 Endowments and setting up endowments have a long tradition among the Serbian people. This holds true for what is Serbia today as well as for all the countries and regions in which they lived for centuries. An exhibition called "Endowments and Setting Up Endowments in the Tradition of the Serbian People" was opened in the Belgrade City Assembly Hall building in memory of those who shared part of their wealth with their people or who bequeathed their property after passing on for the benefit of the Serbian people. The exhibition, organised by the Privrednik Serbian Business Club and put together by art historian Gordana Gordić, was held from June26 to July 1.
The exhibition, as explained at the opening by Privrednik Club President Danko Djunić, was part of a project aimed at generating the same kind of business atmosphere capable of continuing the prewar tradition of a business association of the same name that for 40 years – until World War II – was renowned for educating craftsmen and youth. At the same time, the project was Privrednik’s largest individual project this year in the area of the club’s humanitarian and social activities. The exhibition’s great significance was also due to the fact that it was prepared in the same year when important activity was launched to pass legislation to regulate setting up endowments in harmony with European values. Mention was also made that the Club, as patron, was engaged in other organized efforts – mostly with regard to scholarships for talented students – and assisting institutions in caring for children and old people.
 The exhibition provided comprehensive insight into the history of setting up endowments through displaying endowments of medieval monasteries as well as the endowments in Sremski Karlovci, Novi Sad and Belgrade.
King Milutin – Biggest Benefactor
There is some evidence that shows benefactors existed before the Nemanjić dynasty came to power. However, during their dynasty the establishment of endowments gained full momentum and today we can still see the results. The oldest preserved endowment is the Studenica Monastery, founded in 1190 by the Grand Zhupan of Raška, Stefan Nemanja. The Nemanjić’s accounted for most of the endowments in the history of the Serbian people. Among them, King Milutin was by far the biggest ktitor. In the 40 years of his reign, he set up 40 endowments!
In addition to temples, the Nemanjić family also built houses, bridges, hospitals. They also built beyond the borders of what was then Serbia then, mostly on the Holy Mountain - Mt. Athos. The Chilandar Monastery on Athos was jointly renewed in 1198 by Stefan Nemanja and his son Rastko, who later became the first Serbian Archbishop and was canonised. At the site of the original church, King Milutin in 1320 built the Church of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple for which Prince Lazar built the outer narthex...
 Saint Sava also renewed the Xiropotamos and Filotheos. The Gregorios Monastery was built by a Serbian monk; the St. Paul Monastery was built by two Serbian monks - Radonja and Antonije. Existing records show that Serbian rulers, like other ktitors who renewed monasteries, poured gold in buckets on the monasteries on Mt. Athos.
St. Sava and King Milutin also had endowments in Thessaloniki.
St. Sava also founded two monasteries in Romania: Zlatica and Bazjaš.
The Nemanjić family built churches and monasteries in the Middle East too, more notably, in the Holy Land. Apart from putting up the main building at the Holy Cross Monastery in Jerusalem, St. Sava was also the grand ktitor of the Great Lavra St. Savvas of Jerusalem. He bought the St. George Monastery in Acre from Crusaders, a monastery that still stands today and is the seat of a Greek Orthodox Church metropolitan. King Milutin made lavish gifts to churches and monasteries in the Holy Land, built the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel Monastery in Jerusalem and an adjacent hospital. On Mt. Sinai, King Milutin built a chapel in which his name is mentioned during every service to this day. There were also Serbian endowments in Constantinople, such as the Prodrom Monastery, dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The monastery also had a hospital.
 For the most part, the rulers, wealthy nobles and high church dignitaries, were behind the endowments in medieval Serbia. They left behind many churches and monasteries, such as the Žiča Monastery, an endowment of Stefan the First-Crowned (founded in the early 13th century); the Mileševa Monastery, an endowment of King Vladislav (founded in the third decade of the 13th century); the Sopoćani Monastery, an endowment of King Uroš I (built around 1265); the Gradac Monastery, an endowment of Queen Helen of Anjou, the wife of King Uroš (built in the last quarter ofthe 13th century); the Peć Patriarchate Monastery, an endowment of Serbian Archbishops (from the 13th and 14th century); the Gračanica Monastery, an endowment of King Milutin (put up in the second decade of the 14th century); theDečani Monastery, an endowment and mausoleum (from the first half of the 14th century) founded by King Stefan Dečanski (his son Dušan continued the construction upon his demise); the Ravanica Monastery, an endowment and mausoleum of Stefan Lazarević (from the 15th century)...
Learned and Wealthy Serbs Donate to their Fatherland
The tradition of setting up endowments did not altogether cease even during the 500 years under Turkish rule. The process was renewed in earnest only with the awakening of national awareness and the beginning of the struggle for liberation from the Turks in the early 19th century and was in full swing between 1840 and 1940. Unlike the medieval times, founders of endowments and funds - for the most part set up with major cultural institutions – were now people from all segments of society such as successful wholesalers and industrialists, government ministers, professors, officers, bishops, politicians…
The name of Sava Popović Tekelija (1761-1842), aristocrat, merchant, lawyer, philanthropist, ktitor and benefactor, the first Serbian doctor of jurisprudence and the Matica Srpska Serbian Literary-Cultural Foundation president figures very high on the long list of those who had set up endowments…He came to understand early on that the future of Serbia lay in nurturing a then non-existent intellectual elite. As soon as Matica Srpska was founded in Pest (1824), Tekelija donated "100 forints in silver and 100 forints in Viennese currency." He then founded the Tekelijanum, an Institute/Foundation for Supporting Serbian Students in Pest, and then bequeathed his huge personal library to it, entrusting Matica Srpska with running it. Before he died, he left everything to it, i.e. to the Serbian people – a large amount in savings, property and houses in Pest and his native Arad, in Romania.
 In Belgrade, several merchants have presented the city with some of the most splendid buildings in the old city quarter. But that was not all, and they were not the only ones to do so.
Sima Andrejević Igumanov formed a committee by way of the Foreign Ministry to fund the entire cultural and education activity in the then called Stara Srbija (roughly Kosovo and Metohija) and Macedonia regions – from training the teaching staff in Belgrade to payrolls for teachers, building and maintaining schools and students’ scholarships. In his native town of Prizren, he built a Theology Teachers’ College, and in Belgrade, an endowment that was to support the college. The Sima Igumanov Fund also assisted the work of the similar Sv. Sava Society. The Igumanov Grand Place at Belgrade’s no. 31 Terazije Square was owned by the Fund and it was from here that the charity and enlightening activities were carried out.
A second, no less beautiful and useful building at no. 50 Knez Mihailova St. was endowed by Nikola D. Kiki. It was from his legacy that the Belgrade Junior Chamber of Commerce put up the Nikola and Evgenija Kiki Hospital for the Poverty-Stricken and Merchants in Distress – which is today’s Plastic Surgery Clinic at Zvečanska St. Upon his demise, his wife Evgenija devoted herself to executing her husband’s will and built the Kiki Palace, Junior Merchants’ Club at the corner of no. 2 Cetinjska St. and no. 1 Hilandarska St.
 Aleksa Krsmanović, with his brother Dimitrije, presented his people with an elegant, mansion in the Neo-Baroque style at no. 34 Terazije Sq., which was also a temporary court of the Serbian king and in which incorporating the Serb lands into the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was proclaimed on December 1, 1918. Apart from this manor, Krsmanović also made a gift to the city of the Srpska Kruna Hotel (the Serbian Crown Hotel) at no. 56 Knez Mihajlova St., currently the location of the Belgrade City Library. The houses at nos. 11, 12 and17 at Braće Krsmanovića St., at nos. 3 and 5 Koste Glavinića St. and at no. 46 Karadjordjeva St. were also part of the brothers’ Krsmanović endowment.
Ilija Milosavljević Kolarac and Toma Vučić Perišić have set up a memorial Fund for those who gave their lives for the fatherland. It is one of the oldest in Serbia. Milosavljević helped open an Academy of Law as part of Matica Srpska, and with this a testament in 1878 set up a Fund for the Ilija M. Kolarac University, leaving to Belgrade a beautiful palace on the Academy Square. He set up the Ilija M. Kolarac Literary Fund to award works written by the Serbs ‘from all Serb lands’ in the Cyrillic script.
The best known benefactor of the Belgrade University was salt merchant Miša Anastasijević. He built a splendid palace on the Academy Sq. This building for many years accommodated the seat of the Advanced School, the National Museum and the National Library, and subsequently the University, and then the Faculty of Philosophy. Today, most of the building is used by the Belgrade University administration.
Luka Ćelović - Trebinjac, a merchant who participated in founding the Belgrade Cooperative, and chaired it, left his entire property – an estimated 50 million dollars- to the Belgrade University. He owned an entire city quarter around the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade: the houses at no. 1 Kraljevića Marka St., at nos. 7 and 9 Javorska St., at no. 65 Karadjordjeva St., at Zagrebačka St. and no.16 Gavrila Principa St., at no. 2 Andrićev Venac St.Ćelović also contributed to improving Belgrade’s outer appearance – a city section formerly known as Savamala (around the main Railroad Station)
– was thanks to him designed after solutions of large European cities. He is also responsible for making the large park near the Faculty of Economics, the city’s most beautiful at the time. Among other things, he set up a special fund for a choir, then called the Obilić Academic Singing Society, and provided aid to it since its inception in 1884.
 In 1914, Mihajlo Pupin, a scientist of world stature, set up the Pijade Aleksić Pupin Fund, used to award achievements of students in the areas of literature, history and gusle singing of song collected by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić. Pupin was also behind the Fund for Aiding the School-Church Congregation of his native Idvor, the Privrednik Society and the students from Vojvodina attending agricultural schools. He is also responsible for setting up an endowment to purchase Serbian works of art and issue the Serbian Antiquities publications within the National History Art Museum in Belgrade.
One of the greatest Serbian benefactors was a Belgrade native, the Belgrade Stock Exchange president, National Bank Executive Board member and Prometna Banka bank Chairman of the Board, Nikola Spasić. During the First Balkan War, Spasić provided a fully equipped auxiliary hospital. He bequeathed his luxury palaces and mansions in the heart of the city at nos. 19, 33, 37, 47 Knez Mihailova St., at no. 41 Takovska St., the exhibition room at the old fairgrounds in Belgrade... for commercial and charity purposes. The Spasić Endowment, founded in 1920, funded the construction and equipping of what is today the City Hospital(1935).The Endowment built two more hospitals, one in Krupanj and the other in Kumanovo. In the Palilula city section, he built a large nursery next to an elementary school. Also, he set aside large funds for a special St. George Invalids’ Fund in Belgrade.
Djoka Vlajković, a captain in the Russian and Serbian Army, left his entire estate to Serbia. The building with 32 apartments and commercial space at no. 5 Vlajkovićeva St., used to belong to the Belgrade University.
Renewal of Setting Up Endowments
 The list of major endowment founders in Belgrade also contains the names of Milan Kujundžić Aberdar, who left his property to the Serbian Royal Academy, of wealthy iron merchant Radovan Lazić from Valjevo, who desisted from making a show of his donations by building conspicuous palaces but instead set up a Literary Fund, of Vladimir Vlajko Kalenić, who bequeathed his entire possessions to charity. A special place belongs to Persida Milenković, who left a house at Dobračina St. to junior merchants and the house at no. 5 Zmaj Jovina St. to the Belgrade University. She also made lavish gifts such as to the Home for the Poor at Tabanovačka St.; she gave two houses and a villa for caring for the poor and educating children, while making a present of a vineyard with a villa at Rumunska St. (today Užička St.) to the Red Cross... Then there are also the royalty – King Milan Obrenović and King Aleksandar Karadjordjević, Queen Natalija Obrenović... as well as foreign donators such as Andrew Carnegie, an American industrialist of Scottish origin, whose Fund provided the money for the construction of the Svetozar Marković Library building...
In Novi Sad, there were Jovan and Marija Trandafil, who left their entire possessions to Matica Srpska and the Church–School Congregation. The present building housing Matica Srpska was built from their money in1913. Baron Miloš Bajić, son of a wealthy Zemun merchant and Petrija, the eldest daughter of Prince Miloš Obrenović, financed the construction of what is today the Jovan Jovanović Zmaj high school building (built in 1860). Vladika Platon Atanacković left to the Fund of the Serbian Gymnasium the building currently accommodating the Serbian Arts and Sciences Academy in Novi Sad.
The most valuable endowments in Sremski Karlovci, a longstanding center of the Serbian Orthodox Church and of Serbian spirituality in general, were left by Metropolitan Stefan Stratimirović (the Patriarchate Court, built between 1892 and 1897), Patriarch German Andjelić (the present-day building of the first Serbian Gymnasium, built in 1890) and Patriarch Georgije Branković (the Theological Seminary, built in 1900-1901).
There are in Serbia today as many as110 endowments, of which a large number is, as historians are wont to say, inactive. Major work has been launched this year on overhauling relevant legislation in this field and adjusting it to European values. | 
