The “Serbian monuments” collection of the National museum in Belgrade and the Fund of Mihailo Pupin. Correspondence between Mihailo Pupin and Vladimir R. Petković

Mihajlo Pupin (1858-1935), a renowned scientist of international reputation and professor of Columbia University, formed a fund within the National Museum in Belgrade in 1923, the income from which was intended for ‘issuing publications about Serbian antiquities and the occasional purchase of works of Serbian artists for the National Museum’. This fund grew into an endowment in 1932. Until 1934, when the Mihailo Pupin endowment was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Serbian Royal Academy, its proceeds were used to finance the issuing of six publications of exceptional significance in the ‘Serbian Monuments’ collection of the National Museum in Belgrade, monographs about Studenica, Marko’s Monastery, Kalenić and Manasija and two albums of Serbian medieval painting La peinture serbe du moyen âge. The preserved items are part of the apparently much larger correspondence between the famous scientist and Vladimir R. Petković (1874-1956), an art historian and director of the National Museum in that period. They are four letters by Pupin and one draft by Petković, written between 1923 and 1933. The letters demonstrate the extent of Mihailo Pupin’s engagement in the edition of books financed by the fund that bore his name and how truly interested he was in the smallest of details in connection with their publishing and distribution. Namely, Pupin possessed a clear vision about the significance and necessity of valorising the medieval heritage of the entire territory of what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. With that intention, Pupin prepared a book in 1918, titled Serbian Orthodox Church, which was to be the first publication in a more broadly conceived collection, with the title South Slav Monuments. Considering that this project had not come to life, Pupin realised a part of his idea about researching and promoting the South Slav heritage through cooperation with the National Museum. The money from his fund/endowment enabled the systematic issuing of publications dedicated to Serbian medieval art, which had particular significance for the development of this research discipline on the local level and for presenting of Serbian medieval heritage to the international public