# Archive of Vojvodina

The Archive of Vojvodina (Serbian Cyrillic: Архив Војводине, Hungarian: Vajdasági levéltár, Slovak: Archív Vojvodiny, Romanian: Arhivele Voivodinei, Rusyn: Архив Войводини) is the central archival institution responsible for collecting information about archival material in Vojvodina, an autonomous province in northern Serbia. 7,902 meters of archival documents spread across 520 funds and collections, spanning from the first half of the 18th century to the year 2000 are kept at the archive.
The legal status of the archive is defined on the provisions of the state level Law on the Protection of Cultural Goods from 1994, the Law on Culture from 2009, and the Law on Determination of the Competences of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina from 2009. In addition to archival material related to Vojvodina, the archive preserve a significant material related to the history of Serbs in Croatia, particularly but not limited to the region of Baranya and the rest of eastern Croatia.

## Legal framework

According to the national archival law in Serbia, Archive of Vojvodina is one of only three official public archives (alongside Historical Archive of Belgrade and Historical Archive of Novi Sad) in which founding rights do not belong to the central government directly but to the Government of Vojvodina or city authorities of Belgrade and Novi Sad respectively. In addition, together with Archive of Serbia and nominally Archive of Kosovo and Metohija, the archive of Vojvodina is defined as one of three central archives in Serbia. In addition to standardized archival practices, central archives have specific additional responsibilities of maintaining records, examining, training and overseeing subordinate archives. In Vojvodina, these tasks are devolved to the Archive of Vojvodina as a delegated responsibilities but are conducted in accordance with the instructions and guidance of the central Archive of Serbia. This ensures standardization and coordination across the national archival system while allowing the Archive of Vojvodina to effectively manage and support local archival operations.

## History

The Archive of Vojvodina was established in 1926 as the State Archive in Novi Sad. By the decision of the Assistant Minister of Education of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes of August 5, 1926 the first archivist appointed was Dr. Dimitrije Kirilović. He invited the historian Aleksa Ivić, a professor at the Faculty of Law in Subotica, to compile a report on the state of archival material in Vojvodina. During World War II in Yugoslavia, parts of Novi Sad in Syrmia were within the borders of the Independent State of Croatia. At that time, the archive building was located in the Petrovaradin Magistrate building, where the archive had moved in 1934. A significant portion of the archival material was taken over by the Ustasha authorities, and some was transferred to Vienna and private collections in ossupied Czechoslovakia. A significant part of the archival material was lost in the basements of the Petrovaradin Fortress.
After the liberation in 1945, the Archive was housed in the basement premises of the Banovina Palace. From 1951, the Archive was named the State Archive of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, and from 1958, the Historical Archive of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. Its current name was adopted in 1970. The return of stolen items required more space, so the Serbian Orthodox Church provided the Patriarchate Court in Sremski Karlovci, and from 1968, the monastery lodgings in Beočin. The building of the District Prison was renovated during 1988 and 1989, and the Archive of Vojvodina ceremoniously moved into it on April 27, 1989.
In 1990, in the context of Yugoslav crisis and the so called anti-bureaucratic revolution, the Archive of Vojvodina lost its jurisdiction as the central archive in Vojvodina responsible for the supervision of regional intermunicipal public archives. However, in 2003, this authority was restored by the decision of the Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. Starting in 2004, the Archive of Vojvodina resumed its role in overseeing and supervising archival work throughout the province.

## Awards

The Archive of Vojvodina has received several social awards for its professional, scientific, and cultural contributions, including: the Order of Merit for the People - Award of the Presidency of the SFRY in 1986; the Golden Archive - Award of the Archives of Serbia in 1999; the Spark of Culture - Award of the Institute for Culture of Vojvodina in 2006. The Archive of Vojvodina was also awarded the Order of the Star of Karadjordje, second class, by the decree of the President of Serbia in 2016, for outstanding merits in preserving cultural and historical heritage, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of its founding and successful work.