Smederevo Fortress

Smederevo Fortress (also described as the Smederevo fortified city) is a large medieval defensive complex commissioned in the late 1420s under Despot Đurađ (Djuradj) Branković and completed around 1430. It served as a temporary capital of medieval Serbia and as the seat of secular and clerical authorities of the time. After the Ottoman conquest of 1459 the site was further fortified. In the 20th century the fortress and its environs continued to have military uses; during the German occupation in World War II the site was used to store ammunition, and a catastrophic explosion occurred on 5 June 1941 when stockpiled munitions detonated. Mid-20th century archival material (a 1951 declassified CIA-era document) references barracks and a training camp on the right bank of the Danube and above the old fortress, indicating continued military activity in the vicinity, though the precise relation of those facilities to the internal structures of the medieval fortress is uncertain. In the modern period the fortress remains extant and is presented in travel and tourism coverage as an architectural and historical attraction.