Emilijan Josimović

Emilijan Josimović (Moldova Nouă, Caraș-Severin County, then part of Austrian Empire, 1823 - Sokobanja, 25 May 1897) was a Serbian urban planner who designed the first urban plan of Belgrade at the same time as Cerdà in Barcelona and Georges-Eugène Haussmann in Paris from 1853 until 1870. Josimović was arguably the first modern Serbian urbanist and the first modern professor of architecture in Serbia.[1]

Biography

The family

Emilijan Josimović was born in 1823 in the town of Moldova (now Romania), in the Serbian family of border lieutenant Josimović. He had one older brother and two younger ones. Jovan the older brother was engaged in trade and cooperated with Miša Anastasijević, who helped in Emilijan's schooling, considering that his father died early on. Emilijan married twice. First, Emilija, the daughter of Vasilije Lazić, and he had three children with her: a daughter Anka and two sons, Nikola and Milivoj. After Emilia's death, Emilijan married Živka, with whom he left Belgrade in 1887. The married couple lived first in Šopić, near Lazarevac, and later in Sokobanja, where Emilian died on 25 May 1897.[2]

Education

In 1831, Emilijan enrolled in a grammar school in Caransebes. He finished the mathematical military school in Lugoj, and completed his university studies at the University of Vienna, earning a degree in philosophy and technical sciences at the age of 22.

Work in education

Emilijan Josimović spent his entire working life dedicated to teaching and designing innovative urban cityscapes. Upon his arrival in Belgrade, on 18 September 1845, he became a part-time professor at the Belgrade Lyceum, where he taught mathematics. He also founded the Technical Society.[3] In the Belgrade Artillery School,[4] where he worked from 1850, first as a part-time professor, and from 1854 to 1869 as a full professor, in addition to mathematics, he also taught mechanics, and then geodesy. He became a full professor at the Grande école on 19 November 1869. There he was the head of the Mathematics Department and then became its rector. He retired from the Grande école (Visoka škola) which by then was soon-to-become the newly-formed University of Belgrade[5] after 33 years of dedicated educational work. Josimović wrote university textbooks in Serbia in trigonometry, mathematics, mechanics, geometry, descriptive geometry and perspective, as well as a textbook on civil architecture and road construction.

Social engagement

He was one of the founders of the "Belgrade Singing Society" in 1853.[6] As an engineer, he tried in 1867 to solve the issue of water supply in the city of Belgrade. He published his "Proposal" in the newspaper and imagined that water would be pumped from the Danube with the help of pumps.[7]In 1885, pensioner Josimović was a regular member of the "Serbian Agricultural Society". He also wrote articles for the professional newspaper "Težak" (1889).[8]On 1 August 1848, he became a regular member of the Society of Serbian Letters.

Urbanism

Emilijan Josimović actively participated in the public and social life of Belgrade and Serbia, in which there were few intellectuals at that time. He became a member of the Society of Serbian Letters, and then of the Royal Serbian Academy.[9]He also participated in the founding and work of the first Technical School, the forerunner of the current Association of Technicians and Engineers of Serbia. The most significant work of Emilijan Josimović is certainly "Explanation of the proposal for regulating that part of the city of Belgrade that lies in the trench"[10] made from 1864 to 1867, the year when Belgrade officially became a free city when the Turks left.[11]

The bold and far-reaching Josimović plan is referred to as the area of today's narrowest city center. This was at the same time when large construction works were being carried out in other major European cities, such as Haussmann's renovation of Paris and Ildefons Cerdà's "extension" of Barcelona called the Eixample. The first urban plan traced some of the basic axes of today's Belgrade - Knez Mihajlova Street,[12] Tsar Dušan, King Peter I avenues. Until then, the streets of Belgrade were mostly winding. The trench was an external fortification whose line can be recognized in the broken routes of today's Kosančić's, Topličin's and Obilić's wreath (circle).[13]Emphasizing the lack of greenery and free spaces for rest, Josimović proposes public parks on the site of the Great Market (Studentski trg) and on Kalemegdan.[14]The first idea for the construction of a modern water supply system in Belgrade was put forward by Emilijan in 1867. He started from the fact that the central reservoir should be placed in the highest part of the town, in the Upper Town, while the steam engine would bring water from the Danube, and then it would be distributed from the top of the hill to various parts of the city. However, there was no money or support for his ideas.[15]

Adoption of the first urban plan of the old town of Belgrade

The centenary of the adoption of the first urban plan of the old core of Belgrade was marked in 1967 with a special exhibition and a ceremonial academy. The Institute of Architecture and Urbanism of Serbia had published a special publication "Emilijan Josimović - the first Serbian urbanist", whose author was Dr. Branko Maksimović.[16][17][18]

During the renovation of Knez Mihailova Street street and its transformation into a pedestrian zone in 1987, a monument with the name of Emilijan Josimović and the year of the adoption of the first urban plan for Belgrade was erected on Republic Square in front of the building where the Ruski car Tavern is located.

A street in Belgrade is named after him.[19]

References
  • Translated and adapted from Serbian Wikipedia:
  1. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/286913989.pdf
  2. name="наш први архитекта">"Емилијан Јосимовић, наш први архитекта". Политикин забавник. Archived from the original on 2013-01-07. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
  3. Šolaja, Vladimir; Magdić, Adela (1994). Course of Serbian engineering in the nineteenth century (in Serbian). Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti.
  4. Barbin, Évelyne; Menghini, Marta; Volkert, Klaus (2019-07-01). Descriptive Geometry, The Spread of a Polytechnic Art: The Legacy of Gaspard Monge. Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-14808-9.
  5. Conley, Tanja D. (2020-02-25). Urban Architectures in Interwar Yugoslavia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-68645-0.
  6. "Срђ"; Дубровник 1903. године
  7. "Београдске општинске новине", Београд 1938. године
  8. "Тежак", Београд 1885-1889. године
  9. name="сану">"Емилијан Јосимовић". САНУ. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  10. FNRJ, Akademiski savet (1968). Bulletin Scientifique: Sciences naturelles, techniques et médicales. Section A. Le Conseil.
  11. Klusáková, Luďa (2004). "We" & "the Others": Modern European Societies in Search of Identity : Studies in Comparative History. Charles University. ISBN 978-80-246-0786-3.
  12. Stammler, Heinrich A.; Stanew, Emilijan (1976). "Nächtliche Lichter". Books Abroad. 50 (4): 909. doi:10.2307/40131189. ISSN 0006-7431. JSTOR 40131189.
  13. Vukotić-Lazar, M. M., & Danilović-Hristić, N. M. [2015]. Rast i razvoj Beograda u periodu od 1815. do 1910. godine. Zbornik radova Filozofskog fakulteta u Prištini, (45—3), 51-80.Српски цитатни индекс Приступљено 28 January 2018.
  14. "Калемегдан". Дан у Београду. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  15. Стојановић, Дубравка (2017). Калдрма и асфалт: урбанизација и европеизација Београда 1890-1914 (четврто ed.). Београд: Удружење за друштвену историју. p. 140.
  16. Објаснење предлога за регулисање онога дела вароши Београда што лежи у шанцу : са једним литографисаним планом у размери 1/3000 / од Е. Јосимовића. - [Београд] : у Државној књигопечатњи, 1867. - [4], 47 стр., [1] савијен лист. COBISS 135618823
  17. Објаснење предлога за регулисање онога дела вароши Београда, што лежи у Шанцу : са једним литографисаним планом у размери 1/3000 / Е[милијан] Јосимовић. - Београд : Друштво урбаниста Београда, 1997. - 45 стр. : планови ; 23 cm. / Фототипско изд. издања Државне књигопечатње из 1867. COBISS 16129039
  18. Deane, Darren; Butler, Sarah (2016-12-05). Nationalism and Architecture. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-91579-3.
  19. "Emilijana Joksimovica, Belgrade, Serbia, Street View, Geographic.org". geographic.org. Retrieved 2020-06-16.
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