Culture

Zrenjanin is the city with a long tradition in a number of areas of cultural creativity – stage-craft (it has the oldest theater building in Serbia, constructed in 1739), music and visual arts, and amateur creative endeavors. Today, the leading institutions of culture in Zrenjanin are:
 
National Theater "Toša Jovanović" is a professional theater with the drama, puppet, and closet drama stages. The puppet stage is at the top among puppet theaters in Serbia, with over 300 awards on gatherings and festivals both in the country and abroad;
 
National Museum – with the restored permanent exhibition consisting of over 33,000 objects in five departments and three exhibition spaces and with over 80 thousand visitors a year, it was declared the best museum in Serbia in 2006. 
 
The city public library "Žarko Zrenjanin" possesses around 150,000 titles and, organization-wise, it operates through the borrowing, scientific, and heritage departments, book club, and publishing activity. It annually launches quite a number of new titles, organizes promotions and thematic literary evenings and, in 1991, it also set up the Fund "Todor Manojlović", with the aim to research, publish, and to put on the map the opus of the author Todor Manojlović as well as to foster literary creativity. The Fund established a special award under the name of the "Award for Modern Artistic Sensibility".
 
The Historical Archives keep written archival materials from the territory of the Central Banat, with the oldest copies from the 16th century. They possess valuable charters, unique books, and rare periodicals. They organize periodical thematic exhibitions in the Showroom and, in 2007, they were awarded the prestigious award "Golden Archives", as the most successful archives in Serbia.  
 
The modern gallery of the Art Colony "Ečka" organizes the annual watercolor colony, and possesses holdings of over 2,000 modern domestic works of art as well as the exhibition space with about 20 different exhibitions a year.
 
Amateur Theater "Madač", which gives its performances in the Hungarian language.
 
Cultural Center of Zrenjanin is a complex institution of culture, which is engaged in the organization of concerts, thematic forums, exhibitions, movies shows, professional gatherings, in addition to its own drama production and publishing activity. 
 
Youth chorus "Koča Kolarov" is a member of the International Association of Choirs, participant of numerous international competitions and festivals, and the holder of the imposing title "Summa Cum Laude", as the best European choir. With a number of smaller choirs that predominantly nurture domestic sacred music, it carries on the rich city choral tradition.
 
The town's Brass Orchestra is the showcase representative of the music life of the city and participant in a number of international competitions of brass orchestras both in the country and abroad. 
 
Association of amateur cultural and artistic societies gathers together amateur authors in a number of areas of culture – folklore, visual arts, music, nurturing of ethno-tradition, and others. It organizes the international festival of folklore "Lala" and performances of our artists abroad.