How the Slovenes demolished Belgrade and how they complained because they were not paid for their work

»Grant that all God's saints help us and our comrades in these trying times«

Abstract

The article investigates a heretofor unknown story from 1739 when two large groups of Slovene builders, carpenters, and miners from Idrija assisted the Austrians in demolishing a fortress in Belgrade, which had been handed over to the Ottoman state upon Austria's defeat in the war. From time to time, the author satirically connects the story with the experiences the Slovenes had with Belgrade in the 20th century, particularly since the 18th century Slovene "demolition workers" were not properly paid for their work. The cheated workers complained about this injustice in a linguistically and orthographically interesting document, written in Slovene, from 1744, in which the expression "comrades"(term used in "Communist" Yug.) is also used.