90 YEARS OF THE BELGRADE CITY LIBRARY The heart of culture beats at 56 Knez Mihailova Street If a room without books is like a body without a soul, as Cicero contended, then libraries are temples of nobility. And the older they are, the richer they are with knowledge, experience and beautiful, wise words. That's why the recent celebration of the 90 th birthday of the Belgrade City Library was a magnificent holiday shared by all Belgraders A t Serbia’s largest library institution everyone can find “desired reading, information, or just use all its spac- es,” we’re told by Jasmina Ninkov, di- rector of the City Library. And when they’ve fed their souls with the words of thousands of writers, they can stroll Knez Mihailova Street, where the headquarters of the Library are situat- ed today, or the neighbouring Kalemegdan Fortress Park, walk to the Cathedral Church and Kosančić’s Wreath, or head down to the Sava or Danube riv- ers...
1986, the lowering of the floor in the basement ar- ea led to the discovery of parts of the foundations of the ramparts and one tower of the main gate of the Roman fortification that was once located in the Upper Town of the Belgrade Fortress. This im- portant discovery prompted a change to the project plan, so instead of a book depot the Library gained a Roman hall intended for public gatherings. The Belgrade City Library is also called the “cul- tural heart” of the capital, because its network in- cludes 14 municipal libraries with more than 70 branches. “This is a large system with about two million units, 150,000 regular members, almost two million lent books and a million visits annual- ly,” says director Ninkov. This “heart of the city” al- so pulsates through cultural programmes, many of which unfold in the Roman Hall, which is itself an exceptional tourist attraction. Apart from the presenting of awards to the most diligent readers and librarians, the jubilee was also commemorated with the declaring of the most read book of the year written by a foreign writer – the novel Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Italian novelist Elena Ferrante. It is tough to sin- gle out the most popular work from the overall sta- tistics, so the choice narrowed down to writers of school pupils’ textbooks, Nobel Laureates and lo- cal writers, but that depends on what’s current, ex- plains Ninkov. However, given that the Belgrade public doesn’t differ from the public elsewhere around the world, it can be assumed that Agatha Christie is nonethe- less the favourite author. “Crime novels are always attractive, and she is a master of that genre,” ex- plains Ninkov, adding that “tastes still vary”. The Belgrade City Library is there to satisfy all of them.
The City Library has changed both address- es and names. It was opened on 11 th January 1931 and Belgrade gained a modern city library. In 1986 the library came to the Belgrade prome- nade, moving to the building of the former Srps- ka Kruna [Serbian Crown] Hotel in Knez Mihailova Street. This building, a gem of eclecticism, was built around 1867 as the then most modern, most rep- resentative and best decorated hotel in Belgrade. In the development of Belgrade’s architecture, the building of the Srpska Kruna Hotel stands at the beginning of the intensive Europeanisation process of the Serbian capital in the second half of the 19 th century. The building’s architecture is eclectic and includes elements of Renaissance and other styles, while it is presumed to have been built by the Krs- manovićs, a wealthy merchant family. The Library was opened by great poet Desan- ka Maksimović, who gave her honorary speech, stating: “If we’d spent three centuries looking for a place to house it, we wouldn’t have found a more beautiful venue, which in its facade is watched by Milan Rakić, and nearby on Kalemegdan are also Branko Radičević, Vojislav Ilić, Bora Stanković... ”. With this Maksimović was referring to the monuments celebrating the greats of Serbian litera- ture whose works are included in the library’s fund, among many other famous names. During works on the adaptation of the library building, implemented in the period from 1983 to
U svojoj mreži Biblioteka grada Beograda ima 14 opštinskih biblioteka / This library’s network includes 14 municipal libraries
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