History
The establishment of the Library is connected to an historical event in February 1832, when Dimitrije Davidović, publisher of the first Serbian newspaper, sent a letter about establishing a national library in honour of Prince Miloš Obrenović. The same year in November, Prince Miloš ordered the Legal Deposit of copies in the National Library.
During World War I, the Library building and collections were damaged by bombing, so the remaining holdings were moved from Belgrade to Niš and Kragujevac for their protection. After the War, and according to the National Library Act and the Press Law, both from 1919, the Library became the central state Library and obtained the right to acquire an obligatory copy from all over the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
The bombing in the World War II completely destroyed the Library building along with a book collection of 500.000 volumes, a collection of 1424 Cyrillic manuscripts and charters, a collection of maps and prints of 1,500 items, collections of 4,000 journals as well as 1,800 newspaper titles, its rich archives of Turkish documents about Serbia and the complete correspondence of distinguished figures of the cultural and political history of Serbia and all holdings lists and catalogs.
After the liberation of Belgrade in 1944, under the changed social conditions, there was a period of intensive reconstruction of the lost collections and rapid development of the Library. After the devoted work of the Library staff, the Library again opened its doors to the public in 1947. In 1954, on the 150th anniversary of the First Serbian Uprising, the construction of a new building for the National Library was allowed, and the new Library building (Architect: Ivo Kurtović),was opened with a special ceremony on 6 April 1973.
Nowadays, the National Library of Serbia is a modern national library. Its goals are: incorporation into the world’s information flows, recognition within the world’s family of national libraries, as well as becoming an information resource and drive for the development of Serbian society.
From 2001 to 2012 the Chief Executive of the National Library of Serbia was Sreten Ugričić. On January 20, 2012 he was removed from his position after widespread attacks were made against him by Serbian media and state officials after he joined a Belgrade writers’ forum that called for freedom of speech and particularly the right of the Montenegrin writer Andrej Nikolaidis to express opinions that were considered controversial.
Read more about this topic: National Library Of Serbia
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