Magistrate Square

On the square by Gospodska Street, the austere Neoclassical facade of the old city government survives. In this house, legal disputes were heard, the police were administered, employees were hired, and the market and night watches were supervised: decisions made here affected a shop, a workshop, and commercial transactions. Later, the city government was moved elsewhere, the court was housed within these walls, and the square retained the name of the house's former occupant. The municipal administration now operates next door, but the old magistrate still stands at number three.

The Neoclassical house at number three was built for the city magistrate. In March eighteen forty-eight, Zemun residents forced the magistrate to relinquish its powers. They sought elected administration in place of officials dependent on the military command, and immediately elected a council of thirty people.

Here, the magistrate was the name for the city government, which simultaneously oversaw the police and heard court cases. Zemun was part of the Military Frontier, a belt of settlements in the Habsburg Monarchy subject to military order. Above the magistrate stood the General Command. By the end of the eighteenth century, it was already appointing the city chief from among officers, most often captains.

For a resident of Zemun, the dispute over the structure of the magistrate began long before political slogans. Debts and contracts were settled here, city employees were appointed, and the market and night watches were supervised. A shop, a workshop, and a commercial transaction depended on officials' decisions. Replacing those officials meant challenging the military chain that appointed them.

In the spring of eighteen forty-eight, revolutions were unfolding across Europe. Zemun residents used the moment to return city affairs to elected representatives. But the conflict did not end there. In May, Serbian deputies in Sremski Karlovci proclaimed autonomous Serbian Vojvodina and created the Main People's Committee, a provisional government. In Zemun, they elected their own committee of seven people. The seven members wanted to place day-to-day administration under the new elected institutions.

The committee took administrative and police affairs away from the magistrate and took charge of finances and municipal services. Serbian began to be used in police papers, while the magistrate continued to conduct legal proceedings in German. The language change was quite practical: a complaint, order, or record could now be read by a person who had previously needed an interpreter.

The General Command demanded the restoration of the former magistrate. On November twenty-ninth, eighteen forty-eight, it was restored, but the March elections could no longer be completely annulled: twenty-four elected councilors remained alongside the old officials. Two systems thus operated at the same time. The magistrate retained the court, while the seven-member committee controlled the police, finances, and municipal affairs. In December, it even assumed the duties of the local military command.

Thus, Zemun residents did not limit themselves to replacing the people at the desks. They divided the powers of an institution that had previously combined city administration, police, and the court. For several months, the committee they had elected decided whom employees answered to and in what language documents were drawn up.

The military command brought the resolution. In August eighteen forty-nine, Zemun was placed under the Croatian-Slavonian Command in Zagreb. On August twenty-third, the seven-member committee ceased its work. By the end of the year, the former structure of the magistrate had been restored, and Zemun was not included in the Serbian Vojvodina created at that time. The councils elected by the townspeople had managed the city, but could not retain those powers.

All this took place in the surviving Neoclassical house at number three, built for the magistrate a few years before the revolution. The city government was housed here until eighteen seventy-one, after which the court was moved into the building. It was from this house that the square received the name Magistrate Square. The old magistrate stands at number three, while the current municipal administration operates next door, at number one.