Monument to the Unknown Hero Traditional Cache

Monument to the Unknown Hero

The Monument to the Unknown Hero (Serbian: Spomenik Neznanom junaku) is located at the top of the mountain Avala in the south-east of Belgrade. It was designed by the Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrovic.

The construction of this monument was ordered by King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, to commemorate the victims of World War I. Marked only by the dates 1912-1918, the monument also commemorates those lost in the Balkan Wars (1912-1913).

In order to show his support for Yugoslav unity, the King ordered that this monument include caryatids representing all the nations over which he governed following the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. They represent a Serb woman from Šumadija; a woman from Slavonia and Vojvodina, a woman from Montenegro and Kosovo; Croat women from Dalmatia and Zagorje; one Slovene and one Macedonian woman.