BELGRADE (41 page)

Extremes of history, geography, politics and culture have combined to form the city and its image. Constantly moving, never quite settled, the Belgrade of the imagination is imbued with a ghostly presence, a spectral form real but difficult to pin down. It is made up of doubled and redoubled identities, reflections of the discontinuous lines of its past and the memories of its many origins. It is a city that gives its artists the opportunity to fill in the gaps, to repair the holes left by accidents of history and geography. The story of Belgrade is a dramatic narrative, and its storytellers offer a glimpse of its elusive unity.

Serbian is no more or less difficult than any other foreign language for speakers of English to learn. It is one of the members of the Slavonic family of languages which can be found across much of Eastern Europe. They are sub-divided into three groups: the East Slavonic group (Byelorussian, Russian, Ukrainian), the West Slavonic (Czech, Polish, Slovak, Sorbian) and the South Slavonic (Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian, Slovene). Some would add Bosnian and Montenegrin to this list of South Slavonic languages but these terms have not yet acquired the greater currency of the others. Until recently the languages spoken across Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro were considered one, called Serbo-Croatian. Nowadays, many native speakers regard them as quite separate linguistic units, like badges of different nationalities and cultural traditions. They remain very close and are mutually comprehensible; Serbs, Croats and Bosnians have no need for an interpreter to speak to one another. Language or dialect differences, as in the United Kingdom, identify where people are from rather than their ethnic group.

There is one factor which distinguishes Serbian from the other Slavonic languages. Walking down the streets of Belgrade, or any other Serbian town, the visitor will immediately see examples of writing in both Latin and Cyrillic letters all around. The Latin alphabet is like the one used in English and the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is similar to the one in Russian. Of the two alphabets Cyrillic was developed for writing first, with the Latin script introduced as Serbian culture moved closer to the West. There is no strict rule to say which alphabet should be used on which occasion, while for individual use it is a matter of personal choice. Some newspapers are printed in Cyrillic and some in the Latin alphabet, billboards, labels on goods in shops, even graffiti may be in one or the other script. Of course, they are not mixed in the same word or text. In order to find your way around town and read street signs and other information you need to be able to recognise both alphabets. However, it is quite straightforward to convert from one to the other using the table given below. Both the Latin and the Cyrillic alphabets contain 30 letters to represent the same 30 sounds. The Latin alphabet is given in the first row with its Cyrillic equivalent underneath:

Spelling and pronunciation are very easy in Serbian since words are written according to phonetic principles. Each letter represents one sound and each word is spelt as it is pronounced.

The following notes are intended to help provide a basic guide to pronunciation by dividing the letters of the Latin alphabet which differ in their sounds from English into three groups.

I    Vowels tend to be shorter than in English:

a    as in c
a
t

e    as in f
e
ll

i    as the
ea
in l
ea
n

o    as in kn
o
t

u    as the
oo
in m
oo
n

II    These letters have only one distinct sound:

c    pronounced like the
ts
at the end of ca
ts
(never like a
k
or
s
)

g    pronounced like the
g
at the beginning of
g
oat (never as in lar
g
e)

h    pronounced in the throat like the sound at the end of Scottish loc
h

j    pronounced like the
y
at the beginning of
y
ou

lj   pronounced like the
ll
in the middle of mi
ll
ion

nj   pronounced like the
ni
in the middle of o
ni
on

r    pronounced with a trill, not in the throat as in French

III    The last group of letters is formed with the help of accents above the letter but they represent sounds which are similar to ones in English:

č    pronounced like the
ch
in
ch
ild

ć    pronounced like the
t
in
t
une

dž    pronounced like the
j
in
j
udge

đ    pronounced like the
d
in
d
ew

š    pronounced like the
sh
in
sh
oe

ž    pronounced like the
s
in the middle of plea
s
ure

The letters Đ and đ in the Latin alphabet are sometimes written as Dj and dj respectively.

In order to make it easier to identify street names when walking in town I append here a list of those featured in the book with their Serbian form in both Latin and Cyrillic script:

The sections below contain the titles of the more important sources used in writing this book. All quotations from Serbian/Croatian original sources have been translated by the author, except where a translation is given below in which case quotations have been taken from the published translation.

Antonić, Zdravko et al (eds),
Istorija Beograda
. Belgrade: Balkanološki institut SANU, Izdavačka kuća Draganić, 1995

Bogunović, Slobodan-Giša,
Arbitektonska enciklopedija Beograda XIX i XX veka
, 3 volumes. Belgrade: Beogradska knjiga, 2005

Crnjanski, Miloš,
Beograd
. Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1999 (Translation of French publication
Belgrade
. Belgrade: Bureau central de presse, 1936)

Čubrilović, Vasa
et al
(eds),
Istorija Beograda
, 3 volumes. Belrgade: Prosveta, 1974

Glumac, Slobodan,
Belgrade
. Belgrade: Jugoslovenska revija, 1989

Nušić, Branislav Đ., “Beogradske kafane”, in
Sabrana dela Branislava Nušića
, vol XXII. Belgrade: Geca Kon, 1935, pp.125–183

Prodanović, Mileta,
Stariji i lepši Beograd
. Belgrade: Stubovi kulture, 2001

Radulović, Jovan
et al
(eds),
Ulice i trgovi Beograda
, 2 volumes. Belgrade: Biblioteka grada Beograda, 2004

Vujović, Branko,
Beograd u prošlosti i sadašnjosti
. Belgrade: Draganić, 1994

Vujović, Sreten,
Grad u senci rata: Ogeldi o gradu, siromaštvu i sukobima
.Novi Sad: Prometej; Belgrade: Institut za sociologiju Filozofskog fakulteta, 1997

Crnjanski, Miloš, “Posleratna književnost: literarna sećanja”, in
Izabrana dela
, vol XII. Belgrade: Nolit, 1983, pp.63–92

Damjanović, Ratomir et al (eds),
Serbia: Srpski narod, srpska zemlja, srpska duhovnost u delima stranih autora
. Belgrade: Itaka, 1996

Lamartin, Alfons de,
Spisi o Srbima
(Lamartine, Alphonse de,
Les écrits sur les Serbes
). Belgrade: Utopija, 2006 (Bilingual edition of Lamartine’s writings on Serbia)

Lukić, Sveta,
Bivši Beograd
. Belgrade: Draganić, 1995