A street to be named after Bobby Fischer

What’s In A Name?

13 October 2008
Wars, revolutions and regime changes – they’re all recorded in the oft-neglected street signs of Belgrade.
By Pat Andjelkovic

In 1977 it was hard to convince my French friends in Paris that I wasn’t out of my mind moving to Yugoslavia. Like true Frenchmen, they were concerned that I wouldn’t have enough to eat, or at least anything good to eat. My family “preko bare” (across the pond in America) was more worried that the Soviet Army would rush in to imprison little capitalistic me and brainwash my children.

Finally, they reluctantly conceded that Yugoslavia was non-aligned, and gave me their blessing. No email in those days, so when they saw the Bulevar Lenjina return address on my letter, I could hear their sniggers echo across the Atlantic.

How times have changed. The Soviets are gone, Yugoslavia is gone, and now I’m a resident of Serbia. Shakespeare penned, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Regimes have changed, too. Now Lenin’s Boulevard has been renamed after the scientist Mihajlo Pupin, and most people think it does sound sweeter. Even The Bard himself has a street named for him.

Finding a street here can be difficult, for signs are often posted high up on the wall of a corner building and obscured by trees. Often they’re only in Cyrillic. But designations are logical; boulevards are wide, often landscaped, streets usually have sidewalks, though we’re all aware they’re often full of parked cars.

Elsewhere, routes running east-west are streets and those running north-south are avenues. Not so here; too many winding streets, and besides, that’s too logical! New Belgrade is laid out on a grid plan, which you’d think would make it easy to locate your friend’s apartment, but signs and even building numbers are sorely lacking. If you manage to locate a building, then you’ll usually have to find out which entrance number you need. Locals know where certain “blokovi” are.

Blok 45 is near a big glass pyramid, and the Chinese Market is in Blok 70. To be fair, at least the streets are named bear real names, even if you can’t find the sign. There’s nothing more dehumanizing than living on L Street or B Avenue.

In 2004 the city began to change street names, which caused many Serbs to rejoice, since the old signs evoked negative communist-era connotations. Some received back their former names, connected to of historical figures or events. “Bulevar Oslobodjenja” (Liberation Boulevard,) pleased everybody, leaving interpretation wide open from whom the liberation was: the Turks, the Germans, a recent regime…

Unfortunately, Belgrade lacks charming street names like Paris’s “Rue du Chat Qui Pêche” (Fishing Cat Street). The narrow street near Kalemegdan, “Zmaj od Noćaja,” was not named after a mythical dragon, but a hero of the First Serbian Uprising. Anyway, rationality usually rules for street names, no cutesy stuff.

Sometimes a street is posthumously named after a distinguished literary figure, scientist, philosopher or musician. Streets named for the egocentric and powerful in their lifetime usually don’t last, which is why you no longer see streets in and around Belgrade named after Tito. In 2007 despite vociferous protests from an opposing political party, New Belgrade’s Boulevard AVNOJ was renamed Boulevard Zoran Djindjić in honour of the assassinated prime minister.

No sooner were signs up than Ratko Mladic stickers were slapped over them. But they were promptly peeled off. Nothing lasts forever. Svetogorska street downtown has changed names six times. Belgrade hasn’t got streets that evoke various professions like Wall Street or Fleet Street. Even “Silikonska Dolina,” or Silicon Valley refers to an area where silicon has been put to an entirely different use than computer chips.

Look for non-Serb names, too, like Theodore Dreiser, Archibald Rice, Anton Chekov, Anne Frank, Samuel Beckett, Georges Clemenceau, Patrice Lumumba, and President Kennedy. Often these people had some direct connection with Serbia, like Jacob Grimm, of the Brothers Grimm, who learned Serbian so he could read the country’s folklore in the original. In 2007, a decision was made to name a street after the late Japanese Ambassador Keisuke Oba, who had been associated with the former Yugoslavia for 30 years, and who is buried in Belgrade. An initiative is now underway for a street to be named after the legendary chess champion, Bobby Fischer.

Here is the full article.