The Archival Collection

Since the establishment of the Croatian School Museum in 1901, the Archival Collection has been one of the key components of the Museum’s holdings, alongside the museum collections and the library. It was then already clearly defined that the Archives would collect “various manuscripts and documents significant for the study of the school system in the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia”. Materials were divided into ten groups, the first of which was Manuscripts (works) of certain school authors or generally known figures. First items included manuscript translations of Felbiger's Kern des Methodenbuches (1777), Methodus (1797) by Josip Herović and Vpelivanye od podvuchanya decze vu skoli (1835) by Ivan Jurišević, an attendee of teacher preparation courses.

During the following years of existence (and persistence) of the only museum specialised for the history of the school system and pedagogy in Croatia, materials for the Archives were collected almost entirely through gifts. Since the 1960s, when the status of the Archives collection was brought into accordance with archival regulations, only privately owned material has been collected for archiving.

The Archival Collection of the Croatian School Museum has about 150 metres of archival material created between the eighteenth and the twentieth century through activities of legal entities (institutions, associations and administrative bodies) and individuals, primarily from the field of education and pedagogy. The materials are arranged in archival holdings and collections of archival material:

• Archival holdings: holdings of legal entities (associations, institutions), personal/family holdings
• Collections of archival material: School minutes (protocols); Register books and work diaries; Archival material for the history of education in Croatia; School documentation; A collection of school and personal documents and manuscripts
• A collection of photocopies and reproductions

Archival holdings of Croatian teacher associations and cooperatives make a larger part of archival holdings of legal entities and represent primary historical resource for researching the history of organised activity of teachers and professors in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. The oldest preserved holdings are those of the Teachers’ Cooperative, the first teacher association in Croatia established in 1865, and of the Croatian Pedagogical-Literary Assembly (1871).

Personal/family archival holdings consist of archival material created by activities of one person or family. The Archival collection of the Croatian School Museum contains personal holdings of teachers, professors, pedagogues and writers. These include personal documents, school and official documents, manuscripts, materials created by professional and social activity, correspondence and other supporting materials for bio-bibliography. Personal holdings of Mijat Stojanović, Davorin Trstenjak, Milka Pogačić, Salih Ljubunčić, Stjepan Pataki, Mihajlo Ogrizović, Vladimir Poljak and the writers Dragojla Jarnević, Mato Lovrak and Grigor Vitez stand out in terms of value and quantity of manuscript material.

Fragmentary material, created by the life and work of a single person, is held in the Collection of school and personal documents and manuscripts. The Collection keeps pupils’ school reports, commendations, pupil report books, matriculation books and certificates, as well as other personal documents and manuscripts. Particular attention has been given to the collection of teacher education certificates.

The Collection of school minutes (protocols) contains 170 manuscript books from the end of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly from the area of Military Frontier. These include notes of school orders, exam reports, books of honours and of shame, and ten yearbooks. The Collection of register books and work diaries contains 240 registers and work diaries from primary and secondary schools, mostly from Zagreb and the surrounding area, dating between 1887 and 1950.

The archival material related to the history of education in Croatia is a collection of fragmentary material from schools and education institutions, teaching-related administrative bodies and legal entities in general.

School documentation contains questionnaires from a survey conducted across elementary schools of the Banate of Croatia in the academic year 1939/1940 and questionnaires sent to schools of the Republic of Croatia by the Croatian School Museum in the 1960s. The questionnaires cover basic information on the operation and state of schools and their history. The documentation comprises 24 metres of material (4,016 folders).

During its century-long existence, the Museum and its Archives have collected valuable archival material on the history of the school system, education, pedagogy and teaching in Croatia, as well as on interdisciplinary academic research.