The Victor

The Victor monument, Pobednik, a symbol of Belgrade, a statue of a man with a sword and a falcon, stand triumphantly on the Kalemegdan terrace, facing the Pannonia plains, the place all sorts of armies used to advance from for centuries. The Victor is the work of a renown Croatian (Yugoslav) sculptor  Ivan Meštrović, who made it as an homage to the Serbian victory in the Balkan Wars 1912–1913. The original plan was to put it on Terazije, but in the end it was put on Kalemegdan, and not before 1928, honouring the 10thanniversary of the Salonika Front break through.

HISTORY

The Balkan Wars for the Serbs were a sort of an introduction in the First World War. The First Balkan War in 1912 was the one for the final liberation of the Balkan lands from Turkey. The Second Balkan War in 1913 was between Serbia and Greece on the one and Bulgaria on the other side. After the Balkan wars, Serbia strengthened and regained Kosovo i Macedonia (Southern Serbia at the time).