Graves of national heroes in Kalemegdan

The Tomb of National Heroes was built between 1948 and 1950, underneath the bulwarks of the Fortress, on the Great Sava Promenade. The tomb was designed after Soviet models and its author was architect Bogdan Ignjatović. On the occasion of its ceremonial foundation in 1948, as an event of festive commemorations of March 27, relics of two national heroes – Ivo Lola Ribar and Ivan Milutinović – were moved there. The relics of Đuro Đaković were transferred to the tomb in 1949 and Moša Pijade was buried there in 1957. A monolithic white marble block rises beyond the tomb. It bears the bronze busts of the heroes, the works of sculptors Stevan Bodnarov and Slavoljub Stanković.

On the wall are the words “Death to fascism - freedom to the people" with busts of each of those buried here. By decision of the City of Belgrade in 1983, the tomb was protected as a cultural monument.

IVO LOLA RIBAR

Ivo Lola Ribar (23 April 1916 – 27 November 1943) was a Yugoslav communist politician and military leader. In 1936, Ribar became secretary of the Central Committee of SKOJ (Young Communist League of Yugoslavia). During World War II in Yugoslavia, Ribar was among the main leaders of the Yugoslav Partisans and was a member of the Partisan Supreme Headquarters. During the war, he founded and ran several leftist youth magazines.  In 1942, Ribar was among the founders of the Unified League of Anti-Fascist Youth of Yugoslavia (USAOJ). He was killed by a German bomb in 1943 near Glamoč while boarding an airplane for Cairo, where he was to become the first representative of Communist Yugoslavia to the Middle East Command. In 1944, Ribar was awarded the title of People's Hero of Yugoslavia.

IVAN MILUTINOVIĆ.

Ivan Milutinović (27 September 1901 – 23 October 1944) was a Yugoslav Partisan general and an eminent military commander. On 27 June 1941 Milutinović was elected as a member of the Supreme Staff of the National Liberation Partisan Units of Yugoslavia. van Milutinović died on 23 October 1944 when a small boat which was transporting him to Belgrade hit a naval mine in the Danube. He was decorated with the Order of the People's Hero.

ĐURO ĐAKOVIĆ

Đuro Đaković (30 November 1886– 25 April 1929) was a Yugoslav metal worker, communist and revolutionary. Đaković was the organizational secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, from April 1928 to April 1929 and one of the most prominent fighters of the working class of Yugoslavia. At the beginning of the 1920s, he began with active political work. He was elected to the parliamentary elections for the People's Assembly of the Constitutional Assembly of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In June 1921 he travelled to Moscow as a delegate at the Third Congress of Comintern, and after returning to Yugoslavia he was again arrested and sentenced to ten months in prison for communist and unionist activities. Đaković continued with the revolutionary work, and after several more arrests in 1923, he was expelled from Sarajevo to his homeland. In 1927, he enrolled at Moscow's International Leninist School and stayed there until 1928. Under the pseudonym of Bosnić he returned to Yugoslavia and worked on setting up party organizations. Đaković actively opposed the January 6 Dictatorship of King Alexander I. Due to this, he was arrested in Zagreb together with Nikola Hećimovic, secretary of the Red Assistance. They were executed on the Yugoslav-Austrian border on April 25, 1929. In an exaggerated attempt to escape responsibility, authorities have tried to conceal the murder. After exhumation, it was found that the victims were fired at a small distance, which proved to be a murder.

MOŠA PIJADE

Moša Pijade (4 January 1890 – 15 March 1957) was a Serbian and Yugoslav communist. . Pijade was a painter, art critic and publicist. He was also known for translating Das Kapital by Karl Marx into Serbo-Croatian. In 1925, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison because of his 'revolutionary activities' after World War I. He was discharged after 14 years in 1939 and imprisoned again in 1941 in the camp Bileća. Pijade was known as the creator of the so-called 'Foča regulations' (1942), which prescribed the foundation and activity of people's liberation committees in the liberated territories during the war against the Nazis. In November 1943, before the second AVNOJ meeting in Jajce, he initiated the foundation of Tanjug, which later became the state news agency of SFR Yugoslavia. In 1957, he died in Paris during the return from a visit to London, where he had talks as leader of a Yugoslav parliamentary delegation.