NATIONAL MUSEUM Arandjelovac

The first exhibitions in our town regarding War of National Liberation were prepared in 1951 in a small building at the market, today Jugopetrol. They represented photos of late soldiers, their documents and weapons. Later, the exhibition was moved to a building on Zvezdara, in the park of Bukovička banja.

The Museum of revolution and building of socialism was founded on July 14th 1981 at the innitiative of Veterans' federation and from means of local voluntary tax. Construction of the building for the new museum started the following year based on the idea of Mr Feliks Bajlon, an architect from Belgrade. The building should have represented an old house from Šumadija with a roof slanting into four directions, i.e. a log cabin with a fire place in the middle. The museum was built at the same place where an old Bukovik school was, near the church of St Archangel Gavrilo and Memorial Fountain (1927) where the rebels of the First Serbian Uprising took an oath in front of Vicar Atanasije Bukovički.

The first independant exhibition of the Museum of revolution and building of socialism was opened on November 26th, 1985 with intention to be a permanent exhibition (it lasted for six years). The exhibition presened: settling of this area, the First and Second Serbian Uprising, the Balkan wars, the First and Second World Wars. Most of the available exhibition space was dedicated to the Second World War. Next to the weapons, personal documents and parts of a secret printing shop, personal things of the soldiers and after war politicians (their medals and awards) were exhibited as well.

The gallery space was used for the retrospective exhibitions of the International Festival «World of cheramics», for guest exhibition of other museums, exhibitions held as a part of festival «Marble and sounds» as well as for thematic exhibitions.

The increasement of treasures of the museum and engagement of employees of different professions made the museum a complex one and it changed its name into Museum in Aranđelovac. Paleontological , archeological, numismatics, historical, ethnological and artistic collections as well as two legacies, one of Dušan Petrović Šane and the other of Radovan Grujić, were presented at the museum. Conservation and restoration workshops were founded, what made protection of art properties complete.

On the Day of Aranđelovac, July 26th, 1994, a retrospective exhibition of the International festival «World of ceramics» was opened in a huge, ground floor exhibition space. In the gallery space exhibition «From first trails till first decades of 20th century» was presented to the visitors. On Februaty 15th 2003, on Sretenje, Serbian religious holiday, these two exhibitions switched the space where they were presented. This is the reason why many ceramic artistic objects were returned in the depot because the gallery exhibition space is four times less than the main one and the treasure was expanded for 15 to 30 exhibits every year. During this paleontoligical, archeological, historical and ethnological exhibition in the main exhibition space, the reconstructed skeleton of a cave bear, whose bones were found in the Risovača cave, attracted most of the attention of the visitors.

Since this huge number of artistic exhibits (580) is unique in Serbia and in the region and it makes our museum distinguished among others, the artistic ceramic was returned in a larger exhibition space in 2006.
Exhibits from the fields of geology, paleontology, archeology, history and ethnology are presented in the gallery space. They include a long time period presenting cave Risovača, our town and the Municipality.

Although publishing was one of the Museum activities earlier (Monograph by D.Sc. Radenko Lazarević, «Risovača» 1987, a book by D.Sc.Branko Gavela «Paleontology of Serbia» 1988, publishing of 20 different postcards in period from 1987-1989), in 2003 publishing of a collection of Museum in Aranđelovac works «Notes form Šumadija» started.

We must not omit to mention the pedagogic department which greets our visitors, mostly organized groups of pupils and students, kindly and professionally. Along with the guide, both the custodian and the assocciate are occupied with pedagogic work. The number of guides is increased so they can on time and in a proper way, adjusted to the age of the visitors, lead the groups or individuals through exhibition of the Museum and the Risovača cave. The number of the visitors of the museum is between 5000 and 7500 while Risovača cave was seen by between 17 000 and 20 000 visitors only in 2003.

Current name the Museum bears from Janury 1st 2008. Along with conducting major activity, protection of artistic objects, the National Museum is a guardian of the Risovača cave, cultural heritage of huge and natural heritage of extraordinary importance and of a farmstead of Ilija Milošević, an artistic object known as Ethno household.