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DOI: 10.34298/9788677431488011

UDC: 930.1:016(497.11)

pp. 11–22

language: serbian

Slavica Merenik

KRALJEVO IN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL WORKS

Summary

Writing the history of an area, of a town and its environs is a task one can never say has ended. There is room to open new and re-examine old topics – by tapping unknown or re-reading known sources, and by conducting field research – and to broaden the interests of young and prospective researchers. In this way, each generation contributes to the accumulation of overall knowledge about the past.

Though dealing with local history was neglected until fifty years ago, local history research and topics have in time risen to the same level as works of Serbian historiography. This is the case with Kraljevo as well.

During the 1950s, cultural institutions were established in Kraljevo. The aim was to ensure a systematic study of the town’s past. The National Museum of Kraljevo, Historical Archive of Kraljevo and Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of Kraljevo were founded.

The year which is highly important for the publication of historiographical works and can be considered a milestone that set into motion Kraljevo’s historiographical story is 1966. It is then that two very significant books on the history of Kraljevo came out, remaining for a long time obligatory literature for all those interested in Kraljevo and its history. First, the Archive published records on the history of Kraljevo Једно столеће Краљева 1815–1915 (One Century of Kraljevo 1815–1915) by tireless Branko Peruničić, and the monograph Краљево и околина (Kraljevo and the Environs) as the first synthetic overview of this area. The works of several authors, experts in their fields, provided insight into geomorphology, history (from prehistory to the end of the Second World War), ethnology, urbanism, culture, education, economy, and life in Kraljevo in the first years of new Yugoslavia. The papers collected in a single place thus gave rise to the first monograph of Kraljevo. Among a number of historiographical works about Kraljevo, this town featured as the topic of several doctoral dissertations. It was also discussed at a number of conferences and round tables, which resulted in the publication of conference proceedings. The sources about the history of Kraljevo are also being published, including memoire literature. In addition, Наша прошлост (Our Past) is the journal dealing with the history of Kraljevo.

Keywords: historiography, Kraljevo, local history, conferences, conference proceedings, historical sources, Наша прошлост.