The Park of Friendship in New Belgrade: A Living Monument of Peace and Solidarity

Zoran Cvetković

Review of the National Center for Digitization, Tome 47 (2025), p. 13

Résumé

The Park of Friendship in New Belgrade was constructed in 1961 as a commemoration of the First Non-Aligned Summit in Belgrade. This Park has offered leaders, visitors of the city the opportunity of planting their trees in the Park to symbolize Friendship, and hope, and a purpose of better life in all parts of the world. This article discusses the background and presents a number of facts concerning the Park of Friendship. Furthermore, there is a comparison between the Park of Friendship and the global situation in the second half of the 20th century. The Park was visited almost 200 world leaders since the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement and the First Conference of Non-Aligned Countries until the end of the 20th century. The practice was to plant a tree that was a significant mark of the Friendship and solidarity, and the desire of peace. To ensure that information about the Park of Friendship is kept, this article gives a list of all countries and the heads of state who have planted their trees. As time had passed the world changed: by overall progress, but also by a turbulent events. Some of countries do not exist anymore. Some of leaders from the Park finished their political carrier, sometimes a life, under tragic circumstances. By consulting available sources a review of their later life is presented. Finally, the emerging urban plans of the city of Belgrade may result in the permanent destruction of this monument place that is Yugoslav and, to put it mildly, a monument place to the entire world. Hence, this paper is a call to preserve the Park of Friendshipin the form of the memorial site since it is encrypted in the Cultural heritage register of Serbia, besides other values.

Détail

Keywords: Park of Friendship, Non-Aligned Countries, Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito