Photographs arrived in London 21 February 1994 revealing the present state of the Hadji-Alija Mosque. Built in 1592 in Pocitelj, a medieval hill town and artist's colony on the River Neretva, south-west of Mostar, it was left undamaged by Serbs, but mined by anti-Muslim Croatian HVO militia in September 1993. With the mining and leveling of the Aladza Mosque of 1550 in Foca, the Ferhadija Mosque of 1579 and the Arnaudija Mosque of 1594 in Banja Luka --all by the Serb-led Yugoslav Federal Army and by Bosnian Serb groups-- this was the only mosque left in Bosnia outside of Sarajevo that had the highest quality 16th century Ottoman mural painting of the Rumi and Hatayi style still visible on its walls. The new photographs, taken in November 1993, reveal that the mosque is not totally destroyed as we had been at first led to believe. However, the minaret was mined very low, and in falling, some fell on the dome and collapsed its walls. Apparently, much of the painting is still intact but open to the skies. Who is going to get in and care for it now? It needs very rapid first aid.
Contribution by A.R. (c) MUSEUM MANAGEMENT AND CURATORSHIP vol. 13 no. 1 (March 1994), pp. 74-75, 79-80 OBITUARY: DR. RIZO SIJARIC, DIRECTOR OF THE ZEMALJSKI MUZEJ, SARAJEVO KILLED IN SARAJEVO, 10 DECEMBER 1993
Dr Rizo Sijaric was Director of the National Museum (Zemaljski Muzej) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Sarajevo, throughout the present war until his recent death. He was originally a member of the Museum's Natural History staff, joining the Zoology Department in 1964. His specialty was the butterfly Lepidoptera rhopalocera which flourished in limestone and mountain environments, and concerning which he was a world expert. He defended his doctoral thesis on this topic at the University of sarajevo in 1974, and had to his credit 58 published works, including his magisterial and doctoral theses, and numerous articles in a wide variety of journals.* He organized and took part in a long series of scientific projects organized by the Museum in the Prenj, Cvrsnica, Cabulja and Velez mountains, exploring the effect of karst regions on various species of flora and fauna. The final years of Rizo Sijaric were devoted to his duties as Museum Director, and most recently in mainly unsuccessful attempts to arouse international interest in the plight of his museum and to obtain help for the preservation of its treasured collections. His butterflies, never able to be moved into safe stores, were gently deteriorating on their pins when I saw them in June 1993, while mortar blasts at intervals shook the walls of their room. Rizo Sijaric was killed in such a blast on the morning of 10 December 1993, whilst walking across a Sarajevo park on his way to visit the Director of the Institute for Protection of Monuments, who had been assisting him to arrange plastic covering over shell-holes in the Museum's walls.
*Note: A bibliography of the published works of Rizo Sijaric appears in: Spomenica stogosjice rada Zemaljskog Muzeja Bosne i Hercegovine 1888-1988 (Mementoes of a Century of Work at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1888-1988), Almaz Dautbegovic and Vlajko Palavestra, eds., Sarajevo, 1988. Dr Sijaric's article "An Update on the Zemaljski Muzej, Sarajevo," was published in this journal in vol. 12 (1993), pp. 195-199.