 Even before gaining full independence, Serbia has in mid-19th century received several invitations to take part in big international fairs and exhibitions. One such invitation came from Vienna in 1857 which the Serbian government at the time declined. A second invitation came in 1865 for the Paris World Exhibition that was being held in 1867. This one, the government accepted. The conditions were inordinately favorable. Unfortunately, the State Council, as the highest state body, rejected to have Serbia participate in this exhibition. As the country gained full independence in 1867 and became the subject of international law at the Berlin Congress in 1878, the Principality of Serbia – Kingdom of Serbia after 1882, strengthened its position in the Balkans as well as in Europe. The then very popular world and other large thematic international exhibitions were seen as the most powerful means towards promoting the country and its potentials.
Serbia partook of a world exhibition for the first time in Anvers (Antwerp), in Belgium, in 1885. Given the scant extant information about this exhibition, Žika Živulović wrote in his 1989 feuilleton carried in the Politika daily that Serbia had an exhibition space at the exhibition in Anvers covering 125 square meters at which 302 exhibitors carried off a total of 157 awards: 17 gold medals, 40 silver, 53 bronze and 47 laudation letters.
World Exhibitions in Paris
The next big chance was the World Exhibition in Paris from June to December 1889 that France organized on the occasion of 100th anniversary of its Revolution. This exhibition, among other things, will be remembered for Paris unveiling the Eiffel Tower.
 The invitation had arrived two years prior. An opportunity such as this one – to display home production possibilities, the wealth of the raw materials base and to inform consumers worldwide about most diverse produce was not to be passed by. It is a little known fact that Serbia at the time enjoyed balanced imports and exports (in 1887, Serbia imported goods worth 36.4 million dinars and exports were worth 36.1 million dinars). In addition to everything else, at the time when Western European countries were adversely affected by the phylloxera plague that was laying waste to the vineyards in those countries, Serbia was a major wine exporter – mostly to France and Switzerland... Even so, Serbia was given the opportunity to present to world public also its achievements in other fields such as education and the arts. The government of Milan Garašanin immediately seized up on the invitation and Serbia was among the first countries in the world to respond positively to the friendly invitation from the French government.
 Like the majority of countries, Serbia had no pavilion of its own but was given space to use – 435 meters square – on the large gallery and another 40 meters square at the Fine Arts Palace, where separately were displayed objects of art. Each country was given a particular place which it then had to arrange and adjust for its exhibition purposes at its own expense. This included doing the flooring, putting up partitions and screens, turning out all the necessary paraphernalia and furniture to be able to display exhibits as well as doing the frontage. According to the Exhibition’s Main Directorate rules, each participating country may put on display its products only group-by-group in individual compartments. In other words, in agriculture, industry, chemical technology produce, general art and fine arts compartments. Adhering to this principle, Serbia was to have had several individual areas in separate places. For a small country, this would have had a very adverse effect. Such a country would then become quite lost and remain unnoticed in the company of big and mighty countries. Another problem cropped up: it was impossible to have one man in each of the compartments to provide visitors with the necessary explanations in several world languages. The French government then exempted Serbia from these rules so that Serbia displayed its products in a single compartment, except the paintings and sculptures, which were exhibited in the Fine Arts Palace. This arrangement afforded the Serbian exhibition much better viewing conditions and consequently a more favorable overview.
The Serbian exhibition space was along the main line of the exhibition, head on towards Avenue de Suffren, between the spaces of Greece, Japan, Romania and Luxemburg. On the outside, the front part of the structure was adorned with a tastefully decorated front piece in the Serbian-Byzantine style made of enameled mosaic encased with white marble slates. A white eagle stood in a marble framework over the main entrance with four large columns of red marble-like material and with two Serbian flags unfurled above it.
 At this exhibition, Serbia brought 1,742 exhibitors that won a total of 372 awards, of which 19 gold medals, 68 silver, 98 bronze and 187 laudation letters. According to the information released by the French newspaper Galois, a total of six and half million visitors toured the World Exhibition, five million French and one and half million foreign.
The second time the Kingdom of Serbia appeared at World Exhibitions was again in Paris in 1900. This time round, Serbia accepted the invitation of the French hosts as a valuable opportunity for the Kingdom to present to the international public its political interests and state sovereignty as well as economic potentials, its cultural heritage and originality in art. A committee, headed by Svetozar Gvozdić, was formed for this purpose. Also, a pavilion was built in the Serbian-Byzantine style after designs of architect Milan Kapetanović on Rue des Nations on the bank of the Seine River. At this exhibition, Serbia put on display its best face and opened wide the doors to Europe at the turn of the 20th century.
 The Ministry of Economy was in charge of collecting the exhibits. A large number of its employees – who traversed Serbia far and wide – were engaged for this purpose. Several thousand exhibitors from around Serbia submitted their applications for consideration for the World Exhibition. Folk arts and crafts invited special attention at the exhibition, as Pirot kilims had risen to international fame since.
The massive response from Serbian artists was also noteworthy. Serbian artists offered for display works depicting themes from national history: painter Paja Jovanović – Krunisanje Cara Dušana (Crowning of Emperor Dušan), a majestic oil on canvas; painter Marko Murat – Dolazak Cara Dušana u Dubrovnik (Arrival of Emperor Dušan in Dubrovnik); sculptor Djordje Jovanović – Spomenik Kosovskim Junacima (Monument to Kosovo Battle Heroes)... Seventeen more artists exhibited their works.
In conditions of stiff competition, the Serbian exhibitors returned from Paris with a total of 220 high recognitions, including seven Grand Prix, 35 gold medals, 53 silver medals... The largest number of awards went to food produce and farm produce, especially wine and brandy. In the artists’ department, Paja Jovanović and Djordje Jovanović won gold medals, while bronze medal went to Marko Murat and Risto Vukanović.
1907 London Balkans Exhibition
 In addition to participating in World Exhibitions of a general type, Serbia also recorded several significant appearances in thematic economic exhibitions (including Vienna, Budapest) in the latter half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. The information about these events, however, is sketchy and unreliable and rather confusing than revealing. Thus, without apparently checking facts and dwelling deeper into the heart of matters, some companies, institutions and even municipalities come up with information about participation in ‘this and that world’ or some other ‘exhibition’ but there is no data confirming any such exhibition ever took place in the particular city in the particular year.
Exceptions, as far as extant written information permits, are to be found for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889, on which Miloš Hadži Popović submitted a detailed report to the minister of national economy and in the booklet titled Serbia at the 1907 London Balkans Exhibition issued by Royal Serbian Ministry of National Economy.
This second one was also the last large-scale exhibition in which Serbia participated prior to the Balkan Wars, and subsequently World War I. At the London exhibition, Serbia put on display its very best at the time in the areas of industry, agriculture and cultural and scientific achievements. Bulgaria and Montenegro also took part in the exhibition. The exhibitions of the National, Ethnographic and Military Museums were especially marked, however it was the economic aspects of Serbia’s exhibition that took precedence. In the introduction to the above-mentioned booklet it set out that "the English Exhibition Board, as it issued the catalogue about the exhibition, very warmly reviewed the Serbian exhibition, which accounts for three-quarters of the catalogue, together with offering photographic images of our exhibition. Thus, the Board itself officially established that Serbia has scored a total success at the Balkans Exhibition..."
|
Ethnographic Exhibition in Sankt Petersburg
A special place belongs to the large ethnographic exhibition in Sankt Petersburg in 1867 in the nearly one and half century long tradition of Serbia’s appearances at major international exhibitions and fairs. It is noteworthy that parallel with the exhibition a Pan-Slav Congress was held in Moscow. The invitation for Serbia to participate in this exhibition at which it was to present its ethnographic wealth also served to launch in Serbia a change in attitude toward the country’s national legacy. Although already in 1844, when Serbskonarodni Muzeum (the National Museum of Serbia) was founded in Belgrade by Education Minister Jovan Sterija Popović’s decree along with an Ethnographic Department, it was only through preparations and participation in such a large international event that conditions were created in Serbia to open a museum specializing only in this particular area. This was also when the first major systematic collecting of objects used in the people’s lives was carried out. This event was treated in Serbia with due seriousness. A Committee, specially formed at the orders of the Srpsko Učeno Društvo (Serbian Learned Society), was entrusted with organizational matters.
A collection was put together consisting of indeed valuable exhibits, including those donated personally by Prince Mihailo Obrenović. The collection was never returned to homeland – it remained at the Russian Ethnographic Museum in Sankt Petersburg as an authentic witness to an age and about the Serbian people. Be that as it may, one hundred and thirty-eight years later, an exhibition titled Collection Autumn-Winter 1867 (that is, part of these Serbian collection items) was shown in Belgrade in 2005. | | 
