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SYMPOSIUM
Remembering the Destruction of the Old Bridge at Mostar 30 Years On
Organised by Helen Walasek
This symposium marks the 30th anniversary of the destruction of the Old Bridge (Stari Most) in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina on 9 November 1993, an emblematic event in the history of deliberate attacks on cultural heritage during conflict. On that day what had been one of the world’s most beautiful and renowned bridges crumpled into the River Neretva under the impact of Bosnian Croat shelling during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War. Built in 1566 on the order of Suleiman the Magnificent at the zenith of Ottoman power and splendour, the Stari Most was one of a group of architecturally significant sixteenth-century structures in Bosnia-Herzegovina that did not survive intentional destruction during the war of the 1990s. The destruction of the bridge was to feature in one of the major war crimes trials of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), while its reconstruction focused global attention on the structure once again.
9.30: Registration
10.00 – 10.30: Helen Walasek, The Rainbow Arch: An introduction to the Stari Most
Welcome and introduction. An overview of the history, legends and iconic status of the Stari Most, exploring its construction in 1566, its destruction in 1993 and its reconstruction and triumphant reopening in 2004.
10.30 – 10.45: Film clips of the Stari Most: destruction, proceedings at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), reconstruction and the re-opening ceremony
10.45 – 11.35: Luke Moffett, Seeking Justice for the Destruction of the Stari Most before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
The destruction of the Stari Most was to figure prominently in the war crimes prosecution of senior Bosnian Croat leaders in the Prlić et al case at the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). However the judgement of the Prlić et al appeal, the final case tried at the ICTY, overturned the earlier guilty verdict for the bridge’s destruction – a verdict overshadowed and little commented on due to the courtroom suicide of one of the defendants, Slobodan Praljak.
11.35 – 12.25: Robert Bevan, Mostar: The World Heritage Site that Isn’t
Just over 10 years after the destruction of the Stari Most, on 23 July 2004 a triumphant ceremony was held in Mostar to celebrate completion of its UNESCO and World Bank-backed rebuilding. Once more global attention was focused on the bridge. A critical eye is cast on what was promoted as a landmark project of the international community in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina.
12.25 – 12.45: Saida Hasanagić, The Stari Most: local and personal meanings
The bridge was international icon known far beyond the borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina. But what did the Stari Most and its destruction mean to those who live, or had once lived in the region – who had often been forced to leave?
12.45 – 14.00: Lunch
Provided by the Society of Antiquaries of London
14.00 – 14.30: Nerma Cridge, The Partisan Memorial Cemetery, Mostar
Not far from the reconstructed Stari Most, a masterpiece of 20th century architecture lies neglected and repeatedly vandalised: Bogdan Bogdanović’s vast Partisan Memorial Cemetery of 1965. The cemetery was named one of Europa Nostra’s Seven Most Endangered Heritage Sites for 2023. We focus on this important, yet little-known monumental ensemble, one of the scores of the huge abstract war memorials erected in the former Yugoslavia.
14.30 – 14.45: ‘The Forgotten’. Film on the Partisan Memorial Cemetery, Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) & Mebius Film 2012, introduced by Daniella Peled, Managing Editor, IWPR
15.00: Ends
Speakers
Robert Bevan is an award-winning journalist, author and heritage consultant, and has been architecture critic for the Evening Standard and the Australian Financial Review and is a former Editor of Building Design. He is the author of the celebrated book The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War on which a documentary film has been based. His most recent book, the critically-acclaimed Monumental Lies: Culture Wars and the Truth about the Past (Verso), explores the politicisation of the historic environment and why material evidence matters so much.
Nerma Prnjavorac Cridge is a London-based academic and practising architect. Originally from Sarajevo, she came to the UK during the Bosnian War. Nerma completed her PhD at the Architectural Association in 2012, where she still teaches. Her first monograph Drawing the Unbuildable was published in 2015. She has contributed to The Routledge Companion to Women in Architecture (2021) and Remote Practices: Architecture in Proximity (2022). At present Nerma is working on two books: The Politics of Abstraction, on former Yugoslavia, and Architecture of the Extreme Environments.
Saida S Hasanagic is an independent art historian who specialises in provenance research, art crime and its prevention from the perspectives of art history, art business and international relations. Saida’s provenance work has included research for the Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JCDRP) pilot project ‘The Fate of the Adolphe Schloss Collection’. Her main areas of interest are Second World War plunder and cultural crimes committed in conflicts since then, notably in the former Yugoslavia with a focus on spoliation, recovery and restitution in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Luke Moffett is professor and chair of Laws of War and Human Rights at Queen’s University Belfast. He is an expert on reparations, human rights law, international humanitarian law and transitional justice and has carried out research in a number of conflict-affected regions on the issues of reparations, cultural loss, victims’ rights and the long-term consequences of armed conflict. His recent monograph Reparations and War, published by Oxford University Press (2023), examines the role of victim mobilisation, the evolving use of reparations and the political instrumentalization of redress.
Helen Walasek is author of Bosnia and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage (Routledge 2015) and was Deputy Director of Bosnia-Herzegovina Heritage Rescue/BHHR until 1997. She has been a consultant expert to the Council of Europe, an advisor to the NGO Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB), and an Associate of the Bosnian Institute, London 1998–2007, and made the first post-war assessments of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s damaged and destroyed historic monuments with archaeologist Richard Carlton in 2000 and 2001. She was an Honorary Associate Research Fellow at University of Exeter (2017–2020).
Huge thanks to Tim Slade of Vast Productions USA, Mina Vidaković and SENSE Center for Transitional Justice, Pula, Croatia and Daniella Pelled and Srđan Pajić of Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), London for assistance with film clips. Thanks also to Professor Peter Kuniholm FSA for his contribution on the dating of the Stari Most.
After the conference there will be an Ordinary Meeting at 5pm which is in keeping with the theme of this conference. If you would like to join us for ‘Remembering the Destruction of the Old Bridge at Mostar 30 Years On’ by Helen Walasek please book here.
This event will be both in person at Burlington House and online. Please select the appropriate ticket below.
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