The Zemlajski Muzej, or National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina -- one of the most impressive remnants of the Austro-Hungarian regime in the city of Sarajevo -- is in grave need of help. The imposing building in Austrian 'official' style backs on to the fiercely-contested Miljacka river, and is just across the street from the Holiday Inn, the vicissitudes of which are frequently recorded on television and radio news bulletins. Three powerful missiles -- bombs or shells -- struck the courtyard during the early months of the present war, splintering -- and in some cases demolishing -- the majority of the outdoor exhibits, principally the huge 14th and 15th century limestone tombstones for which Bosnia is well known. These tombstones, or stecci, were a selection of the finest, and had been brought from their original locations all over the region and assembled in the courtyard, thus greatly increasing their accessibility -- but also ultimately their vulnerability. At this time, a portion of the famous botanical garden which was laid out at the museum's foundation in 1885 did escape damage, but this is now under threat from those who want to cut up the exhibits in the arboretum for desperately-needed firewood. And such indoor exhibits as the Roman mosaics and medieval architectural stonework which are incorporated into the fabric of the now dangerously unsafe building are also at grave risk. The building no longer has any windows at all, and the roof has been broken in by missiles in a number of places. The natural history section of the museum is irretrievably ruined, since with no electricity the internal temperature could not be maintained and virtually all the exhibits have perished. The remaining indoor exhibits could be saved and preserved, and indeed a group of citizens who have worked in the academic and museum spheres in Bosnia are attempting this rescue. They presently lack funds to do what they would like, and are making an appeal to concerned bodies worldwide. However, the saveable contents of the museum may be summarized as archaeological exhibits from the prehistoric, Roman and Medieval periods and ethnological displays, of both material culture -- many small buildings have been incorporated into the museum's structure to show how life was for earlier inhabitants of the region -- and folklore, research into which field was sponsored by the museum over a long period. Some kind of temporary repair work is also urgently needed for the actual building, so that at least the weather can be kept out. This will involve, at the very minimum, covering the blown-out windows and sheeting over the broken roof. Though (at this writing) the city is still being shelled daily, the citizens are accustomed now to doing repair work in these conditions. All that is needed is financial help and materials from people of goodwill. Further information may be obtained from Bosnia-Herzegovina Heritage Rescue UK, 9 Canterbury Mansions, Lymington Road, London NW6 2EW, UK (tel.: 071-433-1142).
Background: Generally known in English as the National Museum of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Zemljski Muzej in Sarajevo was founded 1 February 1888 during the period of Austro-Hungarian rule, when it was the aim of the imperial administration to employ the museum as a tool in its drive to develop economically this backward agricultural territory. From the beginning, staff who were highly qualified in different disciplines were brought from Austria and Hungary to push forward the work of the Museum which was focused on the natural sciences and archaeological research. Founded as an integrated research and cultural institution, the Zemaljski Muzej has retained this character throughout its 105 years of existence up till the present day, and it is still a multi-disciplinary research institution concerned with archaeology, ethnology and the natural sciences in the context of modern museum activities. The Zemaljski Muzej possesses the oldest scholarly library in Bosnia- Herzegovina. This library is very large and is rich in its holdings. Building on the expertise of its highly qualified staff, the museum started publishing, as early as 1889, the first journal in Bosnia- Herzegovina to be devoted to research. This has been published regularly ever since and today three different volumes of the museum's Herald are published, focusing on archaeology, ethnology and the natural sciences respectively. From the beginning the researches of the museum staff were of European standing in the fields of archaeology and the natural sciences, and it was in recognition of their achievements that the imperial government invested in the construction of appropriate buildings to house the flourishing institution. On the 25th anniversary of its founding (1913), the Zemaljski Muzej moved into the present complex of four specially-built pavilions housing archaeology, ethnology, the natural sciences and the library. The latter included the central administration, and each unit was equipped with offices, laboratories, workshops and stores, as well as exhibition galleries in which were displayed the products of those departments' collecting and research activities. The Zemaljski Muzej has retained the original organizational system and is today divided into the same three curatorial departments, with all three served by the large library. The archaeology department covers the three basic specialties of prehistoric, ancient and medieval studies, while the ethnology department includes material culture and other products of spiritual culture of all the ethnic groups of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Research in this latter field has been very intensive within Bosnia-Herzegovina since the Second World War. The natural sciences department is concerned with research on all the relevant fields within the region, and geological, paleontological and mineralogical researches have been undertaken, together with work on the flora and fauna of not only Bosnia-Herzegovina but of the entire Balkan peninsula. In all departments there are two types of collections: systematic (for purposes of scientific research) and display. The systematic collections are composed of material assembled and classified in accordance with the scholarly methodologies of the different disciplines. The inventoried collections of the archaeology department (prehistoric, ancient and medieval) are composed of over 105,000 items. The systematic collections of the ethnology department include rich holdings of ethnographical material, with 14,000 items in the material culture collections (including some 250 complete national costumes). Furthermore, the spiritual culture component contains over 7000 items of folk music and more than 16,000 examples of oral folklore in the form of poetry, prose, etc. Lastly, the scholarly scientific collections curated by the natural sciences department boast over a million items of animate and inanimate material derived from all over the Balkan peninsula. For just over a century the conditions for research provided by the Zemaljski Muzej have enabled the institution to make continuous positive progress, uninterrupted by either the First or the Second World War, during which the buildings remained undamaged. Today conditions are very different. War Damage 1992-93: During the hostilities of 1992-93, the Zemaljski Muzej has suffered a real tragedy and all four pavilions have been damaged to such an extent that, without considerable repairs being undertaken, they can no longer perform their functions. The museum buildings, each of two stories with cellars beneath, occupy an area of 4819 square meters, surrounding the precious 5000 square-meter botanical garden. The major damage sustained at the time of writing (April 1993) may be summarized as follows:
1. Roofs: The majority of the roofs are covered with metal, but the buildings housing the archaeology and natural sciences departments each have three glazed domes. Thus far during the hostilities the roofs of all three pavilions have been substantially damaged and all of the glass of the domes has been destroyed.
2. Facades: Every facade of the buildings has been damaged, either by small arms fire, or by the larger impact of shell splinters or the direct hits of artillery shells or tank shells which have burst through the outer and one inner wall.
3. Windows: The museum buildings are provided with approximately 300 double windows, and of these the glass of all the outer windows is broken, while about half the inner windows are still intact.
4. Display equipment: A very large number of the glazed display cases which housed the collections in the exhibition galleries have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair.
5. Services: The central heating systems in each of the buildings have been damaged to various extents, and the plumbing has also sustained damage (resulting in flooding of the cellar storage areas).
Nevetheless, it must be emphasized that, in spite of all the destruction, every effort has been made by the museum staff to preserve the museum material by putting it away in secure and safe locations both within and outside the museum buildings. This gives rise to the hope that after hotsitilities have ceased, and with repairs and reconstruction of the buildings and fittings, the Zemaljki Muzej will be able to resume work, maintaining a reputation that it has achieved over more than one hundred years as a cultural and scholarly institution. Damage to collections: It is clear from this brief survey of the more significant damage sustained by the buildings that items in the museum collections have been damaged and destroyed and that there is the danger of additional damage. A large number of glazed display cases throughout the entire museum has been damaged, especially in the natural sciences department. In the exhibi- tion gallery devoted to the natural world of water and marsh habitats, for example, three large display cases with all the exhibits of rare marsh birds have been destroyed. The skeleton of a whale displayed in the same room has been smashed, as also has all the glass of the remaining display cases. All the cases in the minerological displays have been damaged, together with a number of rare and valuable individual mineral specimens exhibited in them. The same is true of the display cases and the material on exhibition in other galleries, including that devoted to the natural world of Bosnia-Herzegovina, while further damage has been sustained by exhibtis on display in the archaeology and ethnology departments. The museum collections, especially those in the natural history and ethnology departments, are endangered by the unrepaired damage to the buildings, particularly in respect of the roofs and windows. They are threatened by damp after rain and are open to insect attack during hotter weather, now that so many of the windows are broken. All the taxidermy collections of the natural sciences department and much of the textile and wooden material in the ethnology department are particularly susceptible to adverse environmental conditions, and it is clear that most of this material is now in danger. Unfortunately, the conservatory with its living plant collections has been totally destroyed. Action required: In order to protect the museum collections the following are essential:
1. Obtain as a matter of urgency a supply of metal sheeting and glass for the repair of the roofs and domes of all the buildings.
2. Secure sufficient glass for the reglazing of approximately 300 windows, either inner or outer depending on present conditions.
These are the most urgent steps requiring to be taken in order to protect and save the surviving museum collections from damp and insect attack, while considerable quantities of building materials will be needed in due course for the repair of services, interior finishes and facades. For the museum to function again it will be necessary to repair or replace all the damaged and destroyed display cases and fittings, again requiring substantial quantities of glass and other materials, together with the rehabilitation of the departmental laboratories and workshops. However, the most urgent need, and a special problem for the museum, is for the various chemicals needed for countering fungal and insect infestations of sensitive organic materials (particularly the material in the natural sciences and ethnology departments) which are impossible to obtain in the city of Sarajevo at present. Notwithstanding all the difficulties they continue to encounter, the museum's employees are making heroic efforts to enable the Zemaljski Muzej to continue to function in spite of the destruction suffered. /PHOTOGRAPHS: 1. Damage (ast at the end of March 1993) to glazed vaulting of the Zemaljski Muzej, Sarajevo, following serious damage to the roof and glazing above. -- 2. Damage sustained by the natural history displays in the Zemaljski Muzej, Sarajevo, March 1993, from a direct hit by a tank shell./ POSTSCRIPT: Mevlida Serdarevic, President of the Association for International Activity and the Saving of Heritage of the Republic of Bosnian and Herzegovina, based in Sarajevo, writes 30 March 1993: ... we will quickly report to you the present position in respect to our work. Our Commission for the protection of the heritage of Sarajevo was founded 14 May 1992, and is composed of a subsidiary commission of representatives from the following fields: Movable heritage, Immovable heritage, Libraries, Film, etc. The Commission rapidly set up teams which were active in saving the movable heritage. These teams were formed on the model of the principles of the Hague Convention, and later became specific units of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Army. During this period, the most important action was the saving and placing into depots of such cultural treasures as: -- the Sarajevo Haggadah and other material rescued from the Zemaljski Muzej; -- Bosnian-Herzegovinian cinematography; films from the Jagomir Studio which were saved a day before it was occupied; -- the few surviving manuscripts and books from the Oriental Institute; -- books and manuscripts from the Gazi Husrev Beg Library; -- the most valuable books and periodicals from the National and University Library surviving from the destruction of Vijecnica (the fm. Sarajevo city hall, which housed the library); -- movable treasures from the Tekija of Hadzi Sinan; -- paintings from the Court of the Metropolitan of the Serbian Orthodox Church; -- exhibits rescued fr. the Museum of the City of Sarajevo and the Despic House; -- documents from the Institute for the Protection of Monuments of the Republic of Herzegovina, recording both our cultural heritage and our natural history heritage; As well as this, we have preserved a range of other examples of our heritage which are less well known in the literature than the examples cited above. Information about the destruction of our cultural heritage which the Commission has gathered in the course of its work forms the basis of reports put out by the International Centre for Peace, which we direct to many world organizations, such as the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Parallel with this kind of activity, the members of our Commission have participated in the work of many expert and scientific gatherings which concern themselves with the problems of the results of destruction caused by this war. The papers composed for these colloquia are gathered into collections which will be housed in the INDOK centre. These papers are in the course of being prepared for publication in a magazine, Multikultura, which will appear in print soon. Depending upon the circumstances, those members who are keyed into our various endeavors change from time to time, and with these changes, our goals and methods of working must change as well to adapt itself. Towards the end of the year we also changed our organizational model, and our Commission developed into an Association for Intercultural Activity and the Saving of Heritage of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, registered as a group of citizens on 20 November 1992. >From the very beginning of our work, the core of our organization was formed by Mme. Azra Begic, Mme. Mevlida Serdarevic (lawyer, expert at the Republican Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage -- earlier President of the Commission and now President of the Association), Prof. Enver Imamovic ( archaeologist and historian, professor at the University's Faculty of Philosophy), Mme. Snezana Mutapcic (art historian at the Municipal Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage) and a number of other members whom we shall mention at other times. >From the present, we send you our Program of Work from which you can see that the greater part of our labour is spent in the preservation of sacred monuments. For this reason we have decided to organize a series of scientific gatherings to illuminate a broader range of important scientific as well as cultural segments of our past. We have already completed a symposium on the history of medicine and healing and its sociology within Bosnia and Herzegovina, within the framework of which a specific section was dedicated as a memorial to Bosnia's cultural-historical heritage in the form of medical literature, the original source material of which has now been heavily damaged or completely destroyed. To demonstrate this I am sending you the resumes from this Congress for which we have somehow or other managed to find printing materials, materials which we shall also be using to print the collected presentations from this Congress, which we shall send you as well. Another congress is now completely prepared -- our Colloquium concerning the destruction of the cultural heritage which will be held on the 6th and 7th of May 1993. That material we will send you at once, as well as our Almanac of cultural and scientific events in Sarajevo from April 92 to April 93, upon which we are working very intensively. Up until the summer we plan three more congresses -- of the history of education, the history of music, and scenographical approaches within Bosnia and Herzegovina -- as well as a round table discussion which we shall hold concerning the legal complaint to be made against the removal of cultural treasures from Bosnia and Herzegovina. As well as all this, there is a big job ahead of us resulting from a joint decision made at the close of our Congress of the Social Culture of Medicine within Bosnia, and that is the founding of a museum and documentary centre for the history of medical and social culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Concerning all of this we shall continue to inform you whenever it is possible for us to do so. (translated by Marian Wenzel)