As part of European Heritage Days, taken part in by the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia for the third time this year, Assembly House in Nikola Pasic Square saw the opening of an exhibition ‘Old Serbian books’. The exhibition was opened by the Chairman of the National Assembly, Predrag Markovic, who underlined that the event was a good opportunity for the public to become acquainted with both the rich Assembly House collections and the history of parliamentarianism in Serbia. Mr Markovic thanked the team which prepared books from the Assembly House library for the exhibition; he also expressed his gratitude to members of the public for preserving other books in their private collections. Markovic invited the public to visit Assembly House and see both the Ottoman Sultan’s Hatt-i Sharif and the Candlemas Day Constitution – reminders of both tradition and the challenges facing Serbia in the future.

During this year’s European Heritage Days the National Assembly will again give the Serbian and European public the opportunity to see old Serbian books, never exhibited before, from the rich Assembly House collection, including the original 1835 Constitution of the Principality of Serbia (the so-called Candlemas Day Constitution), the Constitution of the Principality of Serbia – the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II’s Hatt-i Sharif of 1838, the Slaveno-serbski magazin, a periodical published in 1768, the Corpus of Laws and Decrees of the Principality of Serbia from 1844 to 1864, and other books of incalculable value.

During European Heritage Days the National Assembly is to offer guided visits to Assembly House in Nikola Pasic Square with the help of curators from the National Assembly Protocol Service.