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Date: From: To: letters@iwpr.net |
Letter to The Editor To The Editor: My colleague Andras Riedlmayer has called my attention to an article published in IWPR's Balkan Crisis Report under the title "Sarajevo's Missing Tomes." [1] Since both Mr. Riedlmayer [2] and myself [3] have been working on projects to reconstruct the collections of the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo---burned 18 May 1992---and the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina (NUL)---burned 25-26 August 1992---we feel that some highly questionable data in the BCR article should not be allowed to pass without comment. Otherwise, anyone could pass off as fact assertions and figures that are fictitious and which do not give a true picture either of what happened to the library or of the aftermath of its destruction. Official sources (recognized inter alia by UNESCO) attest that a total of 1,200,000 volumes were lost in the flames in the destruction of the NUL [4], while a former (now retired) NUL librarian Mr. Dusko Toholj states exactly the opposite---he now claims that he saved 1.2 million volumes. I would like to comment on two crucial statements in his description of the rescue. First, to quote Mr. Toholj in his own words, "it took us 43 days to remove them all," and his 'final count' of rescued 1.2 million volumes of books. In reality, such a rescue effort would mean that the average moved each day would have had to be approximately 28,000 volumes, or expressed in terms of volume 3 bottom-to-top filled 20-ft containers, or in weight close to 30 tons of book materials. It is highly unlikely that such an enormous task was ever performed on this scale, let alone under siege conditions amidst constant shelling and sniper fire. Second statement is on the 'dwindled number of books', through looting and official indolence, allegedly incurred while moving 1.300 tons of books from one location to another. Even if one were to dismiss my calculations in the previous paragraph as totally wrong, this latter allegation raises serious doubts regarding the feasibility of such a 'distribution operation', due above all to the simple fact that there was no market for such a task. I seriously do not think that such writings could be of any use in our efforts to reconstruct these library collections. The production of sensational and fictitious stories represents a malignant, aggressive and unproductive, intolerant and humiliating form of quasi-investigative journalism. Published nearly a decade after the event in BCR, it can no longer do any collateral damage. The main damage has already been done in the form of the deliberate total destruction of the NUL by Serb nationalist forces and the Yugoslav People's Army in August 1992. And the title, "Sarajevo's Missing Tomes," is a shameful echo of Thom Shanker's scurrilous article, "Sarajevo's Missing Pages". [5] BCR could and should do better than this.
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Prof. dr Kemal Bakarsic Andras Riedlmayer
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NOTES:
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[1] Sanela Hajdarhodzic "Sarajevo's Missing Tomes" IWPR'S Balkan Crisis Report, No. 284 (September 28, 2001). <http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr/bcr_20010928_4_eng.txt> [2] The Bosnian Manuscripts Ingathering Project <http://www.kakarigi.net/manu/ingather.htm> [3] The Open Book Gateway <http://www.openbook.ngo.ba/> [4] Cf. Fahrudin Kalender "Stanje fondova Nacionalna i univerzitetske biblioteke prije i poslije katastrofalnog pozara," (Conditions of the Collections of NUL before and after the catastrophic fire) original in Bosnian [Bibliotekarstvo (Sarajevo), 1992-1996, vol 37-41, (1997) pp. 26-29] available on-line at http://www.openbook.ngo.ba/biblioteksrstvo/37/37_kalender_stanje.htm [5] Thom Shanker, "Sarajevo's Missing Pages". The New Republic (February 13, 1995), pp. 14-15, which falsely accused the Bosnian government of having sold the famous and priceless Judaica Codex "Sarajevo Haggada" (in Bosnia from 1609 or probably earlier, since 1896 property of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina) for one million dollars. |