The Museum Object as a Witness of Time: Serbia’s First Conference of Museum Historians

The First Professional Conference of Historians – Curators, Senior Curators and Museum Advisors Employed in Museums of the Republic of Serbia was held on December 11^th and 12^th,  2025 at the Museum of Vojvodina in Novi Sad. The topic of the conference was “Museum Object – Witness of Time”. The professional meeting was held on the occasion of the 20^th anniversary of the existence of the Section of Historians of the Museum Society of Serbia, formed in Kragujevac on March 11, 2005. Among the founders of the section are historians of the Regional Museum of Jagodina Ljubica Zdravković and Duško Grbović. At the meeting there were presented 28 professional papers out of 31 submitted. The professional conference also had an international character, as a member of the Museum Society of Montenegro also gave a presentation. Her participation was the result of an agreement between the Museum Society of Serbia and the Museum Society of Montenegro signed in 2024.

Duško Grbović, a museum advisor from the Regional Museum of Jagodina, also participated in the conference. He presented the paper “Diplomas and Charters of Dušan Dodić in the Collections of the Regional Museum of Jagodina”, the topic of which was the diplomas and charters of decorations received by Dušan Dodić (1883-1955) during his military career, which lasted from 1903 to 1939. There are a total of 13 units of material: 1 school diploma, 4 improvement diplomas, 1 decree of decoration, 1 diploma of decoration and 6 charters of decoration. Dušan Dodić was a cavalry officer who, at the head of his unit, liberated Jagodina in October 1918. The Museum’s collections contain extensive material relating to this important figure from the past of our city, collected in the period from 1971 to 2008 by the descendants of Dušan Dodić. In this specific case, it is a gift from Simonida Dodić Milutinović, Dušan Dodić’s daughter.

The main organizer of the meeting was the Historians’ Section of the Museum Society of Serbia, headed by Jelena Vukčević, senior curator of the Museum Collection in Trstenik, and the secretary is Mirjana Savić, museum advisor from the National Museum in Kraljevo. The Museum of Vojvodina, headed by Director Čarna Milinković, provided great assistance in organizing the professional conference. It was agreed that the next expert meeting of the Historians’ Section of the Museum Society of Serbia will be held in 2026 in Gornji Milanovac.