| Novo groblje (Cyrillic: Ново гробље, meaning New Cemetery in Serbian) is a cemetery complex in Belgrade, Serbia. It is located in Ruzveltova street in Zvezdara municipality. The cemetery was built in 1886 as the third Christian cemetery in Belgrade. The newly developed cemetery in that period had no chapel or church. The current church dedicated to Saint Nicholas was built in 1893 by Draginja and Stanojlo Petrović, through their generous endowment. The architect was Svetozar Ivačković.
Except for the graves of ordinary citizens, the cemetery complex also includes special parts: military graves from Serbian-Ottoman War, Serbo-Bulgarian War, Balkan Wars and World Wars, the Alley of the Greats and Alley of Distinguished Citizens, where some of the most important persons of Serbian history are buried.
The oldest memorial at Novo groblje complex is the Serbian soldiers' ossuary built in 1907 which contains remains of the soldiers of Serbian-Ottoman War and Serbo-Bulgarian War that were transferred from Tašmajdan cemetery. Another important part of the complex are the military graveyards with the remains of soldiers from Balkan Wars and World Wars. It contains remains of Serbian and other Allied soldiers, as well as Axis soldiers (there are French, Russian, British, Italian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian military graveyard). The complex of military graveyards also includes graves of those died in the 1941 and 1944 Bombing of Belgrade.
Alley of Distinguished Citizens (Serbian: Алеја заслужних грађана) was formed in 1965, and that alley is used since then for the distinguished and important citizens burial, after special procedure and approval of the City Assembly of Belgrade and Mayor of Belgrade. It contains single and group tombs of important writers, artists, actors, generals, people's heroes and other important persons. |