As far as in 1882 the Town
representatives of the Vršac municipality, at the suggestion of
Julius Frisch, made the decision to found the Museum. The reason
for that was the discovery of the great treasure of Roman money
in Veliki rit (the Great swamp) near Vršac, which belonged to the
czar Constantine in the 14th century. The money was purchased and
placed in keeping with the building of Magistrate, until the space
for the Museum was provided. In the same year the decision was
made to allow Eduard Rittinger (a famous collector of archaeological
and numismatic artefacts) to undertake the archaeological excavations
on that locality. The period between 1882 and 1894, when the Museum
was given the space (in the “Concordia” building”), the curator
and the Statute, we could call “the institution in the process
of founding”. Felix
Milleker (1858-1942) was appointed curator,
and he is meritorious for the enrichment of the museum collections,
doing the field excavations, purchasing the objects from the collectors,
and a considerable number of antiquities have found their place
in the Museum, being gifts from the numerous donors
The problem of space is one
of the existential questions, which has been present in the Museum
since its foundation until the present day. The “Concordia” building,
where the Museum was given two rooms (in one of them the exhibition
was organized and opened for the public in 1896), was not spacious
enough. In 1905 the building of German kindergarten was purchased
for the needs of the Town Museum and the National Library, which
were joined into one institution, at the suggestion of the town
municipality at the beginning of 1898. After the adaptation and
equipping of the space, the Museum collections were classified,
and under the influence of the Country board for museums and libraries,
the Ethnological and Natural history collections were formed in
1909, and in 1910 the Art collection (the Archaeological, Numismatic
and History collections had already been formed before). The new
show-cases were made for the Museum, the depots for the accommodation
of the materials were arranged, and on 23 October 1910, the new,
permanent exhibition was formally opened. The total fund of the
Museum exhibits was 30,931 objects.
After 1910 the Museum has entered
more peaceful courses of its development. The First World War,
and joining of Vojvodina and Banat with the new state of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenians, passed without greater concussions. The
Museum collections grew, and the influx of the exhibits was considerable.
Thus, in 1920 the Museum had 101,590 objects, in 1932 that number
was 109,354 and in 1940 it increased to 122,432 objects, and now,
at the beginning of the 21 century, it consists of 260,000 exhibits
In the period between 1894 till
1942, Felix Milleker worked as the only curator of the Museum. Working
assiduously on the studying of archaeology and history, reading the
expert literature, doing correspondence with the eminent scientists,
he had been forming his personality as the great researcher. The
results of his work are considerable in the field of publishing as
well, with 300 published works. Endangered by the Second World War
of 1941, the most valuable exhibits of the Museum were moved to the
strong-room of the National Bank. After Milleker's death in 1942,
the Museum was closed.
After the liberation from the fascism in 1945, the new stage of
the Museum development began. The Library separated and in 1947 moved
into the other building, and the Museum opened its doors to the public
again. In the following years, the museum personnel became gradually
stronger, so that today all the departments and collections are covered
by the corresponding personnel, except the Natural History department,
which does not have an expert in that field.
Today the Museum owns the buildings:
“Concordia”, where the permanent exhibition is planned to be, as
well as the building “The Pharmacy on the Stairs”, which is registered
as the cultural monument of great importance, with the permanent
exhibitions “The History of Health Culture of the south-east Banat”
and “In Remembrance of Paja Jovanović”. In preparation is the exhibition
“The town life of Vršac in the second half of the 19th century and
at the beginning of the 20th century.”
In the Museum building, 19 Felix Milleker Street, where both accommodation
and work premises are, there is a hall for the thematic exhibitions,
which have been following one another during the year, and in the
Museum yard there is a permanent exhibition of the Natural History
collection “The Fauna of Vršac Mountains”.
The City Museum Vršac is the
domicile Museum, of complex type, where all the expert departments
are represented: the archaeological, the history, the numismatic,
the ethnological, the natural history and the art department, as
well as the conservatory workshops, and it has been registered as
the Institution which collects, studies, processes, exhibits and
publishes the museum materials.
