The battle for Belgrade's historic riverfront Citizen resistance to radical urban changes

Abstract

Heritage, whilst concerned with the past, is now widely accepted to be inherently “present orientated” and political, because decisions concerning which parts of the past are deemed to be remembered and protected play a key role in how groups portray their peoples’ history, shared identity and collective memory to the outside world (Ashworth, Graham and Tunbridge 2007; Butler 2006; CoE 2009; Lowenthal 1998; and Peckham 2003). Planning decisions and government-led regeneration schemes can be interpreted as part of a wider “authorised heritage discourse” (Smith 2006) that reflects how those responsible for managing change to historic urban landscapes value the heritage and social fabric of their city.

This paper will analyse how through interventions in their urban fabric, nations narrate their histories by conserving, neglecting and destroying their built heritage. The focus will be on Belgrade's riverfront: the confluence of two international rivers – Sava and Danube – the strategic point for the city's birth and development by virtue of its topographical and natural features (Cvijić 2013). This area has lately become the centre of attention in the ongoing process of Belgrade's radical urban change.

How the built environment becomes a “contact zone” (Stephanides 2003) where “regimes of memory” (Radstone and Hodgkin 2003) are constantly being (re)negotiated will be explored through the consideration of three contemporary cases around the Belgrade riverfront. The agonistic struggles (Mouffe 2005, 2013) and political contestation associated with one of these three cases - the Belgrade Waterfront (Datoo 2018; Eror 2015; Shephard 2016; Surk 2018) offer an insight into levels of resentment against the neoliberal prioritisation of external investment over the retention of the authentic neighbourhoods of the city.