The non-governmental organization Breznica from Pljevlje will send the Ministry of Culture of Montenegro an initiative to contact their colleagues in Bosnia and Herzegovina "in order to resolve the dilemma of whether some of the stećaks in front of the National Museum in Sarajevo were taken from Pljevlje at the end of the 19th century". In Sarajevo, they point out that for each stećak they have documentation that shows from which location they were brought to the Museum.
In the midst of the intra-Montenegrin controversy about the stećci from Pljevlja, which were taken from that municipality to Cetinje twelve years ago, which Vijesti already wrote about, Milorad Mitrović, executive director of NGO Breznica, said that there is also "a dilemma as to whether some of the stećci are in front of the National Museum in Sarajevo taken from Pljevlja at the end of the 19th century".
"Back in 1878, after the Berlin Congress, until 1908, when Austria-Hungary withdrew from the area of the Pljeval region, that is, in a period of 30 years, it took away numerous and extremely valuable stećaks, which are still in front of the National Museum in Sarajevo today. Today, they are presented there as cultural and historical monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e. the city of Sarajevo. No one has ever asked for them to return to the community to which they belong and to the community from which they were plundered and taken away. The question arises as to who is behind this and who wants to destroy and erase the famous traces of history from these areas, or who is creating a new - false history of Montenegro", said Mitrović.
That is why NGO Breznica, as its executive director says, will send an initiative to the Ministry of Culture to clarify the origin of the stećaks located in the National Museum of BiH (ZMBH) in Sarajevo with their colleagues in BiH.
Lejla Bečar Genjac, curator for the early Ottoman period of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, says that the stećci that are in the possession of ZMBiH are mostly placed in front of the museum and in the Botanical Garden. They are part of the collection, explains Bečar Genjac, which was founded in 1913, when the Museum was opened at its current location. The collection was last supplemented in the eighties of the last century.
"The curators of ZMBiH who worked on the aforementioned collection kept documentation on each monument individually, so that today we have information about all the acquisitions belonging to ZMBiH. None of these stećaks were found, that is, they were brought from locations outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"Unfortunately, the problem of dislocation of stećak is still present and initiatives to return, protect and preserve them in their place of origin, if there are conditions for that, are highly commendable. I sincerely hope that Montenegro will show responsibility and protect its cultural monuments, better than we do," said Bečar Genjac.
She adds that all the stećci owned by the National Museum were brought from the localities in BiH, the southernmost from the localities of Bileće (Radimilovića Dubrave) and Neum (Vranjevo selo).
"The National Museum of BiH has been at this location since 1913, that is, four years, as Mitrović says, after Austria-Hungary withdrew from the Pljeval region. I think that those stećaks should be looked for somewhere else", says the senior curator of ZMBiH.
Bečar Genjac said that they have not yet received an official request from the Montenegrin Ministry of Culture and, if they receive one, that they will be very happy to meet and offer their documentation for inspection in order to determine the origin and resolve doubts.
Breznica NGO President Milorad Mitrović called on Prime Minister Milojko Spajić and Minister of Culture Tamara Vujović to take appropriate measures and return to Pljevlja the stećaks, which the National Museum of Montenegro took from the villages around Pljevlja in 2012. The stećci are displayed in the courtyard of Biljarda in Cetinje.
He claims that a total of five centuries-old stećaks were "stolen" - two from the villages of Mataruga and Marina Šume, and one from Potkrajac.
He said that they gave up on submitting the initiative for the return of the stećaks from Pljevlja, which were taken from several locations in 2012 and displayed in front of the billiard hall in Cetinje, because it was known that such an initiative was submitted by the Municipality of Pljevlja.
After the removal of the stećak in September 2012, Pavle Pejović, then director of the National Museum from Cetinje, responded to the accusations.
"Cultural treasure, wherever it is, is the property of the state, no one else. If the state considers that something is of interest to its cultural treasure, it has the right to do what it did. And I organized all this based on the authority of the Ministry of Culture, i.e. of the state of Montenegro", said Pejović.
The Ministry of Culture said that after receiving the official initiative "they will act in accordance with the law".
Stećci are medieval tombstones, which can be found in more than a hundred locations in Montenegro, and three of them, at the Greek Cemetery and Bara Žugić in Žabljak, as well as at the Greek Cemetery in Plužine, have been under UNESCO protection since 2016.
In the original text, instead of Lejla Bečar Genjac, the curator for the early Ottoman period, the quoted statements from the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina were attributed to Adisa Letić, the senior curator.
I apologize to the readers and Mrs. Bečar Genjac and Letić.
Vukašin Obradović
Thank you!
Bonus video:
