The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Latin: Academia Scientiarum et Artium Serbica; Serbian: Српска академија наука и уметности, САНУ, romanized: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, SANU) is a national academy and the most prominent academic institution in Serbia, founded in 1841 as Society of Serbian Letters (Serbian: Друштво србске словесности, ДСС, romanized: Društvo srbske slovesnosti, DSS).
The Academy's membership has included Nobel laureates Ivo Andrić, Leopold Ružička, Vladimir Prelog, Glenn T. Seaborg, Mikhail Sholokhov, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Peter Handke as well as, Josif Pančić, Jovan Cvijić, Branislav Petronijević, Vlaho Bukovac, Mihajlo Pupin, Nikola Tesla, Milutin Milanković, Mihailo Petrović-Alas, Mehmed Meša Selimović, Danilo Kiš, Paja Jovanović, Dmitri Mendeleev, Victor Hugo, Leo Tolstoy, Jacob Grimm, Antonín Dvořák, Henry Moore and many other scientists, scholars and artists of Serbian and foreign origin.
Contents
History
Predecessors
The Serbian Royal Academy of Sciences (Serbian: Српска краљевска академија, СКА, romanized: Srpska kraljevska akademija, SKA) was the successor to the Serbian Learned Society (Serbian: Српско учено друштво, СУД, romanized: Srpsko učeno društvo, SUD) with which it merged in 1892 and accepted its members as its own either regular or honorary members, its tasks and its place in scientific and cultural life. The same had occurred several decades earlier when the Serbian Learned Society on 29 July 1864 took over the place and functions of the Society of Serbian Scholarship (Serbian: Друштво српске словесности, ДСС, romanized: Društvo srpske slovesnosti, DSS), the first learned society in the Principality of Serbia, founded on 7 November 1841. The Serbian Royal Academy of Sciences was led by members, such as Jovan Cvijić.
In 1864, the Society elected to its membership international revolutionary figures as Giuseppe Garibaldi, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, and Alexander Herzen, and was immediately abolished for this action by the conservative government of Prince Mihailo Obrenović.
Founding of Serbian Royal Academy
Since the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts was founded by law (as the Serbian Royal Academy) of 1 November 1886, it has been the highest academic institution in Serbia. According to the Royal Academy Founding Act, King Milan was to appoint the first academic, who would then choose other members of the academy. The names of the first academics were announced by King Milan on 5 April 1887. At that time, there existed four sections in the academy, which were then called "specialised academies". Four academics were appointed to each section:
Academy of Natural Sciences
Josif Pančić
Dimitrije Nešić
Jovan Žujović
Ljubomir Klerić
Academy of Philosophy
Stojan Novaković
Milan Kujundžić Aberdar
Svetislav Vulović
Svetomir Nikolajević
Academy of Social Sciences
Čedomilj Mijatović
Milan Đ. Milićević
Ljubomir Kovačević
Panta Srećković
Academy of Arts
Ljubomir Nenadović
Matija Ban
Mihailo Valtrović
Davorin Jenko
Departments
Department of Mathematics, Physics and Geo Sciences
Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences
Department of Technical Sciences
Department of Medical Sciences
Department of Languages and Literature
Department of Social Sciences
Department of Historical Sciences
Department of Arts
Institutes
Institute for Balkan Studies
Institute for Byzantine Studies
Geographical Institute "Jovan Cvijić"
Ethnographical Institute
Institute for the Serbian Language
Institute of Technical Sciences
Mathematical Institute
Institute of Musicology
Building
From 1909 till 1952 Serbian Academy of Science and Arts Building was located at 15 Brankova Street. This building was demolished in 1963. After that the Academy was moved to 35 Knez Mihailova Street, in a magnificent building in the city centre, where it has remained up to now. Serbian Academy of Science and Arts (SASA), the highest scientific institution in Serbia, has been decorating Knez Mihailova Street for almost one century, bringing the spirit of French decorations and Art Nouveau in the architecture of Belgrade.
The sketches, proposals and designs for the construction of this magnificent building were created from the first day of its founding in 1886; however, the Academy did not move in the building until 1886. Right after the founding of the Academy, the erection of the building was considered at the representative location in Knez Мihailova Street, which Prince Mihailo Obrenović III donated for educational cause.
Considering the fact that apart from the plot Serbian Royal Academy (SRA) had no other financial resources, the erection of the temporary ground-floor building was considered until the conditions are fulfilled for the construction of the representative object in which two important national institutions were supposed to be located: The Serbian Country Museum and The National Library. In the following years SRA considered various ways of forming funds and acquiring financial resources for the construction of its building. The mutual fund of SRA, National Library and The Serbian Country Museum was formed in 1896 by the King's Decree, so that with the initial capital and its own plot, the Academy was able to begin solving the construction problem.
Affirmed architect of domestic architecture Кonstantin Jovanović was hired to make the design in 1900. It was the first project in a row which remained unrealized: starting from the plea to eminent architectures Аndra Stevanović, Nikola Nestorović, Milan Kapetanović and Dragutin Đorđević, to make the preliminary designs, through the unsuccessful announcement of the public competition, until the attempt to form the project resembling the building of Yugoslav Academy of Science and Arts from Zagreb and new designs of an architect Konstantin Jovanović. At the same time, with the attempts to obtain the adequate design, the interest of the three institutions for the construction of the common building was not constant. Dealing with the problem of permanent location, in 1908 SRA got to use the space in the building of Sima Igumanović endowment at 15 Brankova Street. After more than two decades of attempting to obtain its own building, the Presidency of SRA, by the end of 1910 decided to entrust the design to Dragutin Đorđević and Andra Stevanović. The cornerstone was laid on 27 March 1914, by the Crown Prince Aleksandar Karađorđević in the presence of the academics and the Ministers of Construction and Education. The construction works were assigned to the Matija Bleh's company, whereas the facade plastics and sculptural program were done by Jungmann and Sunko. However, the construction was interrupted by the beginning of the First World War.
Electoral assemblies
New members of the Academy are elected on the electoral assemblies, which have been held every third year since 1985.
In order to make room for academics from a wider field of arts, "Department of Fine Arts and Music" was renamed to "Department of Arts" in 2021, which was the first major organisational change in the Academy after a number of years.
List of Nobel laureates
There have been 20 members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts who were honoured with the Nobel Prize.