Memorial Museum of Ivo Andrić

Ivo Andrić (Travnik , 1892 - Belgrade, 1975) was one of the most important Yugoslav authors. He was the author of several important novels, and many works of narrative prose, lyrical and philosophical poetry, essays, and literary criticism.

By Museums of Serbia

Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Serbia

Interior (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

The Memorial Museum of Ivo Andrić was opened to public in 1976 at the apartment in Andrićev Venac, in which the writer and his wife Milica Babić, costume designer at the National Theatre in Belgrade, had lived since 1958. The entrance hall, drawing room and Ivo Andrić’s study have preserved their authentic appearance. The remaining rooms in the apartment were adapted to house the permanent exhibition of the Memorial Museum, which chronologically presents the life and work of this Nobel laureate.

Interior (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

Ivo Andrić’s study has preserved its original appearance and bears the authentic imprint of its owner, who found peace, privacy and silence in it. A porcelain figurine of Omer-Pasha Latas, bought by Andrić at some Viennese antique shop, can be seen on the writer’s sécretaire. It symbolically recalls the eponymous, anthological, posthumously published novella.

Interior (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

Andrić’s personal library, housed in his study, encompasses 4,502 books. Throughout his diplomatic service, beginning with the Vatican City in 1920, via Rome, Bucharest, Trieste, Graz, Marseilles, Paris, Geneva, Brussels, Madrid, ending with Berlin in 1941, during his civilian life in Belgrade as a writer, Ivo Andrić kept on acquiring books for what would become his large personal library; books were also given away to him by his friends, colleague writers, translators, publishers and institutions.

His library also includes examples of rare and antique books – the oldest printed edition of Justinian’s Code (Codicis Iustiniani), published in 1602, and the Menaion of Prince Mihailo Obrenović, printed in Belgrade in 1848, as well as Goethe’s collected writings in German, published in Weimar between 1887 and 1905.

Interior (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

The interior of the drawing room reveals the sophisticated taste and nobleness of Ivo Andrić and Milica Babić, whose lives were dedicated to art. Over years, their drawing room was a meeting place for prominent artistic figures from Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Sarajevo, etc.

Interior (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

Paintings, watercolours and drawings exhibited in the drawing room are a part of a rich art collection preserved among Andrić’s belongings. Among the authors we find the names of the greatest 20th-centuryYugoslav and Serbian painters such as Petar Lubarda, Peđa Milosavljević, Milo Milunović, Ignjat Job, Stojan Aralica, Nedeljko Gvozdenović and Vojislav Stanić.

Interior (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

Ivo Andrić (Travnik, 1892 – Belgrade, 1975) was brought up in Višegrad and educated in Sarajevo, Zagreb, Vienna, Krakow. As a member of youth organization Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia), he was incarcerated in Austrian prisons. In 1919, he became a citizen of Belgrade and entered the diplomatic service, in which he remained until World War II broke out. In the meantime, in 1924, he took the PhD degree at the University of Graz by defending a thesis in philosophical sciences.

Interior (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

He is the author of several significant novels, numerous pieces of storytelling and lyrical and philosophical poetry, essays and criticism. In 1961, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His greatest novels (The Bridge on the Drina, The Woman from Sarajevo and Bosnian Chronicle) were written in Belgrade during the Nazi occupation 1941–1945.

Permanent exhibition of the Memorial Museum of Ivo Andrić (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

The permanent exhibition gives a summarized overview of the life and literary work of Ivo Andrić – a diplomat and a writer. Photographs, documents, manuscripts, correspondence and books mark important dates and events, providing, at the same time, a valuable depiction of his contemporaries – writers, artists, politicians, journalists and friends.

Interior of Andrić's study room (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

The largest part of the study is occupied by the library with 3,502 bibliographic units, among which are volumes of dictionaries and lexicons, books in the field of history, domestic literature of the 19th century, Collected works of Goethe and Balzac, monographs in the field of history of art. The library has the status of a cultural asset under the protection of the National Library of Serbia.

Ivo Andrić's writing table and writing set (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

The hidden ambience of the study was Andrić's space for reading and creating. In the study of the writer, winner of the Nobel Prize, the main exhibits are his writing desk and writing utensils, which with their simplicity and conciseness resemble Andrić himself.

Bust of Ivo Andrić (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

The bust of Ivo Andrić was made by the sculptor Sreten Stojanović in 1952, and it is perhaps one of the most faithful portraits of Andrić. Andrić owned a plaster model during his lifetime, and after the opening of the Museum, the work was cast in bronze.

Nobel Prize medal - the obverse, Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir Popović, 1961, From the collection of: Museums of Serbia
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Nobel Prize medal - the reverse, Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir Popović, 1961, From the collection of: Museums of Serbia
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On the obverse is a bas-relief of the founder of the Nobel Prize, Alfred Nobel (1833−1896), chemist and inventor of dynamite, founder of the Nobel Prize Fund. On the reverse is a bas-relief of a young man listening to and recording the singing of a muse under a laurel. The verse from the VI chant of Virgil's "Aeneid" in Latin is engraved: "Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes" ("And they who bettered life on earth by their newly found mastery").

Ivo Andrić's Nobel Prize diploma (10 December 1961) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

Nobel Prize Diploma

The diploma of the Nobel Prize, diploma holder Ivo Andrić, in addition to basic information about the Nobel Prize winner and the composition of the Nobel Committee, also contains a decision with the explanation of the Committee. It is made in color, on parchment.

Ivo Andrić's diplomatic passport, Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir Popović, 1939, From the collection of: Museums of Serbia
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Ivo Andrić's diplomatic passport, Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir Popović, 1939, From the collection of: Museums of Serbia
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Diplomatic passport of Ivo Andrić, Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir Popović, 1939, From the collection of: Museums of Serbia
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The passport was issued in 1939 for the needs of Andrić's service in Berlin. From 1919 to 1940, Andrić was in the diplomatic service of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / Yugoslavia, from the Vatican, Trieste, Bucharest, Graz, Marseille, Paris, Madrid, Brussels to Geneva, achieving the highest position in the career of a diplomat in Berlin.

Parts of Andrić's manuscripts (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

Fragments of the manuscripts of Andrić's novels: "The Bridge on the Drina","Travnik Chronicles" and "The Woman from Sarajevo ", (completed in 1943, published in 1945) and "Omer Pasha Latas" (posthumously published in 1976). In more than 70 years since the publication of Andrić's most important novels and short stories, they have been translated worldwide into more than 45 languages, and Andrić is still at the top of the Nobel Prize-winning literary classics.

Omer Pasha figurine (2008) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

A small figure of Omer Pasha Latas, Andrić bought for himself in one of the Viennese antique shops. It is a metaphor for literary characters from Andrić's prose, who outlived both the writer and the work, and whose artistic characterization has historical-mythical features in real time in the history of Bosnia during the Ottoman Empire.

Diplomatic uniform and suitcase of Ivo Andrić (1939) by Belgrade City Museum, Photographer: Vladimir PopovićMuseums of Serbia

In the central, open space of the exhibition, Andrić's ceremonial diplomatic uniform with gold embroidery, a hat with feathers and a sword in a richly decorated cane, as well as a diplomatic suitcase with wooden and leather reinforcements, a witness to the diplomat's trip to European capitals and his return to Belgrade. 

Credits: Story

Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Serbia

Belgrade City Museum
The narration was provided by  Tamara Stanković - curator.

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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