Museum Exhibits

The Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade was founded in 1901 by separating the ethnographic department from the National Museum. Various ethnographic objects earthenware and metal utensils, jewellery, amulets, glass and textile objects, weapons, tools, Easter eggs and other museum items were transferred to the Stevča Mihailović Foundation, which he bequeathed in his will for this very purpose. The objects were collected during field research in what was then Serbia and neighbouring countries where the Serbian people lived. The first permanent exhibition of the Museum was opened in 1904 on the occasion of the centennial celebration of the First Serbian Uprising.

Since 1953, the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade has been located in the building of the former Belgrade Stock Exchange, on Students’ Square. The museum is engaged in researching the folk life and culture of the Serbian people and other peoples living with them and in their surroundings. The collections contain over 50 thousand objects and over 70 thousand museum exhibits of other types photographs and photo negatives, archival materials and works of art that illustrate folk life. The Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade has a special library in the field of ethnology and anthropology with over 70 thousand library units. Since 1992, the Museum’s regular programme has also included the International Ethnological Film Festival, and since 2010, the Museum has also housed the Centre for the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Serbia.