27.10.2014
History
On February 5 (January 24, according to the old calendar) of 1876, within the Chief General Staff, by the Decree of the Prince Milan Obrenovic IV, a special (third) section was established, as a forerunner of the Military Archives, tasked to ‘collect historical data’, write war history, keep the whole archive and manage the general staff library. This was the foundation of the first institutionalized work on the military history and of keeping the whole archives in the Serbian military.
History and geography teacher in the School of Artillery, also the first chief, Lieutenant Jovan Dragasevic (1836-1915) was the first deserving for establishing the first archival institution in the military, and during years of his service, he was promoted to the rank of colonel and honorary general. In his written address to the military minister, on June 3 (June 15 in the old calendar) of 1865, lieutenant Dragasevic proposed that a section should be established in the military for an organized collection of the military archival material and for writing of the military history. Two works were joined to his proposal: ‘Project for the way of collecting material for the Serbian war history’ and ‘How to collect material for the new Serbian war history’.
Together with the development of archival service in the Military Archive, organizational structure and job organization were also changing. After the end of the First World War, Historical Section continued with its existence, but from then, within the newly formed General Staff. Its activity was arranged by the ‘Regulation on the Chief General Staff and on the general staff service’, dated April 10, 1920.
It was one out of the four sections of the Chief General Staff, and tasks and obligations of the Historical Section were the following:
collecting, arranging and studying of data for the history of our wars, as well as drafting history,
managing war archives, and
managing the Library of the Chief General Staff, which was added to this section.
On March 6, 1940, Royal governorship prescribed ’Regulations on Military Historical Institute’. According to these regulations, Historical Section was joined with the Military Museum and Military Historical Institute was formed.
Its tasks, compared to the Historical Section, remained almost the same, with the fact that the scope of the work was also expanded to collecting, keeping and arranging cases of ‘war material’ of historical value.
After the short April War in 1941, breakdown of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and capitulation of its military, Historical Section work ended.
By the decree of the Supreme Commander of the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia on the organization of the cultural and educational work, dated December 13, 1944, Historical Institute for studying the national liberation war was founded.
By the decree of the supreme commander of the Yugoslav Army, dated March 1, 1945, Historical Institute was reestablished into the Section for historical and war trials. Within this Section, there was an Archives subsection, tasked to collect all military archives from the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia units, determine what occupants had taken from the military archive and conduct measures to bring back what was taken. In the middle of 1946, Historical Section was first renamed Historical Institute of the Yugoslav Army and from April 1947, Military Scientific and Publishing Institute.
In the spring of 1949, its name was changed into Military History Institute, where Archives Section was formed with three subsections. Later on, the Archives Section was named the Archives of Military History Institute. In 1971, Archives were joined with the Central Archives of the Yugoslav People’s Army and it functioned under the name of Military Archives of the Military History Institute.
Current name, Military Archive, was given in autumn of 2006, when it was included into the Institute for Strategic Research. As of January 1, 2024, the Military Archive, within the Defence Policy Sector of the Ministry of Defence of The Republic of Serbia is organizationally and functionally related to the Assistant Minister for Defense Policy.