Matica srpska
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| Formation | 1 June 1826 |
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| Purpose | Cultural studies |
| Headquarters | Novi Sad, Serbia |
| Website | www.maticasrpska.org.rs |
The Matica srpska (Serbian Cyrillic: Матица српска) is the oldest cultural-scientific institution of Serbia. Matica Srpska was founded in 1826, in Pest (today a part of Budapest), and moved to Novi Sad in 1864.
Of all the Slavic maticas, Matica Srpska was the first to be established in the Habsburg Empire on the ancestral territory of the Rascians (better known as Rascia) at the time of a Serb national and cultural awakening, while under Habsburg and Ottoman thralldom.
In the national awakening, the Serbs of the Serbian Vojvodina played an instrumental role as, by force of historical circumstance, they formed at this period the core of Serb intellectual life. One of the most important tasks facing the Serbs, in advancing cultural-national rebirth, was the solution of the literary language problem, and, as a result of the first fifty years of the 19th century, saw the Vojvodina Serbs engaged in an intense debate about the kind of literary language that their newly revitalized, emerging nation should adopt.
For the Slavic people, as well as the non-Slavs, under the Habsburg Empire, the Matica foundation fomented the development of national cultures. Indeed, the oldest is Matica srpska founded in 1826 in Pest by Jovan Hadžić and his business backers, Josif Milovuk (1793-1850), Jovan Demetrović (1778-1830), Gavrilo Bozitovac (1789-1856), Andrija Rozmirović, Petar Rajić, and Djordje Stanković (1782-1853) at the same time as the Hungarian Academy was being built. Jovan Hadžić prepared its by-laws, secured its charter, and also served as its first president while Josif Milovuk served as its first secretary. In addition to books, it published the journal Serbski letopis, founded two years earlier by Georgije Magarašević, Pavel Jozef Šafárik, and Lukijan Mušicki in Novi Sad, where Magaraševic was professor and Šafárik the director of Novi Sad's Serbian Gymnasium.
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