A coffee with Princess Ljubica

Date: 31-07-2020

The monodrama “A Coffee with Princess Ljubica” is the first museum play in Serbia. In an authentic environment from the nineteenth century, with coffee and ratluk, all visitors of Princess Ljubica’s residence will have the opportunity to get acquainted with the life of the first lady in modern Serbia, after the country broke from the Turkish empire. Museum’s visitors will get acquainted with the historical facts from the time of Prince Miloš Obrenović, his relationship with Princess Ljubica, but also with many other interesting things related to the way of life in Serbia from that time.

Favorite woman ruler among the Serbian people

Princess Ljubica was known as a brave, strict, eloquent and loyal wife. She was widely known for her courage and fearlessness, thanks to which insurgents of Second Serbian uprising won the battle of Ljubić. An anecdote from that time will be remembered according to which Ljubica, to rebuke and encourage the insurgents to return to the fight, scolded them with following words, “Take women’s aprons, so we women can go into battle.”

The people gave her the nickname “The great lady” because of the selfless help she provided to the poor, but also because of the dignified, modest and measured way of dressing. It seems that she lacked patience when expressing personal, political views, which led to frequent, and very serious, conflicts in which she came with Prince Miloš Obrenović. Of all the women rulers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Princess Ljubica remained in the best memory of the Serbian people.

Civil society and way of life in Serbia

In addition to the monodrama, all visitors will have the opportunity to see the permanent exhibition of the Residence of Princess Ljubica, which consists of objects of fine and applied art from the collections of the Museum of the City of Belgrade. The objects were created in the nineteenth century under the influence of Western European and domestic craft-artistic and industrial production. Most of the items belonged to the Obrenović dynasty, but also to other prominent Serbian families of the time. The exhibition aims to show the origin and development of high civic culture, but also the way of life and living in Belgrade in the nineteenth century.

The residence of Princess Ljubica was built in the period between 1829. and 1831. but the Obrenović dynasty used the residence until 1842. after which it passed into the jurisdiction of various state institutions. During the 1970s, the administration of the city of Belgrade made the decision to change the purpose of the Konak and turned it into a museum. After the completion of works on the reconstruction of the building, Konak opened its doors for visitors in 1980, with a permanent exhibition “Interior of Belgrade houses of the 19th century”, among other, non-permanent exhibitions.

The monodrama is held every second and fourth week of the month from 2 p.m. Tickets can be bought through the website tickets.rs at a price of 450 RSD. Pupils, students, senior citizens, and the unemployed are entitled to a benefited ticket price of only 100 RSD. The museum is very near to almost all Sky Apartments, as it is in the city center.