Minds of Balkans

Private tour of three house museums

2.5 hours – 55 EUR

Three House museums to visit in Belgrade

Let us introduce you to three important figures of Serbian culture, who made us know ourselves better, introduced us to the world and brought the world to us. Visit the Belgrade homes of geographer Jovan Cvijić, writer Ivo Andrić and artist Paja Jovanović.

1910 Belgrade home of the man who mapped Balkan lands and minds

Curious about Balkan psychological types?

So was Jovan Cvijić, the geographer who spent 40 years in field research across the Balkans. His maps of geography and cultures were instrumental in negotiating the borders of the new Yugoslav state after WWI.

House museums tour starts at his home, in the atmospheric quarter from the 1900ies. We promise the interior you want’t find anywhere else! Its unique combination of art nouveau and Balkan ornaments bursts with colors, textures and allegories. The custom furniture was upholstered in the ethnic hand-woven materials Cvijić was bringing from the field.

The perfect setting for us to discuss the Balkan psychological types Cvijić established, still living within us!

Belgrade apartment of Nobel awarded writer

Our next authority on the Balkans comes from the literary world.

Ivo Andrić was a Bosnian-born writer, royal Yugoslavian diplomat and socialist Yugoslavia cultural eminence, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1961. His apartment is elegant and a bit austere, as was the author himself.

We’ll talk about what so special about Andrić’s novels and see his Nobel diploma. Much of his writing is about the culture, history and psychology of his homeland Bosnia: the gallery of contrasts between Turks, Austrians, local urban and rural populations, European diplomats, catholic monks…

Original artist studio from 1890ies relocated to Belgrade

We complete the experience at the museum of Paja Jovanović, whose lavish decoration was brought from the artist’s studio in Vienna. Think green silk and crimson wallpapers, gold frames, Louis XV sofas and marble mantlepieces.

What is unique about Paja Jovanović in Serbian art history is his early and continuous commercial success and unbelievably universal appeal. Paja appealed both to the Viennese nobility waiting in lines to sit for a portrait and to a Serbian man, who would hang copies of Jovanović’s traditional scenes on walls of his home. The UK collectors from the late 19th century and today’s collectors from Middle East love Paja’s Balkan Muslim folklore scenes. Serbian kings from rival dynasties and even the communist regime were commissioning Paja for the portraits.

The artist himself selected the works for his Belgrade museum: from the Balkan landscapes, portraits of Belgrade mayor, Yugoslav Queen and Austrian noble women, to the private portraits of his beloved young wife, never exhibited anywhere else.

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