This initial collection was expanded through correspondence conducted by Patriarch Arsenije III Crnojević and his successors with various institutions and individuals in the Habsburg Monarchy, Ottoman and revolutionary and subsequently independent Principality and Kingdom of Serbia, Russian Empire, and other countries.

Being the primary archive in the town, today materials preserved in its collections are crucial for studying the political, cultural, and economic history of the Serbian people in present-day Vojvodina and other parts of the former Austro-Hungary.

Local German officers, motivated by Leopold von Ranke's historical interest in Serbian history, nevertheless ordered the archive to be secured, saving most of its documents till the end of the war.

The imperial forces, among whom Prince Eugene of Savoy was rapidly becoming prominent, followed up the victory with others, notably one near Mohács in 1687 and another at Zenta in 1697, and in January 1699, the sultan signed the treaty of Karlowitz by which he admitted the sovereign rights of the house of Habsburg over nearly the whole of Hungary (including Serbs in Vojvodina).

[6] The journal continued his earlier work of documenting and analyzing important historical records from the Patriarchal and Metropolitan Archives in Sremski Karlovci.

[3] However, a German officer, inspired by historian Leopold von Ranke's interest in Serbian leader Karađorđe, ordered the archive to be secured, thereby saving most of its documents.