THE MUNICIPALITY OF THE COUNTY OF PIROT: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY AND VISUAL CULTURE OF PIROT OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to briefly present the origin and organization of the state administration in the Pirot region and of  the Municipality of the Pirot County after the annexation to Serbia in 1878, and the erection of the Municipality building and its place in the visual culture of Pirot in the second half of the 19th century.

The end of the Serbian-Turkish wars of 1876-1878, and the acquisition of international recognition of the Principality of Serbia at the Berlin Congress in 1878, represents the beginning of a new period of legal, political and cultural development. It was necessary to harmonize the legal and political organization of the new parts of Serbia with the same in the Principality of Serbia, which was a complex and difficult process. The unification of the organization of new regions with the organization of the rest of Serbia meant the transformation of the political and legal order on the model of the European one. Namely, in the time of the rule of the constitutionalists, and the laws related to local government at that time were valid for a long period, the system of local government resembled the French system of centralization, which was founded by Napoleon. The basis of the French local government was the prefect, with the sub-prefect (manager of the arrondissement, county), and the counterpart of that in Serbia was the county chief with the chief of lower administrative unit, named srez. In the later period, taking into account the basis of the mechanism of work of the county self-government, the local government in Serbia maintained similarity with the French, which reformed its self-government in 1871. The county chief in Serbia remained a counterpart to the French prefect, who was subordinated to the central government and supervised the local assembly.

The Municipality of the Pirot County developed in accordance with the process of annexing the new parts of Serbia, after 1878, which was a painstaking process of unifying the state administration in those areas with the same in the rest of the Principality and, later, the Kingdom of Serbia. In essence, it is a process of Europeanization of public administration, which, through a series of reforms throughout the 19th century, starting from the time of the constitutionalists, was reflected in respecting the role models in modern European countries (especially the French model), but also in searching for indigenous solutions, the most suitable with the Serbian society, which was in constant development, as well as state institutions. In that sense, it was not a matter of merely transmitting European norms, but of seeking one's own path, following the example of organized modern states.

In the same direction, we notice the process of modernization and transformation of Pirot into a modern, European city, and the abandonment of Ottoman heritage and the principles of organization of cities of the Ottoman period. New urban plans were being created and public buildings of national importance were being built, all within the development of the new national identity and the needs of Serbian society and the state. There was a need for  the break with the Ottoman period and for accelerated Europeanization, based on laying new foundations in line with modern trends in Southeast Europe, in times when new nations, nation-states and modern societies emerged, resurrected with liberation from centuries of Ottoman rule.