Properties
ID | 134942 |
---|---|
System Class | Place |
Case Study | Beyond East and West: Sacred Landscapes Duklja and Raška , Tabula Imperii Byzantini , TIB 17 |
Administrative unit | Serbia |
Description
In 1925 the National Library of Serbia moved into a building in the district of Kosančićev Venac only to be bombed and gutted by fire sixteen years later from 6 to 9 April 1941 at the start of World War II.
The bombing by Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe of the city of Belgrade officially proclaimed open, completely destroyed the Library building including a priceless book collection of 500,000 volumes, an invaluable collection of 1,424 Cyrillic manuscripts and charters, a collection of old maps, medieval manuscripts and prints of roughly 1,500 items, collections of 4,000 journals as well as 1,800 newspaper titles, its rich and irreplaceable archives of Turkish documents about Serbia and the complete correspondence of distinguished figures of the cultural and political history of Serbia, and all holdings lists and catalogs. The entire national cultural heritage existing in print almost disappeared overnight.