There are many museums in the city of Sarajevo. Our visitors may start their tour with Natural History museum and its lavish collection where famous Sarajevo’s Haggadah is exhibited, then continue to the History museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Museum Valter defends Sarajevo is very popular among visitors because it represents a symbol of resistance against the Fascists during the World War Two. On this page you will find a full list of museums in the city of Sarajevo.
Museum of Natural History was founded in 1888 in Sarajevo. The idea of its founding came up in 1850, however the plan was realised only during the Austro-Hungarian rule. The original building was unsuitable, so accoring to a regulation plan from 1909 a sketch of the museum was made and its construction in the central part of the city of Sarajevo began (on the place of today's Square of Bosnia and Herzegovina). The architect Carlo Parzik designed a new museum complex that contained four pavilions and the Botanical Garden, which was completed and opened in 1913. For a long time it was the only national museum complex in the territory of former Yugoslavia.
The Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina was founded in 1945 as the Museum of National Liberation. Since 1967 it has been called the Museum of Revolution, and in 1993 it was named the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This museum is the main institution for the study and museological presentation of the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Permanent exhibition covers the arrival of the Slavs on the Balkan Peninsula, the creation of the first medieval South Slavic states, the creation of medieval Bosnian state, Bosnia and Herzegovina under Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian rule.
The National Gallery in Sarajevo was founded in 1946, and the first collection consisted of 600 works of art. The gallery was open to public only in 1959, when 2,200 works of art, mostly by Bosnian-Herzegovinian artists, were presented. During the war (from 1992 to 1995), 51 works of art disappeared from the gallery, under unknown circumstances. Even today, there is no information or trace about this incident. In the gallery you will find works of modern and contemporary art, and the gallery itself is one of the oldest and most important museum institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Olympic Museum opened on February 8, 1984 in Sarajevo, on the day of the opening of the XIV Winter Olympics. From 1984 to 1992, the museum was located in a representative villa in the center of Sarajevo. This was a luxury villa built in 1903 for the lawyer family Mandic. The building of the Olympic Museum was designed by a famous Czech architect Karlo Paržik and was modeled after luxurious European villas. After the Second World War, the building was nationalized and declared state property.
The Jewish Museum is located in the oldest synagogue in Sarajevo and is considered to be the most beautiful exhibition space in the entire former Yugoslavia. It was built in 1580 when the Rumelian begler bey, Sijavus-pasha, gave the money to build a large house for the Sephardic Jews, who were exiled from Spain in 1566. They came to Sarajevo and brought with them the most significant manuscript from the 15th century - Sarajevo's Haggadah.
