Contributions to the history of Serbian reading rooms: Reading rooms in the villages and small towns of Vojvodina

Abstract

Under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment, just in time after the French Revolution, educated bourgeois class that formed in many countries felt the immense need for books and reading. Due to the social changes that had affected Europe, the attitude towards books and libraries was also changing. In Europe, social processes took place that enabled the development of education, literacy, and thus the creation of a new readership, as well as new ways of reading, which led to the establishment and formation of various clubs and societies whose main purpose was to enable the access to the newspapers and magazines. The first such societies appeared in France, England and Germany during the 17th and 18th century, and other European countries followed this trend. Serbs in Vojvodina opened their first reading room in Irig in 1842. Until the revolution of 1848/49, Serbian reading rooms were established in Sombor, Kikinda and Novi Sad. The reading movement experienced its expansion in the second half of the 19th century, when the majority of reading rooms in Vojvodina towns and villages were founded. The paper includes a brief overview of the origin and development of Serbian reading rooms in the villages and smaller towns of Vojvodina, with a reference to their role in educational and cultural development, as well as development of the national identity.