Marija Ilić Agapova (14 August 1895-13 March 1984) was a Serbian jurist, translator, librarian and the first director of the Belgrade City Library.
Marija Ilić Agapova was born in the village Pađene near Knin in 1895. She was one of the first educated Serbian women in the region. She attended the Institute of empress Maria („Institut carice Marije”) at Montenegrin court in
Cetinje in Russian (1908-1913). She graduated from a real gymnasium and started attending Law school in Zagreb in 1918. She received her Ph.D. from the Law school in Zagreb in 1923. She received a Middle-European Ph.D. just like Ivo Andrić and other intellectuals of that time who studied in Austro-Hungary, Germany and Italy. She started practicing law in 1926. She started engaging in librarianship and museology in 1929. as a correspondent of the County Library in Belgrade and participated in founding of the Museum and organized try-outs for the new Belgrade coat of arms.
To commemorate the 125 th anniversary of Belgrade liberation from the Turks, she wrote a collection of stories for children about the town hustory, and thus Illustrated History of Belgrade (Ilustrovana istorija Beograda) came to exist.
She governed the Library from 1932, and also the City Museum (gradskim Muzejom) from 1941. She organized collecting of the materials that served as a basis for the founding of the Belgrade Historical Archive (Istorijskog arhiva grada Beograda). Immediately after the Belgrade liberation she was fired because she kept working and governing the cultural institutions of the city during the German occupation (1941-1944), and was retired in 1947.
She wrote many works regarding women rights. She was a women’s movement activist. The material she collected for the Library and the Belgrade City Museum (Muzej grada Beograda) served as a basis for the Belgrade Historical Archive (Istorijski arhiv Beograda). She was a director of the Belgrade City Library (Biblioteke grada Beograda) from 1932 and after that a director of the Belgrade City Museum (Muzeja grada Beograda) from 1941. She was fired in
1945. like many public and cultural workers who worked during the occupation. She was retired in 1947. After the retirement, she translated and taught Russian and Italian. She continued translating Russian and Italian and worked part-time as a foreign languages professor in the College of Diplomatic and Journalistic Vocational Studies (Visokoj diplomatsko-novinarskoj školi), and also taught courses of archivistics. She was a member of the Association of Serbian
Literary Translators (Udruženja književnih prevodilaca Srbije).
She was honoured with a plaque of the City Museum (Gradskog muzeja) in Belgrade in 1965. She died in 1984. in Belgrade.
Marija Ilić Agapova Award
Marija Ilić Agapova Award was established in 2001. and named after the first director of the Belgrade City Library. Belgrade City Library grants this award to the best librarian of Belgrade each year on January, 11 th , The Belgrade City Library Day.