The birth of glassmaking in Serbia: glass from the collections of the Regional Museum of Jagodina

By the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly 2022 was declared the International Year of Glass (IYOG22). This whole year will be dedicated to affirming the role and importance that glass has in science, economy and culture. The Regional Museum of Jagodina joins the celebration of the International Year of Glass with the exhibition “Birth of Glassmaking in Serbia: Glass from the Collections of the Regional Museum of Jagodina”, which presents 85 glass items (late antiquity to the mid-20th century) from the collections of the Archaeological and Art Departments.

The territory of the City of Jagodina is the cradle of national production and industrialization of glass in renewed Serbia, because the first glass house was founded here in 1846 on the location between the river Belica and the villages Mišević and Belica, on the slopes of Crni vrh. The glass house was founded by Avram Petronijević, a prominent figure of the time, and it worked until his sudden death in 1852. The second Serbian glassworks was opened in 1879 by a Serb from Pest, Julije Bozitovac, in Jagodina itself. This glassworks was bought a few years later by the Jagodina merchant Nacko Janković. His glass factory operated until the middle of the first decade of the 20th century, when it was closed. In 1907, the production of glass in Serbia was taken over by the Serbian glass factory in Paraćin, which is still active today.

The exhibition shows glass items found during archeological excavations at sites such as the one in the village of Vojska near Svilajnac or the Manasija monastery, which testify that this area was suitable for glass production due to enough raw materials needed for its production. The findings of glass fragments, glass mass and parts of a brick kiln found in the village of Mišević near Jagodina, at the location where the glass house of Avram Petronijević used to be, were brought from field research. These findings are a valuable testimony to the production of glass in this factory. The most important items are certainly those made in Nacko Janković glass factory in Jagodina, of which, apart from the advertising glass jug made of blue pressed glass with the inscription “Jagodina Glass Factory”, luxury glasses from Nacko Janković’s house stand out, painted with enamel paints and gilded. During the 19th century, glass was more and more represented in civic homes in Jagodina, and it is becoming a part of the inventory of pharmacies and catering facilities, about which this exhibition tells a more detailed story.