Švajcarac u Beogradu: NIKOLA DOKSAT DE MOREZ
A Swiss in Belgrade: Nicolas Doxat de Morez

Summary/Abstract: Nicolas Doxat de Morez (1682–1738) was a Swiss aristocrat in Habzburg service, who made a successful career as a soldier and engineer in the ranks of Imperial army. He was entrusted with reconstruction and inspection of important fortresses in Hungary, and the crown of his achievements was reconstruction of Belgrade fortress, undertaken between 1723 and 1736. However, comparatively little information about him was preserved for posterity. There are fragments scattered in older, predominantly German literature, and they rarely amount to anything more than a few lines of most general data. This paper strives to unify those fragments and provide a more comprehensive narrative. The special attention has been paid to Doxat’s tragic fate – his trial and execution during Austro-Turkish War of 1737–1739; the sentence was imposed for surrendering Niš fortress to the enemy without resistance. Besides these biographical notes, the paper aims to present the transformation of Belgrade through planned and partly carried out reconstruction of the urban core and the city’s fortifications. Contextualization of these transformations is refracted through the prism of Austrian geopolitical plans for South-Eastern Europe in the first half of the 18th century. As a result of those plans, the provincial character of Belgrade was gradually erased, and the foundations of its first Westernization and modernization have been laid. These transformations have underlined its military-strategic importance as a border fortification and they allowed Belgrade to become one of the strongest fortresses in South-Eastern Europe.

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