"Zemun" Zemun by bwk_michael

Zemun is a town in Serbia and one of the 17 municipalities which constitute the City of Belgrade, the country's capital. For most of its history, it developed separately from the Belgrade, which lies across the Sava river, but development of New Belgrade in the late 20th century joined them together in a continuous urban area.

The municipality is located in the eastern Syrmia region, in the central-western section of the Belgrade City area, along the right bank of the Danube. The urban section of Zemun is the both most northern and western section of the urban Belgrade. Zemun borders the province of Vojvodina on the west (municipality of Nova Pazova), and municipalities of Surèin on the south, Novi Beograd on south-east and Palilula and Stari Grad across the Danube (north and east, respectively).

Zemun originally developed on three hills, Gardoš, Æukovac and Kalvarija, on the right bank of the Danube, where the widening of the Danube begins and the Great War Island is formed at the mouth of the Sava river. The core of the city are the neighborhoods of Donji Grad, Gardoš, Æukovac and Gornji Grad. To the south, Zemun continues into Novi Beograd with which it makes one continuous urban area (neighborhood of Tošin Bunar). In the west it extends into the neighborhoods of Altina and Plavi Horizonti and to the north-west into Galenika, Zemun Polje and further into Batajnica.

The area of Zemun has been inhabited ever since the Neolithic period. The first Celtic settlements in Taurunum area originate from the 3rd century BC. Taurunum became part of the Roman province of Pannonia around 15 AD. After the Great Migrations the area was under the authority of various tribes and states. Intermittently held by the Byzantine Empire, it was conquered by the Kingdom of Hungary in the 12th century. In the 15th century it was given as a personal possession to the Serbian despot Đurađ Branković. After the nearby Serbian Despotate fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1459, Zemun became an important military outpost. It finally fell to the Ottomans on July 12, 1521. In 1541, Zemun was integrated into the Syrmia sanjak of the Buda pashaluk.

Zemun and the southeastern Syrmia was taken by the Austrian Habsburgs in 1717 and became a feudal property of the Schönborn family. Zemun was the site of a peasant revolt in 1736, as well as continued border wars with the Ottomans. The Treaty of Belgrade of 1739 finally fixed the border, the Military Frontier was organized in the region in 1746, and the town of Zemun was granted the rights of a military commune in 1749. In 1754, the population of Zemun included 1,900 Orthodox Christians, 600 Catholics, 76 Jews, and about 100 Roma. In 1777, the population of Zemun numbered 1,130 houses with 6,800 residents, half of which were ethnic Serbs, while another half of population was composed of Catholics, Jews, Armenians and Muslims. Among Catholic population, the largest ethnic group were Germans. From this period originates the increased settlement of Germans and Hungarians in the Zemun.

Zemun prospered as an important road intersection and a border city. In 1816 it was greatly expanded by mass resettlement of Germans and Serbs in the new town suburbs of Franztal and Gornja Varoš, respectively. In the 19th century, Zemun reached 7,089 residents and 1,310 houses. Zemun also became important in Serbian history as the refuge for Karađorđe in 1813 as well as many other people from the nearby Belgrade and the rest of Serbia which was still under Ottoman rule.


View of Belgrade from ZemunDuring the Revolution of 1848-1849, Zemun was one of the de facto capitals of Serbian Vojvodina, a Serbian autonomous region within Habsburg Empire, but in 1849, it was returned under the administration of the Military Frontier. With the abolishment of the Military Frontier in 1882, Zemun and the rest of Srem was included into Croatia-Slavonia, an autonomous land part of the Hungarian kingdom. The first railway line that connected it to the west was built in 1883, and the first railway bridge over the Danube followed shortly thereafter in 1884.

During the First World War in 1914, Zemun changed hands between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, finally ending up in Serbia on November 5, 1918. The town became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Kingdom of Yugoslavia). The inter-war period was marked by political struggle between the city gentry (organized into the Serbian Radical Party, Serbian Democratic Party and the Croatian Peasant Party) and the more socialist parties supported by the ethnic Germans.

In 1934 two intra-city bus lines were introduced connecting Zemun with the parts of Belgrade, and the general shift of attention towards this issue was supported by the growing Serbian population of Zemun. The Zemun airbases originally built in 1927 were an important geostrategic objective in the Axis invasion of April 1941.

During the Slobodan Milošević's regime late years, Zemun became a stronghold of notorious Zemun clan, one of principal organized crime cartels in Belgrade. The clan's criminal activity continued after Milošević's fall. Bosses and prominent members of this clan have been tried and convicted for the assassination of Serbian prime minister Zoran Đinđić. On July 21, 2008, Radovan Karadžić was arrested in Zemun, where he was practicing alternative medicine under the name Dragan Dabić.