Bežanija (, ) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Novi Beograd, in the Syrmia region.
Location
Bežanija is located west of the downtown Belgrade, across the Sava river, in the Syrmia region. It is situated in the central part of the Novi Beograd municipality, on the southern extension of the elongated, crescent-shaped yellow loess ridge of Bežanijska kosa. The ridge (or slope, as it is called in Serbian, kosa) gives its name to the northern extension of Bežanija, Bežanijska Kosa, and stretches to the right banks of the Danube in the neighborhood of Zemun. Once a suburb of Belgrade, separated from it by the vast marshlands on the Sava's left bank, Bežanija today forms one completely urbanized area with Belgrade thanks to the rapid development of Novi Beograd after World War II. Today, Bežanija extends to the northeast into Bežanijska Kosa and the west into Ledine.
Administration
After the World War II ended, Belgrade was divided into raions and Bežanija was part of the Raion X. When this division was abolished in 1952, Bežanija became a municipality. In 1955 it was annexed to the municipality of New Belgrade, but remained as the separate settlement until 1971, when it became a local community (Serbian: mesna zajednica) within Belgrade. In the 1990s, local community was administratively divided into Bežanija and Bežanijska Kosa.
Population
Bežanija experienced a rapid growth of population after 1948 as it was almost immediately attached to the newly constructed city-within-the city of Novi Beograd. As internal communal boundaries changed a lot since the 1970s, despite further expansion, censuses showed a reduced number of population as many border areas (entirely or partially) were detached from Bežanija (Bežanijska Kosa, blocks 61-65, etc.). Historical population of Bežanija (1921-61 as the separate settlement, 1971-81 as a local community, 2002-11 as local communities of Bežanija and Bežanijska kosa): 1921 - 2,069 1953 - 3,330 1961 - 7,129 1971 - 15,580 1981 - 14,067 2002 - 32,416 2011 - 38,204
History
Bežanija is the oldest part of today's Novi Beograd, where a settlement existed from the neolithic to the Roman period.
The remains belonging to the Scordisci, a Celtic tribe which founded Singidunum and Taurunum, the predecessors of Belgrade and Zemun, respectively, were found in Bežanija.
In the book Kruševski pomenik from 1713, which was kept in the Dobrun monastery near Višegrad, settlement of Bežanija was mentioned for the first time under its present name as far as 1512, as a small village with 32 houses, populated by Serbs. In this time, the village was under the administration of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, and was part of the Syrmia County. The inhabitants of the village crossed the Sava river and settled in Syrmia after fleeing the fall of the medieval Serbian Despotate under the hands of the Ottoman Empire (hence the name bežanija, "refugee camp" in archaic Serbian). Kruševski pomenik was later transferred to the National Library of Serbia and perished during the German bombing of Belgrade on 6 April 1941.
An old German map of the Syrmia, shows a village south of Zemun called Verschania. In 1521, the village became part of the Ottoman Empire. From 1527 to 1530, Bežanija was part of Radoslav Čelnik's Duchy of Syrmia, an Ottoman vassal, until its subsequent organization into the Ottoman Sanjak of Syrmia. The Habsburg monarchy conquered it temporarily during the Great Turkish War (1689-1691), but it remained under Ottoman administration by the provisions of the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, until 1718. In 1718, the village became part of the Habsburg monarchy and was placed under military administration. It was part of the Habsburg Military Frontier (Petrovaradin regiment of Slavonian Krajina). During the 17th and 18th centuries, hunger and constant Turkish intrusions devastated the village, but it was constantly being repopulated by the refugees from central Serbia. In 1810, population census counted 115, mostly Serbian households. By the 1850s, Austrians colonized a large number of Germans in Bežanija. In 1848-1849 it was part of the Serbian Vojvodina, an ethnic Serb autonomous region within the Austrian Empire, but in 1849 was again placed under administration of the Military Frontier.