The Council for Naming Streets and Squares accepted the proposal of the Board of the Islamic Community in Pljevlje and the Bosniak Party (BS) to rename part of Vuk Knežević Street in the city center to Husein-paša Boljanić Street.
This was confirmed to "Vijesti" by Council President Božidar Jelovac.
He said that the proposal for a statement will be sent to the "Centar" Local Community, and the final word on the renaming of the street will be given by members of the local parliament at one of the next sessions.
Jelovac said that the part of Vuk Knežević Street, in front of the entrance to the mosque of the same name, from the intersection near the Municipal Assembly to the intersection with Glasinačka Street, will be named Husein-paša Boljanić.
Husein Pasha Boljanić was born in the village of Boljanići in Pljevlja. In the second half of the 16th century, he held important state and military positions in the Ottoman Empire. Among other things, he was the sandjakbeg of the Bosnian and Herzegovina sandjak, and he received the title of pasha as the governor of Egypt (Misir). Like many other prominent figures of the Ottoman Empire, Husein Pasha bequeathed part of his material and financial resources (endowment) for general useful purposes in his native region. With his money in Pljevlje, a mosque was built in the center of Pljevlje, and in addition to it, a caravanserai, a madrasa, an inn, and a public kitchen were built.
Explaining the proposal, Jelovac said that "in these stormy times, we need to look for good examples from the past, and build the present and the future on that."
"In Pljevlja, there is a specific part of the population, namely members of the Muslim and Bosniak communities who perceive Husein Pasha as their representative, and since we have such a situation, and we live together, we believe that these people should respect each other and we have nothing against one the street bears the name of Husein Pasha Boljanić, a man who joined the Turkish army in the 16th century by force or grace and became a representative of the same army that came to these areas by force. The Islamic people of Pljevlja respect Husein Pasha Boljanić also for the fact that he left an important endowment, the Husein Pasha Mosque. On the other hand, there is an assertion that during the Turkish slavery, the monastery of the Holy Trinity was also preserved thanks to the name of Husein Pasha Boljanić. After the great migration of the Serbs under the leadership of Patriarch Arsenij Čarnojević, when the Turkish authorities showed favor to the Orthodox Serbs, from Sarajevo to Kosovo, all the monasteries were destroyed by the Turkish army (Mileseva Banja near Priboj, Dobrun, Davidovica, Kumanica and many others), and the only one preserved was the monastery of the Holy Trinity. The Orthodox Serbs paid it back in 1912, when the army of the Kingdom of Serbia entered and liberated Pljevlja on October 27, 1912. "Hussein Pasha's mosque and all other mosques in Pljevlje have been preserved," Jelovac said.
He pointed out that the current parliamentary majority in Pljevlja has no intention of denying anyone their rights.
"I have to remind you that this proposal came to the Assembly back in 2016 and that the then majority in the Assembly, which consisted of the Bosniak Party with DPS and SD, never considered it," Jelovac said.
He pointed out that the Council rejected the proposal of the Organization of NOR Fighters to name a street in Pljevlja after Marshal Tito.
"We refused because the main street in Pljevlja used to have that name. In the meantime, it has been abolished and we see no need to name a street in Pljevlja again after Marshal Tito," Jelovac said.
Back in 2016, the municipal committee of the Social Democratic Party launched an initiative to return the former name of Marshal Tito to the main street in Pljevlja, instead of the current name of King Peter I. That party also organized an action to collect petition signatures to restore the former name of the main street, but the initiative was never implemented. was on the agenda of the local parliament, although the party claimed to have collected enough signatures to launch the initiative.
Maršala Tita Street in Pljevlja was renamed to Kralja Petra I Street in the early nineties of the last century, at a time when Pljevlja was in power with a single DPS. Novica Stanić, who was a member of the People's Party at the time, previously stated that the proposal to name the street Kralja Petra was made by the member of the DPS, the now retired Ljubica Beba Džaković.
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