Museum policy in Serbia: Formation, crisis and a new beginning

Abstract

Since the foundation of the Museum of Serbia 1844, a century and a half passed, filled with constant changes conditioned by the discontinuity of the political status of Serbia that directly affected the historical development of cultural policy, and consequently the development of museums, museum activities and museum network. The aim of this work is to present the historical development of museums in Serbia in relation to current models of cultural policy. After a chapter with a chronological overview of the origin and development of the first museums in the territory of Serbia, follows a part showing the expansion of museums that occurred in the first decades after World War II, which had its ideological imperatives. Then a period of stagnation came, as a prelude to the crisis of the museum during the 1990s, which was among the elements of general crisis. The final chapter points out the dilemmas of a new beginning in the development of the museum in the first decade of the 21st century. This work basically presents a kind of summary of the chapter Museum Policy in Serbia - a historical overview of the author's doctoral dissertation 'Management of Regional Museums in Serbia', with special emphasis on the organization of cultural tourism potentials (dissertation in preparation, reported at the Faculty of Drama Arts, University of Art, Belgrade, supervisor. Prof. Dr Vesna Đukić).