The Chair of Slavic philology, with special focus on the history of Croatian and Serbian language and literature, was founded in 1874. Already the next year a separate Chair of Croatian and Serbian language and literature was formed. Within this unit, which frequently changed in name and organizational status within the Faculty of Philosophy, the Seminar in Serbian Literature was formed in 1956. The next year it received the status of chair, and in 1980 the Chair of Serbian and Montenegrin Literature was established. More prominent section heads were Vice Zaninović, one of its founders, and Franjo Grčević. He taught modern Serbian literature from 1961 until his retirement in 1994. Grčević was also the founder and the long-time director of the Zagreb Slavic School, and the head researcher of an internationally recognized project on the comparative research of the South Slavic literatures. Serbian literature was also taught by almost all professors of Croatian literature, from Armin Pavić and Ðuro Šimun to Branko Vodnik and Antun Barac (this was only to come to an end after the Second World War) and in more recent history; in addition to the aforementioned section heads, we should add the names of Milorad Flegar and Zvonko Kovač. Since 1994 the head of the Section for Serbian and Montenegrin Literature has been professor Dušan Marinković who specializes in twentieth-century literature. He has conducted seminars and lectures in contemporary Serbian and Montenegrin literature since 1975. From 2001/2002. Serbian language was taught by external associates: by professor of Slavic studies in Graz Branko Tošović, by Ljiljana Subotić, a professor of modern Serbian language from Novi Sad, by professor Miloš Okuka from Munich and by assistant professor Dijana Crnjak from Banja Luka. As assistant for Serbian and Montenegrin literature was employed Željka Babić and Virna Karlić, as a junior researcher for Serbian language, has been a member of the teaching staff since 2008/2009.
After studies reform in 2005 Serbian and Montenegrin literature is being implemented in literary-intercultural graduate program, also plans have been made to introduce a teaching course of Serbian language and literature.