ПЛОВИДБА НА ВЕЛИКОЈ МОРАВИ У 19. ВЕКУ
NAVIGATION ON THE VELIKA MORAVA (GREAT MORAVA) RIVER IN 19TH CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: The Velika Morava had been navigable for centuries, but for rafts and smaller vessels only. Due to poor conditions of the riverbed, the navigation by boats was not possible. Important issue for the traffic policy of the Principality of Serbia was regulation of the flow of the Velika Morava and conditioning it for the boats of larger transport capacity. It was the most important inner river trade route, which connected the inland of the Principality of Serbia and the Danube. This question was accentuated in 1850ies and 1860ies, when the first demands by foreign shipping companies to invest in regulation of the river and river traffic were reported. By the end of 1860ies (1867 and 1869), the Serbian Government undertook measures of the flow of the Velika Morava, with the aid of Austrian Shipping Company, in order to establish navigation along this river. The Serbian Army officer Anta Aleksić soon concieved a plan for the works to be done in order to enable navigation. It showed that cultivation of Velika Morava required large expenditures, and that works could last up to twenty years. Consequently, Anta Aleksić pointed out the importance of rafts, as means of transport on the Velika Morava, but also on both Zapadna and Južna Morava. After his efforts and raftings on these rivers, this means of transportation amassed. After the railroad was built, the river route along Velika Morava, as a connection of the inner parts of the Kingdom of Serbia with the North, loses importance. The railroad connected two ends of the Kingdom of Serbia.

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