{"id":10036,"date":"2021-05-25T15:41:02","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T13:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visitdistrikt.rs\/?p=10036"},"modified":"2021-05-25T15:41:02","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T13:41:02","slug":"stories-of-the-novi-sad-cemeteries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visitdistrikt.rs\/en\/2021\/05\/25\/stories-of-the-novi-sad-cemeteries\/","title":{"rendered":"Silent Witnesses and Memory Keepers: Stories of the Novi Sad Cemeteries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novi Sad cemeteries, protected cultural monuments, history witnesses and memory keepers \u2013 they hide many stories of the city\u2019s history.<\/strong>
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When he arrived at the railway station in Novi Sad, on 4 January 1890, Mi\u0161a Dimitrijevi\u0107<\/strong> couldn\u2019t even imagine what kind of destiny awaited him. On Tucindan, an Orthodox holiday, a bloody fight happened. The owner and editor-in-chief of the Branik<\/em> newspaper died on that day. Ja\u0161a Tomi\u0107<\/strong> swung his hunting knife, cutting Dimitrijevi\u0107\u2019s winter coat, blazer, shirt, undershirt and the aorta.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Is the train here yet? We must go,\u2019 were Dimitrijevi\u0107\u2019s last words. He died shortly after on the railway platform.<\/span><\/p>\n

Six weeks prior to Milica Mileti\u0107<\/strong> and Ja\u0161a Tomi\u0107<\/strong>\u2019s marriage, she wrote to her first fianc\u00e9 Branko Petrovi\u0107<\/strong>, telling him to marry her as soon as possible. The shocking thing in this letter and the thing that also led to tragedy was Milica\u2019s promise to Branko that she\u2019ll make him the editor-in-chief of the Zastava<\/em> newspaper. The engagement was called off soon after, and Ja\u0161a Tomi\u0107, as Milica\u2019s husband, became chief editor. Milica\u2019s letter stained Tomi\u0107\u2019s career in politics and journalism. Both of them were the object of ridicule in Novi Sad and Zrenjanin. Before the tragedy happened, Tomi\u0107 published a text called \u2018To Shut Them Up\u2019 because he wanted to deal with Dimitrijevi\u0107 publicly, inviting him to publish the letter in Branik<\/em>. Dimitrijevi\u0107 didn\u2019t publish it, but in his last article, in addition to his sharp response to Tomi\u0107, he invited the readers to come to the editorial board and read it. Angry and hurt, Tomi\u0107 challenged Dimitrijevi\u0107 to a duel, but he declined it. On 4 January, on his way from work, Ja\u0161a Tomi\u0107 spotted Dimitrijevi\u0107 driving in a fiacre with his wife. Tomi\u0107 grabbed his hir\u0161fenger<\/em>, a bayonet, and started following them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mi\u0161a Dimitrijevi\u0107 was buried on Christmas day in the Alma\u0161 Cemetery, one of the most beautiful and most interesting cemeteries, in terms of history. It is located in Peace Square and represents the eternal home to many important people, people that worked in the field of culture or science; professors, engineers, artists, as well as highly respected citizens of the merchant class. People had been buried in the Alma\u0161 Cemetery in the period from 1860 to 1974, when it was closed. The cemetery was proclaimed a cultural monument ten years later. The monument built to honor Mi\u0161a Dimitrijevi\u0107 has artistic and architectural value. In addition to this monument, there are monuments dedicated to Pavle Simi\u0107<\/strong>, a great Serbian painter, Teodor Mandi\u0107<\/strong>, PhD, a publicist and a politician; there is a tomb for the famous composer Isidor Baji\u0107<\/strong>, while the ktetor Platon Atanackovi\u0107<\/strong> was buried in the crypt of the chapel of the Saints Peter and Paul.<\/span><\/p>\n

Editor-in-Chief of Zastava<\/em> for Over Three Decades<\/span><\/h2>\n

After what happened, Ja\u0161a Tomi\u0107 was sentenced to life in prison, but the sentence was reduced to six years. Claiming Ja\u0161a only defended his wife\u2019s honor, the women of Novi Sad gathered three thousand signatures to free him. Mrs. Amalija Stratimirovi\u0107<\/strong> led the deputation. As Lazar Raki\u0107<\/strong> stated in his book Ja\u0161a Tomi\u0107 (1856 \u2013 1922)<\/em>, Jakov Ja\u0161a Tomi\u0107 was a talented journalist and publicist. At the time, Serbs had more literate journalists than Ja\u0161a, but he stood out as the grandstanding one. The opposers admitted the fact that Ja\u0161a used demagogy to influence people. The Balkan Wars were extremely significant events in Tomi\u0107\u2019s biography. With his reports from the front lines, he caused great excitement and enthusiasm in Serbs who lived in the Kingdom of Hungary, giving hope to Serbia that the national question would finally be resolved. At the beginning of World War I, he was arrested and tortured, which worsened his already poor health. During his work in the Assembly in Novi Sad, Tomi\u0107 advocated the direct unification of Vojvodina and the Kingdom of Serbia in 1918, which opposed the ideas of certain politicians who thought of merging Vojvodina and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes through Zagreb.<\/p>\n

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