International Museum Day – the story of its beginnings

International Museum Day – the story of its beginnings

International Museum Day is an opportunity to remember the beginnings of the Museum on Croatian soil.

The first idea of establishing a National Museum emerged 185 years ago. Back in 1836, the Croatian Parliament considered Ljudevit Gaj’s proposal to establish a learned society from which a large municipal library and national Museum would be created.

Ten years later, in 1846, in the palace known as the National Hall in today’s Opatička Street, collections gathered through donations from patriots and learned people of the time were presented to the public for the first time.

Many important figures took part in collecting material for the museum collection, including writer Antun Mažuranić, Zagreb Archbishop Juraj Haulik, founder of the Economic Society Pavao Hatz, and Ljudevit Gaj himself, the leader of the Croatian National Revival.

One of the oldest testimonies from that time is preserved in the Croatian Natural History Museum, one of the successors of the former National Museum, which was officially confirmed by the Hungarian-Croatian King Franz Joseph I on 4 March 1866.

It is a letter that Janko Lacković, the most humble student of Philosophy, second year, sent to the noble gentleman Dragutin Rakovac, the first secretary of the Croatian-Slavonian Economic Society, at whose initiative, among other things, the first mineralogical collection was assembled.

In the letter, Janko Lacković lists four old coins found in Sisak, various Italian shells and two fossilized shells, which he voluntarily donated to the collections located in the National Hall, should Rakovac consider them valuable.