Department of Oriental Studies

History

The Department of Oriental Studies in Belgrade was founded in 1926 and was the first university department of Oriental Studies in the Balkans. The founder was Dr Fehim Bajraktarević, who had studied and completed his PhD in Vienna. In 1925, at the invitation of Bogdan Popović, he came to the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade and began teaching Persian literature and the Turkish language at the Department of World Literature. Just one year later, he founded the independent Seminary for Oriental Philology (by a decree dated July 15, 1926), where he spent his entire working life, devotedly, conscientiously, and studiously dedicated to both academic and pedagogical work.

The year 1960 represented a specific turning point for both Belgrade’s Faculty of Philology and the Department of Oriental Studies. In that year, by separating from the Faculty of Philosophy, a new Faculty of Philology was founded, and in addition to the Sub-Department for Oriental Philology, two new ones were formed at the Department: one for Arabic Language and Literature and another for Turkish Language and Literature, which gave the Department a new profile and opened up new development opportunities for Semitic and Altaic studies. Between the 1960s and the 1990s, the number of Arabic language students grew continuously due to Yugoslavia's political and economic connection with the Arab world, meaning local Arabic translators were in high demand.

Contact details

• Head of the Department
• Ema Petrović, PhD
• ema.miljkovic@fil.bg.ac.rs
• Office 310

• Vice-Head of the Department
• Mirjana Marinković, PhD
• mirjana.marinkovic65@gmail.com
• Office 515

• Secretary of the Department
• Tatjana Kojić
• orient@fil.bg.ac.rs
• +381(11)2021-714

• Librarians
• Jelena Anić
• Snežana Genčić
• maktaba@fil.bg.ac.rs
• +381(11)2021-620
• Nevena Mihajlović
• Dalibor Vrcelj
• jap.bibl@fil.bg.ac.rs
• biblioteka.326@gmail.com
• +381(11)2021-715