Museum of the Republic of Srpska

Built in 1930 and the inspiration of civic leader Ban Milosavljevic, whose aim was to collect and conserve a large number of highly valuable artifacts that had been found in the city's vicinity, the museum contains an impressive range of archaeological, ethnographic and historical works.
The museum quickly became influential throughout the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which Banja Luka was part of until the Nazi occupation of World War II. The efforts of its first director, painter Spiro Bocaric, led to the 'Museum of Vrbaska Banovina', as it was then called, becoming an important cultural-historic institution, which held numerous exhibitions from all over the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Its organization also began to take dynamic shape during this time, with a collection of prehistoric and historic coins and other forms of currency being installed, as well as a geological and paleontological exhibit. Added to these were also a tourist office, an archive and a museum library.
The museum also published its first guide in four languages in 1938 but three years later it was to face the most tragic part of its history, when the Nazis and their Croatian puppet government ruled the city. Bocaric was himself brutally murdered and many of the artifacts were stolen, with the Fascist governors determined to turn the museum into a place glorifying their own highly questionable heritage.After liberation in 1945, the museum underwent further reorganization, employing new curators, historian, ethnologists and other specialists to mark a more stable period in its history, though it has moved premises seven times since then to the present day.With the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the museum was eventually given its current name has become a 'state' institution for the enclave Republika Srpska. It is currently located in the 'The House of Solidarity' (Dom Solidarnosti) building that was built after the great earthquake that hit Banja Luka in 1969. It now consists of six sections: the archaeological, historical, contemporary art, ethnological, naturalist and the library.