Metadata: Administration of the City of Belgrade
Collection
- Country:
- Serbia
- Holding institution:
- Historical Archives of Belgrade
- Holding institution (official language):
- Историјски архив Београда (Istorijski arhiv Beograda)
- Postal address:
- Palmira Toljatija 1, 11070 Belgrade; PAK 190446
- Phone number:
- (+381) 11 2606-336
- Web address:
- https://www.arhiv-beograda.org
- Email:
- office@arhiv-beograda.org
- Reference number:
- IAB-1
- Title:
- Administration of the City of Belgrade
- Title (official language):
- Управа града Београда
- Creator/accumulator:
- Administration of the City of Belgrade
- Date(s):
- 1837/1941
- Language:
- Serbian
- German
- Turkish
- Extent:
- 531 linear metres (383 volumes, 3,188 boxes, 848 card file boxes)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection holds the records created by the Administration of the City of Belgrade from 1837 to 1941. It contains documents created by the General Administration (Civil Engineering Department, Department for Social Policy and Public Health, Financial Department), police authorities (Administrative Department – Personnel Section, Special Police Department, and Central Register Office of the Administration of the City of Belgrade, Concentration camp Banjica, and Criminal Police Department) and precincts. In addition to general documents the fonds includes the Register of Belgrade Citizens, Banjica Concentration Camp detainees’ books and documentation of Special Police Department established by Nazi authorities in occupied Belgrade in WWII.
The records of the Administration of the City of Belgrade provide information on the political, cultural and economic history of the 19th and early 20th century, such as dynastic changes in Serbia, uprisings and conflicts with the Turks, the murder of Prince Mihailo, sessions of the National Assembly, as well as general information on Belgrade citizens, on communal problems and city infrastructure construction, on the crafts, trade guilds, merchants, schools, health care problems, and cultural events.
The fonds contains a significant number of documents related to Belgrade Jews, covering all segments of life of their community. As Belgrade citizens, members of the Jewish community appear in the registers of citizens, registers of merchants and craftsmen, lists of taxpayers and tax exemptions. Many of the documents refer to the following issues: payment of debts owed to Jewish merchants, list of merchants and their businesses, applications and permits for merchant activities, partnership agreements, assets and finances (deeds, inheritance, assessments of properties, payments of taxes and other fees). There are numerous authorisations, power of attorneys issued for courts and other merchants’ businesses; a certain number of oaths in Hebrew written for court purposes. The oldest document of the fonds referring to Belgrade Jews dates back to 1837. It is a police request to examine the business between Lazar Haim Demajo from Vienna and Solomon Koen.
The collection also contains data on the movements of Jewish citizens, their requests for admission to Serbian citizenship or for waiver of Serbian citizenship, applications for passports for traveling across Serbia or abroad. Daily and monthly police reports contain: lists of passengers, lists of detained persons for different violations, reports on thefts, events in the town, personal conflicts. There are also ten-day reports made by Jewish Religious-School Community on births and deaths in the community, on hospital treatments and hospital expenses; on the activities of Belgrade Jewish community and its relationship with the city authorities, information on its competences, representation of interests of its members, tax collection, incomes and expenses, petitions for exempting poor Jews from paying taxes, organisation of a school for Jewish children, requests to the authorities to expel some of their members. The collection is a valuable source for studying the city development in general and its quarters, such as the Mahala and Dorćol quarters, which were mostly inhabited by Jews. Jewish male citizens were recorded on the military and fire recruiting lists, likewise their written requests to be excused for not attending the military exercises. A number of documents contain data on war damages caused to Jewish citizens in World War I and on the social and cultural life of Jewish community (applications for organising parties, social events etc).
- Archival history:
- The following institutions transferred the documents of the Administration of the City of Belgrade to the Historical Archives of Belgrade: Archives of Serbia in 1955, 1959, 1961, 1973 and in 1976; Secretariat for the Interior of the City of Belgrade - County Prison Department in 1976; Secretariat of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia in 1968; Archives of Yugoslavia in 1976. The collection is categorised as a collection of exceptional importance. It is incomplete.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Administration of the Town of Belgrade (around 1870 renamed the Administration of the City of Belgrade) was constituted on 13 July 1839 in accordance with the Law on Municipalities, up to 1841 considered a Belgrade Municipality as well. The Administration exercised its administrative and police authority until 1850, judicial until 1889. In 1860 Belgrade was divided into six precincts (Town, Dorćol, Palilula, Terazije, Savamala and Vračar). Precincts represented departments of the Administration. Police tasks were performed by the Gendarmerie. As the city expanded, the number of precincts increased as well. The Administration of the City of Belgrade reported to the Ministry of the Interior until 1903, while the Municipality of the City of Belgrade came under the authority of the Administration of the City of Belgrade. During the First World War, the Administration of the City of Belgrade ceased to work until the liberation of Serbia and the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on 1 December 1918. According to the Regulation on the Organisation and Operation of the Administration of the City of Belgrade of 1930, the territorial jurisdiction extended to territories of the municipalities of Belgrade, Zemun and Pančevo. During WWII the Administration continued to operate under the name Police Department of Belgrade until the liberation of Belgrade on 20 October 1944.
- Subject terms:
- Citizenship
- Crime
- Education
- Education--Schools and universities
- Expulsion
- Financial matters
- Financial matters--Debt
- Health and medical matters
- Health and medical matters--Hospitals
- Holocaust
- Holocaust--Concentration camps
- Jewish community
- Jewish oath
- Jewish quarters
- Law enforcement
- Law enforcement--Police
- Migration
- Military
- Passports and visas
- Professions
- Professions--Crafts
- Real estate
- Taxation
- Trade and commerce
- Vital records
- Vital records--Birth records
- Vital records--Death records
- World War I
- World War II
- System of arrangement:
- The collection is arranged according to the principle of provenance.
- Access, restrictions:
- The archive material of the fonds is available according to the regulations of the Historical Archives of Belgrade.
- Finding aids:
- The following finding aids are available: summary inventory, analytical inventory, thematic card register.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Historical Archives of Belgrade
- Author of the description:
- Jelena Jovanović; Historical Archives of Belgrade; 2019