О споразуму српске владе и Штатсбана о изградњи железнице у Србији 1879. године
On Agreement оf Serbian Government аnd Staatsbahn аbout the Construction of the Railways in Serbia in 1879

Summary/Abstract: As the states of European economic periphery, such as Serbia, looked towards the developed economies of the European West, the basic question was how to achieve accelerated modernization in an attempt to compensate for what was lost. In that context, construction of the railway and connection with the western-European market were perceived as a necessary preconditions of faster economic development, despite the fact it was not preceded by the creation of the market-oriented economic structure, and despite the fact that the construction of the railway was an extremely demanding financial endeavour inevitably leading towards the indebtedness of the state on foreign financial market. From the end of the 1860s till the beginning of the 1880s, the question of the railway construction was one of the most important issues of Serbian foreign policy. Besides securing the place of Serbia on the main route of trans-Balkan railway, important dimension of this issue was how to solve the questions of its financing and exploitation. Serbian government had contacts with the Staatsbahn in the beginning of the 1870s, but after the Congress of Berlin they came to an agreement on main stipulations of the future railway concession. One of the main obstacles for the fulfilment of the agreement was the opposition of Hungarian government, unwilling to allow the Staatsbahn to construct the line from Kikinda to Zemun, to connect its existing lines in Hungary with the future Serbian railways. This opposition made it impossible to come to the final agreement, despite the willingness of the company and the satisfaction of Serbian government with the proposed stipulations of the future concession contract. After the failure of this agreement, Serbian government had to find new ways to solve the question of the construction.

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