The systematic collection of documents as museum holdings for the National Museum was emphasised in the Statute of the South Slav Historical and Archaeological Society from 1850. In the Statute the founder and head of the Society, the historian, politician and author Ivan Kukuljevic Sakcinski and other members of the Board laid down the aims and objective of collecting in a way which is useful in the practice of collecting and purchasing material for the Museum.

The documentary Collection of the Croatian History Museum has from that time to the present day collected through purchases and donations 3.350 documents. Apart from documents in the strict sense of the word, the Collection also holds photographs, picture-postcards, and greeting cards.

In this very diverse Collection, which covers the period between the 16^th and the 20^th century, certain sets of documents hold a prominent position by virtue of their importance and the number of documents they contain. The documents from administrative and church authorities contain those written on parchment and paper.

Among the group of charters issued by rulers, the most valuable document in the Collection is the Statuta Valachorum from 1630 and their confirmation from 1717.

Family documents, for example those of the Knezevic family of barons, contain not only interesting information about the lives of prominent family members during the 18^th and 19^th century, but also about the conditions in Croatia at that time. The same holds true for documents of the Miskic family from Kostajnica.

A significant group of documents from the beginning of the 19^th century is a small number of documents from the time of French rule in Croatian lands.

The Collection holds a large and important group of decrees from the tempestuous period of 1848 and 1849, including material relating to the person of the Croatian Ban Josip Jelacic.

Documents from guilds and later craftsmen’s associations in the free royal boroughs of Koprivnica and Krizevci are a valuable source for the study of economic conditions in northwest Croatia between the 17^th and 19^th century.

Insight into social life in the 19^th and 20^th century is provided by invitations for various functions and the statutes of some associations. Apart from its significance for the development of historiography and culture in Croatia in the middle of the 19^th century, the material from the South Slav Historical and Archaeological Society is also a source of information for the history of the National Museum and its collections. The Documentary Collection holds the manuscript of the Museum’s Book of Visitors (Pohodnici Muzeuma). It represents the oldest preserved source of information about the Museum’s visitor in 1846 and 1847.

The Collection also holds a smaller group of documents which belonged to prominent figures from politics and culture (for example, Dimitrije Demeter, Stanko Vraz, Ivan Mazuranic, Antun and Stjepan Radic, Eugen Kumicic, Ivan Jermesic and others).

From the period during and after World War I the Collection holds material concerning the activities of political organisations, as well as propaganda material for the plebiscite in Carinthia linked with determining the state border of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

A part of the Collection with documents from the bequest of the mayor of Zagreb Vjekoslav Heinzel is particularly interesting for the history of Zagreb and general political conditions in the first half of the 20^th century.

We should also point out printed and photographic material from the Croatian Falcon society; these documents provide insight not only into the history of sport, but also political and social events.

The largest group of photographs are picture-postcards from the period of World War I. A number of photographs shows prominent figures from politics and culture. The albums from Husbandry Exhibitions held in Zagreb in 1864 and 1891 are important material for the political and economic history of Croatian lands in the second half of the 19^th century.

The Collection also holds a small selection of electoral proclamations and individual issues of various newspapers from the period between the middle of the 19^th to the first decades of the 20^th century.

The significance and scope of the documentary Collection of the Croatian History Museum is for the most part focused on north-west Croatia, and, to a lesser extent, to the regions of Slavonia, Dalmatia and Istria. The material supplements that of the other collections in the Croatian History Museum, which is one of the institutions which developed from the Department of history and Archaeology of the National Museum in Zagreb.

The Documentary Collection has been partially catalogues and published.

The Croatian History Museum holds documentary material (on some 11 metres of shelves) and about a hundred museum items from the former Department of Serbs in Croatia at the History Museum of Croatia. A part of the material was deposited for safekeeping by the Serb Orthodox Church, and the rest was collected through donations and purchase. Valuable material, mainly religious in character – objects and books belonging to the Serb Orthodox Church – was returned to its owner in 1983 and 1984. This material has been catalogued and published in five of the Museum’s catalogues.