Matica srpska
Encyclopedia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
. Matica srpska was founded in 1826 in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
and moved to Novi Sad
Novi Sad
Novi Sad is the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Bačka District. The city is located in the southern part of Pannonian Plain on the Danube river....
in 1864.
The Matica Srpska Society was one of the initiators of the Novi Sad agreement
Novi Sad agreement
The Novi Sad Agreement was an attempt by twenty five Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin writers, linguists and intellectuals to build unity across the ethnic and linguistic divisions within Yugoslavia, and created the Serbo-Croatian language....
on the Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
(1954), and it led the action for making the unique orthography of the language (1960). They compiled The Vocabulary of Serbian Standard Literary Language in six volumes (1967-1976).
In Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, Matica srpska was one half of a joint project (with Matica hrvatska
Matica hrvatska
Matica hrvatska is one of the oldest Croatian cultural institutions, dating back to 1842. The name is somewhat idiosyncratic, best translated as "The Croatian Centre" . It is the largest publisher of Croatian language books...
) to develop a common Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
dictionary. Mid-way through the project (1967), Matica hrvatska, in accordance with the declaration of principles about the Croatian language
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
, withdrew, and Matica srpska was to finish the dictionary on her own.
Matica srpska publishes the Letopis Matice srpske magazine, which is one of the oldest in the world, being continuously published since 1826.
The Law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
of the Matica Srpska Society (1986) regulates matters of endowment and legacy, given by the national benefactors, and how money is spent for various cultural and educational purposes.
The Matica srpska has a library with about 800,000 books.