The Family of Dr. Vladan Đorđević: Cultural Transfers in 19th- and 20th-Century Belgrade

Abstract

Dr. Vladan Đ. Đorđević was born in Belgrade in 1844 and died in Baden, Austria in 1930. He was a surgeon, scientist, writer, Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Army Medical Corps, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Serbia (President of the Council of Ministers), and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1897 to 1900. Vladan Đorđević’s real name was, in fact, Hippocrates, and his family name was Jimo or Čuleka. Not all Tsintsars and Greeks changed their names. Vladan Đorđević’s mother’s family has kept its original surname, Leko, to this day. His mother, Maria Đorđević, n.e Leko, was born in Bela Crkva in Banat, then part of the Habsburg Monarchy. Vladan Đorđević’s father, Đorđe Đorđević alias Georgije D. Georgijević, was in the medical service of the army of the Principality of Serbia (later becoming a medical lieutenant). Vladan Đorđević’s father and mother actually came from the same region of the Balkans, and their families left their ancestral homes and went north for the same reasons. Đorđe Đorđević was born in the predominantly Aromanian village of Fourka in present-day Greece. Vladan Đorđević’s maternal grandfather, Marko Leko, was born in Vlachokleisoura, today Kleisoura in the Greek municipality of Kastoria. Migration to the northern areas of Southeast Europe was gradual. Merchants from the Ottoman Empire used to travel to and live in the Habsburg Empire for business purposes. Final departures from the old country were caused by the violence of the local semi-independent pashas. The most notorious was Ali Pasha of Ioannina. As is well known, the Tsintsars, like the Greeks, considered the Orthodox Church based in Constantinople and Byzantine culture to be their heritage. Apart from the businesses they ran, they had their own churches and schools (the Greek quarter in Vienna). They could start schooling in Greek in Belgrade, continue in Zemun, move on to Buda, and finish it in Vienna or Trieste. Business and cultural networks spread from Western European cities to Vienna, Buda, Pest, Constantinople, Odessa, and the country of the Khazars. Vladan Đorđević was not the only high-ranking official of the Kingdom of Serbia who was not of Serbian ethnic parentage. As in other European countries of that time, citizens of the Kingdom of Serbia of German or Jewish ethnic origin could also reach the highest positions. They were, of course, completely integrated into the framework of Serbian state politics and society.