On 26 November 2009, in the packed Council Chamber of the Pilar Institute, Eng. Božidar Jančiković, on behalf of the Pilar and Jančiković family members, donated most of the manuscript legacy of Dr. Ivo Pilar to the Institute. Prof. Vlado Šakić, PhD, Director of the Institute from 1992 to 1994 and from 1998 to 2019, expressed his gratitude for the valuable gift on behalf of the scientists and employees. Accepting the donation with pleasure, he informed those present that “the legacy of Dr. Ivo Pilar, as an important part of the national heritage, will be permanently stored in the National and University Library in Zagreb and that in due course it will be digitized and presented in a proper manner to the domestic and foreign intellectual public” (Prof. Vlado Šakić, PhD on the occasion of the donation of Dr. Ivo Pilar’s legacy to the Pilar Institute, Pilar Journal, No. 10/2010, p. 138.
The first contract that the Pilar Institute signed with the National and University Library referred to the permanent storage of Dr. Ivo Pilar’s written heritage in the National and University Library, which was donated to the Institute by the family heirs in permanent ownership. In February 2010, the director of the Pilar Institute, Prof. Vlado Šakić, PhD and the director general of the National Library of Croatia, Prof. Tihomil Maštrović, PhD also signed an Agreement on Cooperation between the two institutions, which included the digitization of the stored legacy and its presentation to the Croatian and foreign cultural and scientific public.
Nine years later, on October 11, 2018, a ceremonial handover of part of the legacy of Dr. Ivo Pilar was held at the premises of the Pilar Institute in Zagreb. On behalf of the family and heirs, Božidar Jančiković handed over to the Institute for ownership and possession and use for scientific research purposes the part of the legacy that was not included in the 2009 gift deed. The ceremonial handover of this part of the legacy to the National and University Library took place on February 19, 2019 at the Pilar Institute.
More about the manuscript legacy of Ivo Pilar at the National and University Library in Zagreb is provided by Irena Galić Bešker in the article published in Glas NSKa in issue 16/2020.
On the occasion of the 34th anniversary of the Pilar Institute on November 26 2025. The Institute begins the systematic publication of the digitized legacy of scientists and publicists whose name it proudly bears in order to present it to the domestic and foreign intellectual public.
