Project Rastko


Project Rastko — Internet Library of Serb Culture is a non-profit and non-governmental publishing, cultural and educational project dedicated to Serb and Serb-related arts and humanities. It is named after Rastko Nemanjić.

Project

The project was established in 1997 as a part of a pan-regional Balkans Cultural Network Initiative. Its main activities are:
  • electronic publishing in the fields of Serbian and Serbian-related arts and humanities
  • scientific and cultural conferences and studies about Balkan cultural-civilizational integration
  • bilateral and multilateral activities with other Balkan and world countries
  • establishing regional centres
  • technical training
The apex of the project is its electronic library with more than half a gigabyte of material, comprising electronic books and articles, photographs and comics. Although most texts are Serbian, there is a body of material in other languages, again mostly in English and Russian, but also in French, German, Spanish, and other languages.
The library contains material in both the public domain and copyrighted texts published with the authors' permissions, dating from earliest medieval Serb texts to contemporary science fiction. The site of the project also hosts several sites not directly related to the project.
Project Rastko also hosts the European version of Distributed Proofreaders, which intends to supply Project Gutenberg with public domain texts in European languages. Project Rastko is organising a coalition of European e-libraries for the purpose of collecting public domain works, aiming to eventually have a node of Distributed Proofreaders in each European country.

Centres

Currently the project has following regional centres:
  1. Denmark
  2. Republic of Macedonia
  3. Russia
  4. The Drina
  5. Kashubians
  6. Slovenia
  7. Gora
  8. Poland
  9. Lusatia
  10. Bulgaria
  11. Albania
  12. Bosnian Krajina
  13. Ukraine
  14. Hungary
  15. Bay of Kotor
  16. Montenegro
  17. Kosovo
  18. Romania
  19. Italy
Each of them is autonomous, and develops its projects and activities through local academic, cultural, media NGOs and individuals, including strong co-operation with ethnic minorities centres. Future activities of Belgrade centre will include projects about Slovak, Jewish and Roma/Gypsy as well as for 29 other ethnocultural minorities in South-Eastern Europe.