Marking ten year anniversary of
Boris Kidrič's death, a monument dedicated to him was placed in the park in 1963. It was sculptured by Nikola Jovanović. One of the leaders of Slovenian partisans in World War II, and
Josip Broz Tito's close collaborator Kidrič was appointed de facto
Yugoslav minister of economy in 1948. After the
Tito–Stalin split in 1948, and the ensuing
Informbiro period, alleging that the Serbia as the Yugoslavia's east might be occupied by the
Soviet Union, he started to transfer entire factories from Serbia to the western parts of the state, including the much more developed Slovenia. This included the equipment, experts, workers, licenses, technical documentation, industrial knowledge and technology. There was some opposition from the workers, but it was suppressed, and Kidrič remained disliked in Serbia. This move has been criticized even during the Communism. Tito felt differently, so after Kidrič's premature death from cancer in 1953, at 41, he decided to memorialize his name. First, the Beogradska Street in downtown was renamed to Borisa Kidriča Street, and the Institute for examination of the structure of matter was renamed The Institute for Nuclear Sciences Boris Kidrič. Ten years later the monument was finally placed. Dislike for him in Belgrade and Serbia remained, so Borisa Kidriča was among the first streets which changed names after the fall of Communism when the former name, Beogradska, was reinstated in 1991. That same year, decision was made to rename the institute to
Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences. In the fall of 1996, the monument was removed from the park and relocated to the
Museum of Contemporary Art in
Ušće. There were some opposing voices, stating that Belgrade shouldn't do what many post-Communist states and cities have done, to indiscriminately remove all monuments from the former period. However, the decision in the Belgrade Assembly was unanimous, an extremely rare situation in the 1990s, that both the regime and opposition vote for the same decision. The pedestal was left in the park, so that it could be used for the new monument. There were several suggestions, and finally it was proposed that Prince Miloš should get a monument, as he had none, and the street where the location is, was named after him. Municipality of Savski Venac proposed this in 1996, but for the next eight years, the paperwork rested in some drawer. It was finally decided to place the monument after the massive reconstruction of the park in 2004. It was decided to use replica of
Petar Ubavkić's composition originally sculptured for the
1900 Paris World Fair. Named
Takovo Uprising, it represented the prince and
archimandrite Hadži Melentije. For ideologial reasons, this monument has been cut in pieces after World War II, but the pieces were kept. In 1981 the monument was reconstructed, and in 1990 it was placed in
Takovo. The replica was dedicated in the park on 26 September 2004, and placed on the pedestal remaining from the Kidrič's monument. == References ==