Monument at Barutana

Getting there

By car, take the Cetinje road (M2.3) out of Podgorica. After about 13 km turn left at the Barutana sign; a rough road of some 400 m leads to a gravel car park beside the monument. Drive times without traffic: Podgorica 13.8 km, about 20 minutes; Cetinje 21.7 km, about 26 minutes; Virpazar 35.3 km, about 43 minutes. A road sign and a multilingual information board were added in 2021. Beside the monument stand the former community buildings of Barutana (school, clinic and post office), no longer in use.

The monument

The complex is built of limestone and concrete. At its centre a tower about 12 m high is made of thin reinforced-concrete pillars that open upwards like a torch. In front of it a circular stone plaza about 10 m across leads to an amphitheatre some 50 m wide, with ten curved rows of seats for about 210 people. The sloped walls are laid with raised mortar joints that echo the dry-stone terraces (međe) of the fields of Lješanska nahija, and the ornament of the stonework draws on traditional folk costume.

A white marble slab at the entrance carries the dedication, "Spomenik poginulim Lješnjanima u borbama za slobodu" (to the people of Lješanska nahija killed in the fight for freedom). Three alcoves hold plaques for the Balkan Wars 1912-1913, the First World War 1914-1918 and the Second World War, and the stone panels around each alcove list the names of the dead of that war.

Svetlana Kana Radević

Radević (1937-2000) studied in Belgrade and then with Louis Kahn at the University of Pennsylvania on a Fulbright scholarship. Her first major work is the Hotel Podgorica on the Morača, for which she received the federal Borba award in 1968, as the only woman and the youngest laureate, and the 13 July Award the same year. Her Barutana entry nearly missed the republic competition announced in autumn 1975: she posted it from the United States in October 1975 through the Yugoslav consulate in New York, and it was lost until February 1976. The jury gave it first prize in April 1976. Construction followed, with much of the stonework done by the volunteer youth brigade "Barutana 80", and the monument opened in 1980.

Protection and upkeep

Barutana is in the Podgorica municipal register of memorials but not on the national list of protected cultural property. In 2020 the state Centre for Conservation and Archaeology repaired the complex, cleaned the stone and installed lighting, and a commemorative concert was held on 13 July 2020. In 2021 Barutana became the pilot monument of the Balkan Monumental Trail, a regional project that gave it a road sign and the information board.

Nearby

• Rijeka Crnojevića monument and the village of Rijeka Crnojevića, further along the Cetinje road.
• Lake Skadar and Virpazar.
• Monument to the Partisan Fighter on Gorica in Podgorica.
• Cetinje, 22 km on.
• Other memorials in Montenegro.