The Museum's History
| The Museum of
Slavonia is one among the oldest, and also - viewing the scope of
its holdings - the most important institutions of its kind in Croatia.
It was founded in 1877 as "The Museum of the Free and Royal City
of Osijek" through a donation of a rich collection of coins,
weapons and medals by the Osijek antiquities collector, wholesaler
Franjo Sedlakovic.
Andrija Kodric, professor of classical philology, was appointed the first collections keeper i.e the curator. Most of his succesors were also professors at Osijek's high schools. Owing to their classical education, they were the ones who showed the largest interest in archeology, so that the Museum was initially oriented towards archeology and numismatics (similarly to other European museums at the time). The newly established museum, located in one of the City Hall rooms, had the following collections: Numismatic, books & journals (numismatic bibliography), and weapons.. Andrija Kodric wrote the following about the first collection: "Nearly everybody has had the opportunity to see for him/herself that this small room holds much more interesting items than many other museum halls. Local museums are useful for another reason as well: Not everyone can afford to visit the capital: There is no money, no time... In that case, he/she is able to see at least something in his/her native town. Better something than nothing..." The space envisaged for the Museum soon became too small for the increasing collections, so that, in 1888, it was moved to a new location: Two rooms of the newly built Royal High School. It is interesting to note that, at the turn of the century - in 1899, professor Vjekoslav Celestin, the then "keeper of the Museum of the Free and Royal City of Osijek" bought a camera, took a lot of pictures and that very same year offered postcards with museum exhibits for sale to the local Fritsche library. As of 1903, through the purchase of Slavonian calendars printed in Osijek and Budapest, a more intensive collecting started of everything that was local, particularly of printed materials: Invitation cards, papers, programmes - and so native collections were slowely shaped. The Museum's cultural and historic shaping gradually began only at the turn of the century, parallely with the decay of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The "Mursa" Archeological Club was founded in 1933 for the purpose of enriching Museum's activities, collecting exhibits and popularizing exploration. That same year, "Mursa" encouraged the organization of the Museum's first large public exhibition featuring cultural and historic items. This was, in fact, the Museum's original permanent display divided into historic departments and placed in eight out of ten rooms that were at Museum's disposal at the time. As its collections expanded, the Museum changed its location on several occasions. Since 1946, it has been seated at "Tvrdja", at the former Municipal Magistrate building (built in 1702). Dr. Franjo Buntak, who was appointed Museum Curator in 1936, re-displayed the entire holdings in 1940 and wrote the first and still the only Municipal Museum Guidebook. Of significance is also the initiative by Dr. Antun Bauer who collected the Picture Gallery holdings and put it on display in 1941. The gallery was later to evolve into an independent visual arts gallery. Dr. Josip Bösendorfer did his best to turn this institution into a "... well-organized scientific institute featuring different collections, a library and archives, offering possibilities for studying local history." He stressed the need to establish three separate Museum's departments: Archeological, Ethnographic and Artistic Crafts Department that should be run by experts - curators. In 1942, Dr. Bösendorfer launched and edited the Museum's bulletin entitled "Osjecki zbornik". In the 1945-1949 period, a number of items was collected (particularly for the cultural-historic collection: Glass, china, furniture, paintings, etc.) from the Slavonian nobility's manor-houses, particularly those in Valpovo, Nasice, and Vukovar. Comprehensive holdings of mostly native museum exhibits are today classified into 9 departments (library, press, archeological dept., history dept., artistic crafts dept., ethnographic dept., numismatic dept., natural sciences and technical depts.). The Museum includes over 114,000 items, while the extremely rich library includes around 150,000 units from the 16th to the 20th c. In the course of the patriotic war, the Museum buildings were heavily damaged, but, fortunately, there has been no major damage done to the holdings. |
A
number of other donors (C. F. Nuber, O. Friml-Antunovic, R. Franjetic,
E. Hild, M. Zucker and others) have, over the decades that followed,
contributed to the expansion of the Museum's holdings. A considerable
part of the material was also collected on the territory of Roman
Mursa, explored back in 1782 by 