University Library "Svetozar Markovich"

The library was first opened in 1844 at the Belgrade Lyceum , which at that time was the largest educational institution of the Principality of Serbia . Books were collected here from all over the country through donations from benefactors. In accordance with the charter of the lyceum, one of the lyceum professors was to occupy the position of librarian, in particular, the first librarian was Dr. Janko Shafarik , philologist and history teacher. As of 1850, the library already numbered 927 books.

When in 1863 the lyceum was reorganized into the Higher School, only special educational literature was left in the library, while all the other books were transferred to the National Library of Serbia . In 1905, the University of Belgrade was formed on the basis of the Higher School, and the library was completely liquidated - the most valuable books were distributed to different faculties. Soon, the leadership nevertheless recognized the need to create a common university library, but at that time this was not destined to be realized due to the outbreak of World War I. After the war, for some time, the library was located in the building of the Faculty of Philosophy and was under the direction of Professor Uros Jonic.

The Serbian delegation, led by Dr. Slavko Grujic, held talks in Washington with the Carnegie Endowment , which at that time had already financed the construction of many libraries around the world - as a result, the foundation agreed to allocate 100 thousand US dollars to the Serbian government to build and equip a full-fledged library. Belgrade thus became the only city with a Carnegie library in Central and Eastern Europe. Professor Slobodan Jovanovic, the former rector of the university, made every effort to attract additional funds from the state budget for the construction of a truly large library that could satisfy the needs of the entire educational institution. The city allocated land for construction, university professors Dragutin Dzhordogevich and Nikola Nestorovich acted as architects. This is the first and only building in Serbia, built specifically for the needs of the library ^[1] .

The official opening of the library in the new building took place on the day of Saints Cyril and Methodius on May 24, 1926. Professor Uros Jonic retained the post of administrator until the Second World War , a committee chaired by Dr. Pavel Popovich helped in this emu. The basic principles of the library were formulated, according to which it was intended to serve not only students and professors of the University of Belgrade, but all people involved in scientific activities. During the occupation of Yugoslavia by German troops, the library did not work, and the building was given up for the needs of the German army, although the staff of the institution still managed to save a significant part of the book fund.

After the liberation of the country, the library was headed by Militsa Prodanovich, who used to work here as an ordinary librarian, and in 1946 the institution was named after Svetozar Markovic , in honor of the centennial of this outstanding Serbian statesman. In subsequent years, the leadership introduced modern methods of organizing and processing funds, in collaboration with the National Library, in accordance with the cataloging rules of the Association of Librarians of Serbia, a public professional catalog was formed. Cooperation agreements were signed both with domestic libraries and with foreign ones. Currently, the University Library fund includes more than 1.7 million publications ^[2] .

• Official website (Serb.)
• Republic Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments - Belgrade (Serb.)
• List of Monuments (Serbian)