Eight years of traveling to the King Nikola Museum

The diaries of Princess Ksenia, which Prince Nikolai Romanov gave to Montenegro in May 2011, will finally be found in the Museum of King Nikola in Cetinje. For a full eight years, they were kept in the Ministry of Culture, which, in cooperation with the Administration for the Protection of Cultural Property and the National Museum of Montenegro, will fulfill the procedure for their permanent deposit and display in the Petrović Museum in Cetinje.

The agreement on the donation of the diary was signed in Cetinje by the then Prime Minister of Montenegro Igor Lukšić and Prince Nikolay Romanov, who was a descendant of the Russian imperial family and the great-grandson of the Montenegrin King Nikola, i.e. grandson of his daughter Milica, married to Petar Nikolajevic Romanov.

The handover of the diaries, created in the period from 1905 to 1928, with the exception of those created in 1924, as well as two notebooks on received mail in the period from 1912 to 1914, was made on May 19, 2011. in Villa Miločer. With the handover act, the Ministry of Culture, headed by Branislav Mićunović at the time, took over 19 volumes, while the rest was handed over to Porto Montenegro in Tivat (six volumes).

The initiative to place the diaries permanently in the King Nikola Museum was initiated by the National Museum, whose administration officially addressed the Ministry of Culture on February 22 this year, with the request that the collection of Princess Xenia be transferred to them for its preservation, research and presentation as part of the museum’s collections. By the way, on May 4, 2017, the Ministry of Culture submitted an initiative to establish the protection of this collection to the Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Property. The initiative was accepted, about which the Administration officially informed the Ministry on September 14 of the same year. The administration has determined that the collection is authentic, that it contains 19 diaries and represents an important written testimony of Montenegrin history.

The administration is, according to art. 23, 25 and 26 of the Law on the Protection of Cultural Property, initiated the procedure of determining the cultural value by training an expert team, which, based on research findings and other relevant evidence about the properties and peculiarities of the property and valorization of their importance, should prepare a report as a basis for determining the status of a cultural property .

In the document “Information on the Transfer of the Collection of Princess Xenia’s Diaries”, which was considered by the Government at its regular session on April 18, a reminder is made of Article 39 of the Law on the Protection of Cultural Property, which stipulates that the Government designates the entity that will use it for each cultural property at the state’s disposal. manage. Article 40 of the Law on the Protection of Cultural Property stipulates that cultural property in private ownership is managed by the owner, if he has not transferred that right to another person by contract.

– Bearing in mind the above, the Ministry of Culture proposes that 19 copies of the diaries that are in this ministry be transferred to the National Museum of Montenegro, for the purpose of their preservation, research and presentation in part of the museum collections of the King Nikola Museum – the document states.

The King Nikola Museum, according to the document, is obliged to professionally process the objects within 30 days from the day the collection arrives at the Museum and to provide the conditions for its preservation.

The Pobjeda Ministry of Culture has officially announced that the diaries have not yet been handed over to the National Museum for management, because adequate formal and legal conditions have not been created. With the takeover act, as stated in Pobjeda’s answers, the Ministry of Culture took over 19 diaries from the donation and provided conditions for their protection, until the legal conditions for acting in accordance with the Law on the Protection of Cultural Property are met.

– Namely, in 2011, the reorganization of national institutions in the field of cultural heritage was carried out, in addition to others, the Public Institution National Museum of Montenegro. Appreciating the complexity of the aforementioned institution in terms of reorganization, as well as the obligation to harmonize work with the new regulations that preceded the process of institutional reform, the National Museum did not meet the formal and legal requirements at the time of the donation. Also, the conditions in which the diaries were located, after taking over, ensured their protection, and at the same time were available to experts for possible use, in accordance with the regulations – the Ministry announced.

They further pointed out that the Ministry of Culture was primarily guided by the goal of preserving and adequately protecting this exceptional cultural and historical material.

– In the past eight years, the state of the diary has not degraded, on the contrary, further activities of the Ministry of Culture will be aimed at improving it, from all legal and professional aspects – the Ministry pointed out.

They reminded that the Administration for the Protection of Cultural Property is already working on determining the value of Princess Xenia’s collection, and the final status will be known after the completion of that procedure.

– The mentioned collection has value because it represents the personal testimonies of Princess Xenia Fr

about her and her family’s life, and it is especially significant from the aspect of insight into the life of the Petrović Njegoš dynasty in exile, which is extremely important for Montenegrin history. At this moment, the most important thing is to resolve the legal status of the collection, but also its further protection, professional processing and presentation, in order to make it part of the public collection of national importance and make it accessible to the public in an appropriate way – the Ministry announced.

When asked whether the remaining part of the diary, which is kept in the Maritime Heritage Collection of Porto Montenegro, will be added to the collection in the Museum of King Nikola, the Ministry replied that they are in intensive communication with the administration of Porto Montenegro, i.e. Adriatic Marinas, for further cooperation. on the occasion of the preservation, valorization and presentation of the diaries in their possession. On the other hand, PR Porto Montenegro Danilo Kalezić told Pobjeda that the Ministry of Culture has already sent an initiative to Porto to hand over the remaining six volumes of the diary.

– The diaries are exhibited in the Collection of Maritime Heritage, in exceptional conditions, under the auspices of the Museum of the City of Kotor and the Ministry of Culture. At the moment when the Ministry wanted to compile all the diaries and show them together as part of the national treasure, we immediately supported that initiative and the diaries are currently in the phase of handing over to the Ministry of Culture – said Kalezić.