Museum activities of Serbs in Canada

Museum activities of Serbs in Canada is a subject that has not been in-
teresting to the broader range of our public in Canada or in Serbia. The
care for the Serbian cultural heritage, through time and through places
where Serbs lived, has slowly developed, then disappeared due to wars
and economic crises, only to be re-established in the changed and
adapted format. This rhythm could be better monitored in the mother
country, where the museum activity is stronger, better expressed, and
then more strongly researched. In the Diaspora, the story is quite dif-
ferent. This paper will explore the definition of cultural heritage and
museums, followed by cultural activities and documentation efforts
among the Serbian communities in Canada. Significant achievements
and individuals who have fought for these successes will be examined.
Furthermore, an objective picture of the current state of Serbian cul-
tural heritage will be presented, illustrating it through its expression
and individuals who maintain it alive through their creativity. Finally,
this paper will explore ways in which the care for the cultural heritage,
through the museum activities, may continue, expand and establish
itself in this region.

Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage
The tangible cultural heritage includes outstanding buildings, secular
and religious, monuments and material works of art. This definition is
recognizable and acceptable to the public, and almost all our collect-
ive attention is focused on care of such expressions of Serbian cultural
heritage. Since there are more examples of such material cultural herit-
age present in Serbia, we often forget the presence and importance of
our intangible cultural treasure. Such form of Serbian culture is more
widespread and more often practiced due to historical circumstances
of settlers living in isolation from the mother country
Serbian material culture in diaspora, Canada specifically, is more
or less confined to the sacral architecture which, except for a few ex-
amples, is newer, but it is extremely important and visually impressive.
The oldest Serbian Orthodox municipality in Ontario was established
in 1913 in Hamilton, and the first temple, the church of St. Nicholas,
was built in 1917. The church no longer exists, and the temple was
moved to a new location on Barton Street. The oldest Serbian Church
in Canada is the church of the Holy Trinity in Regina (Saskatchewan)
from 1915. In addition to religious buildings, the facilities for the social
life of communities were springing up, which were often more func-
tional than aesthetic feats of architecture. Their value is priceless for
all the communities in which they the epicenters of the spiritual and
social life.
UNESCO defines intangible cultural heritage as a “human input,
expression, skill or performance, as well as the object, artifact, instru-
ment, or an area that is connected with it, that communities, groups
and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heri-
tage. In accordance with paragraph 2 of this Article, the intangible
cultural heritage can be: 1. the language, speech, oral tradition, oral
literature or other oral expression; 2. performing arts; 3. custom, ritual
and festivity; 4. knowledge or skills related to nature and the uni-
verse; 5. knowledge and skills related to the cult and the famous city
and 6. traditional craft or skill.” (http://www.kultura.gov.rs/docs/stra
nice/82128418889499865927/11.%20Konvencija%20o%20ocuvanju%20
nematerijalnog% 20kulturnog 20nasledja% 20% (Paris% 202003) .pdf)
So, now that the definition of intangible cultural heritage is clear,
the expression of that same culture, which surrounds us every day,
should be examined. The Serbian public is aware that life in the Dias-
pora implies the existence of dominant, foreign culture, in which we, as a
minority, are trying to maintain our own cultural identity. In this effort,
we follow the creative impulse in a few dominant cultural expressions;
1. performing arts such as folklore dance and choral singing, 2. culinary
arts, 3. social and religious festivals or collective gatherings, 4. folk art in
the form of souvenirs, or family bequests, 5. theatrical activity to a lesser
degree, and 6. fine arts and the written word which are on a rise. Most
of these aforementioned dominant cultural expressions belong to the
intangible cultural heritage. Therefore, the conclusion offers itself that
the more intense cultural expression of Serbs in Canada is the intangible
form of cultural heritage, which we as a minority in a dominant foreign
culture conscientiously support and maintain.
The practice of these dominant expressions, such as folklore dan-
cing, choral singing, culinary arts, social gatherings and festivals have
all been centered around Serbian Orthodox Church and its parishes all
over Canada. It seems that as soon as a community is established, the
social gatherings and festivals are observed mimicking cultural frame-
work from mother country. Community then builds a temple and
identifies leaders, initiates folklore section, Sunday school, language
school, group of women who organize and supply festivities with deli-
cacies from the national cuisine. Due to this pattern, such intangible
traditions surfaced as the most dominant.
Then there is journalism, which flourished in the period 1930-
1945 through political news articles, analysis and essays in the Voice
of Canada, later the Voice of Canadian Serbs, and Pravda from To-
ronto. In the period between 1954 and 1985 already strong writing and
publishing activities become most intense through the work of Avala
Printing Publishing Co., from Windsor. Finally, in the mid 1990s the
written heritage is channelled and diversified through the opening
of several weekly newspapers in Toronto, such as; weekly Newspaper
(Toronto); monthly Easterly and Messenger (both church newspaper
in Toronto) Umbrella (Vancouver), Letter (Kitchener), Tesla Magazine
(Toronto), followed by monthly bilingual newspaper Voice of Can-
adian Serbs, also from Toronto, bilingual magazine for literature and
culture People Talk (Toronto) and the Canadian Srbobran (Hamilton),
Serbia (Hamilton) and others.
The literary activity in the Canadian diaspora was intense in earlier
periods (1934-1983) and most publicized through newspaper Voice of
Canadian Serbs, where the prominent names such as Desanka Maksi-
movic, Milos Crnjanski, Slobodan Jovanovic appeared as well as many
other notable authors. By moving the Voice to Toronto in mid-1980s
and the establishment of Serbian National Academy of Canada there,
the literary activity becomes even more intense through organizing
literary evenings, book club meeting, bringing famous Serbian writ-
ers to lecture and interact. Since the mid-1990s, few writers from the
former Yugoslavia populate Canadian cities and continue creating and
publishing in Serbian language, and the number of literary enthusiasts
who maintain the production of self published poetry and prose grows.
Visual art is also on the rise due to the influx of many talented
Serbian immigrants to Canada, who continue to create, initiate mutual
cooperation and exhibiting more in local and less in the Serbian owned
galleries. Of course, this brief overview is a general picture of Serb-
ian creative impulses in the material cultural expression in the last 50
years, and deserves a more detailed review in another work. For the
sake of illustration, here are mentioned only the most visible and the
easily recognizable examples to our public.
Educational and documentational are contrasting cultural im-
pulses the previous creative ones. Many will, by the term 'education-
al' immediately think of religious education and Serbian language
schools which exist and work consistently for a hundred years in all
Serbian communities in Canada. The best example is Hamilton, where
the church of St. Nicholas on Beach Rd, was consecrated on 19 Decem-
ber 1917. and a religious and Serbian language school started working
almost at the same time. In the past seventy years, schools all across
Canada competed in educational category through cultural programs
offered at Serbian Day at Niagara Falls, organized by the Serbian Na-
tional Defense, Drazha Day in Bimbrook and Winona, and Diocesan
Days at Serbian monastery in Milton. Tremendous achievement in
preserving Serbian language and Orthodox religion among the Serbs
in Canada, claim the schools of Serbian language and religion are the
churches in Hamilton, Toronto and Windsor, numbering hundreds of
students. The only school that has hundreds of students today is the
Serbian school “St Sava” in Kitchener, which operates within the Can-
adian system of primary and secondary schools for different ethnic
groups. It is also notable the ten-year long operation of Dr. Radomir
Baturan’s private school of Serbian language in Toronto, which opened
classrooms in smaller neighboring towns and organized regular sum-
mer and winter camps. Numerous educational programs and activities
in choral singing, folklore, music, theater, painting icons, visual arts,
traditional handicrafts and cuisine were always well attended, great-
ly successful and very valuable in safeguarding the cultural heritage.
An excellent example in choral singing education is the first children's
choir in Canada founded at St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in Ni-
agara Falls early as the mid 1950s. A few years later in Toronto the first
children's choir, the first children's folk group, the first children's tam-
buritza orchestra were organized at the church of St. Sava. Over time,
these activities have varied in intensity and distribution in different
Serbian communities across Canada, given the public interest and /or
the existence of teachers and instructors. Culturally most active com-
munities since the end of World War II were: Windsor, Toronto, Ham-
ilton and Sudbury which, through their own efforts, were successfully
showing the Serbian culture to other more dominant communities.
Documentation impulse of the Serbian community reflects a very
strong need to store, at first the family articles of sentimental value, but
also the storage of the archives many athletic, humanitarian, cultural
and religious organizations and societies that existed, have been extin-
guished and re-established over time. There exists a necessity for an
organized approach to documentation of life and activities of a century
long of existence of Serbs on the territory of Canada. This organized
and defined process of documenting the lives of people in the com-
munity falls under the museum activity.

The Basic Functions of the Museum
Museums are centers for conservation, study and reflection on herit-
age and culture. Today museums are defined as institutions which are
not oriented to profit, are in the service of society and its development,
are open to the public, which collect, conserve, research and exhibit,
for purposes of study, education and enjoyment of the material evi-
dence of human being and his/ her environment. They maintain a link
with the past, which returns the value of the material traces of our
ancestors and, thus, play a key role encouraging social cohesion. The
main purpose of the museum is to protect and preserve the heritage
as a whole. It also carries out scientific studies needed to understand
and determine its purpose and type. But the educational mission of a
museum, regardless of its nature, is as important as its scientific work.
(see more at http://icom.museum/the-vision/museum-definition/)
The basic functions of the museum are: 1. storage – collection and
protection of heritage, conservation of articles from destruction, dam-
age and theft; 2. scientific functions – facilitating and performing sci-
entific research (history, art history, archeology, biology, chemistry,
documentation); 3. exhibiting function – the presentation of the arte-
facts to the public, thus enabling access to the collection; 4. animating
____________________
(1) During the preparation of the previous issue 27/28 of the magazine “People
Talk”, the Editorial Board has omitted to indicate the name of the author
of this text which was published in Serbian language. We are publishing
the same text in English for the current issue and thereby confirm the
authorship of Tanja Zec-O’Neill for this article. The Editorial Board
apologizes to Tanja Zec-O’Neill for the previous error.