Lazić library, Cultural institution and library in Belgrade, Serbia.
Lazić Library is a Serbian family private library, unregistered as an institution, held within the Adligat association in Belgrade. Its holdings number about two million items and one million books, alongside tens of thousands of postcards, maps, prospectuses, and collections of philately and numismatics. It was first opened to the public in 1882 in Kumane near Zrenjanin and reopened in 2012.
The institution was founded in 1882 and traces back to a family tradition beginning in 1720 in northern Serbia. It survived multiple wars through dedicated preservation efforts and careful stewardship.
The library grew from the collecting tradition of the Lazić family, begun by the priest Mihajlo Lazić in the early 18th century. Its golden age came between the wars, when Luka Lazić ran a bicycle delivery network that lent and sold books across Banat, making the library an educational centre for about ten Banat municipalities. In 1929 King Alexander I awarded Luka the Gold Medal for Civil Merit, specially commissioned in Prague.
Visitors can explore the collection through guided tours while researchers access materials through specialized arrangements. It helps to plan ahead, as access varies depending on the type of material and research purpose.
During the First World War, the owner Luka Lazić carried a few of the most valuable books with him across the Albanian mountains to Durrës; when his ship was torpedoed he jumped into the sea to save his commander, and most of those books were lost. On Corfu and in Thessaloniki he then gathered Serbian refugee newspapers, today one of the region's largest collections of wartime press.
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