[1] The gymnasium was founded on 23 September 1858 on the orders of the Austrian military command in Zemun as a two-year lower realgymnasium.

In 1883 it was decided that Serbian should be the language of instruction, and a year later, on the orders of the Government, girls were restricted to the first grade, so it was solely for boys by 1887.

Due to World War I events, the school experienced a multitude of problems, and did not start functioning normally again until 1925.

[1] Today's gymnasium exists since 1958, after a merger with two smaller schools (for boys and for girls) created in 1946 after the liberation of Serbia & Yugoslavia from the Nazis by the Communist Partisans and the Red Army.

By 1912 the initial building proved to have inadequate space for accommodating all the students so plans were set up to expand it.

The award will be named Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic after the world famous bio engineer and alumni of the school.

It is a yearly meeting of the gymnasiums, and as of 2018 the schools from Serbia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina participate.