in Kolubara, to help the efforts of the Serbian army. The association took its name from the title of a popular book by Milan Janjušević from 1939. The intention of the Association was to deal with the marking of places related to the history of this heroic company, most of whose surviving members, being highly educated, later came to important positions. They started the commemoration right here, by renaming this part of Uskočka street, chosen because it opened towards Studentski trg, and was located near the entrance hall of Captain Misha's building, where the names of their fallen comrades were written. In the end, it is not too bad to mention that in 1878, after its naming and numbering of homes, this street had only five house numbers (1-3 and 4-8), while today it has fallen to only two, one on each side of the street , which are secondary entrances to Kolarč's endowment and to the Faculty of Philology.

iz Street Old town - topography, urbanism, odonymy, Neighbors 2024.