Answers for John Charlton
Adamir Jerković, Director of the Archives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzgovina
Questions:
What is the extent of the damage to the archives in terms of numbers of documents damaged or destroyed by the recent fire? Can you give me a few examples of valuable documents that have beendestroyed or badly damaged?
Answers:
First of all, I would like to say that in the attack of the hooligans on February 7, who infiltrated peaceful protesters in Sarajevo, a great damage was done to two archives placed in the BiH Presidency building- the Archives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both Archives were actually the first to be hit by vandals in their attack at the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
I am a director of the Archives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Administrative offices of this Archive completely burned when the vandals smashed all the windows and then threw in burning cloths and paper with the intention to plant the fire. They succeeded in this. Even the bars on the windows did not stop them. Only due to my previous experience we managed to avoid even greater damages. Namely, in the previous years I have worked on providing an excellent system of protection of depot placed in the basement level of the BiH Presidency building. Fire protection and anti-burglary system protected our archives in the building depot, and I am proud that this project proved efficient.
Actually, I was always concerned about fire protection because I know that the archives are placed in an unstable region of Bosnia and Herzegovina where the wars were fought every thirty to fifty years. Unfortunately, I was not wrong. Thanks to my obsessive attempts to counteract these possibilities, archive fund “Branko Mikulić” is saved together with the funds President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Vice-Presidents of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. These are the most important funds that we keep along with the other funds.
Archive fund of the Ministry of Education of People’s Republic Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1945 to 1051 burned partially. These archives were being processes in the archive premises that also burned. Realizing the possible danger for the Archives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina I had relocated our vehicles earlier in the morning of that day. If I hadn’t done that, our automobiles would be destroyed therefore making the damage even larger.
Question:
What else burned apart from this?
Answer:
I know that in the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina depot number one was burned that housed the most valuable collection that the Archives of BiH has as well as the documentation that was located in the basement of the BiH Presidency building. Archive documents were damaged during the efforts of Sarajevo fire fighters to extinguish the fire. During the extinguishing, large amounts of water entered into the basement, where the archive documents were kept. This depot where the water entered housed documents of the Executive Council BiH from the period of former Yugoslavia.
The fire destroyed the fund of Common Ministry of Finances of Austro-Hungary, 40 000 dossier files of the BiH Human Rights House, collection of presents and purchases, collection of micro-film materials from different archives, copies from Vienna archives and other valuables. When I visited the area, I learned that the collection contained around dozen oriental manuscripts, very valuable, several Fermans, Berats and other Ottoman documents of great value (burudia), with many calligraphic works. This is what I know, what I found out from conversations with my colleagues from the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
On February 7th, in the evening hours, when protests calmed down, I came to the building of the Archives of the Federation of BiH where the fire was still not completely under control. I could only see gruesome scene and I cried looking at the consequences of the destructive fury of vandals. The next day, with the colleagues from the Arhive of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in front of the windows of our building, I searched for fire-damaged manuscripts, but we only found a lot of completely burned documents. This was the end of documents that survived three wars, First World War, Second World War and aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. That is even more tragic is that we had to face malicious comments along the lines – “What do these archive people talk about? Only a small number of manuscripts burned!” The worst thing is that at the forefront of these malicious rumors was a movie director Jasmila Žbanić who, while somewhere abroad, told journalists that the story of burned archives is only a propaganda trick of Bosnia and Herzegovina government that wants to keep its position and that it is the lie that archives burned. She was joined by a signer Damir Imamović who also spoke disparagingly about the fire which left Bosnian and Herzegovinian archive workers in mourning. As a director and president of the Association of Archive and Administrative Workers of the Federation of BiH I urgently called for a meeting and condemned such statements that are inflicted additional damage Archives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Archives of BiH.
I would like to say the very important documents burned. If only one archive document had burned- that would have been a great tragedy for Bosnia and Herzegovina and its collective memory. But this, I can freely say, is a culturocide. These offenses are punishable by prison sentence and I hope that the state will find the organizers and arsonists. I repeat, the very work space of the Archives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina burned completely. If such act of vandalism had happened in Croatia, or some other European Country, the entire world would have know about it, everyone would react to it, but we, well we need to face with deniers in our country, who discuss whether it was the archives that completely burned or only a few pieces of archive materials. I wonder if any sane person in this country can approve of burning of state institutions and if it is normal that I have to justify how many of archived documents burned in the fire with all the torment we are going through. Attack to the building of the Presidency of BiH, where the archives have been located, is the biggest disgrace for a country. This was one of the hardest days of my life, and I conducted many difficult functions during my work time, amongst which was being the adviser of the president of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegović.
Question:
Does the archive have a digitization programme? If yes can you say if some of the destroyed or damaged documents have at least been preserved in a virtual (digitized) form? If no are there plans to put a digitization programme in place? If so when will this start?
Answer:
In the Archives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina we had some of digitalization programs. I know that the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina digitalized a lot of items. During the fire, some of our machines in the Archives of the Federation BiH also burned. I don’t know whether the materials that burned in the Archive of BiH were digitalized. I only know that some of documents were digitized, but according to the information, the fire completely destroyed certain materials so it will be impossible to perform their reconstruction. I would like to use this opportunity to ask all archive workers in the world who will read this interview to donate to the Archives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina any older digitalization equipment. I would be very grateful for that noble gesture. It would mean invaluable help to us.
Question:
What is the scope of the archive in terms of the number of documents held and the years they cover?
Answer:
If I understood your question correctly, I can say that the colleagues in the Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina keep the Charter of Bosnian King Dabiša from 1395. The Archives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is much younger and it keeps documents related to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As I said previously, our most important fund is Branko Mikulić, and it is often used by different scholars around the world. The most important materials kept by the Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina is from the period of Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and many materials prior to arrival of Austro-Hungary in 1878.
Question:
What will be the consequences of the fire for the archive?
Answer:
Fire is the most horrible thing that can happen to an individual or institution. We are facing a very difficult period. We will not be able to “renew” some things, because simply said, there are no more sources. But I ask all benevolent individuals, world archive workers who would like to aid us to try to give us at disposal their old digitalization equipment so we could also start, in BiH, to follow modern trends of archive practices, in order to keep our documents and memory of our people, remembrance of our history. Unfortunately, I cannot be peaceful after this fire, because the fact is that in BiH government does not know how to value and appreciate the archive institutions and I wonder how we can move on from this point, because our country is poor, not only in money but in ideas. I would like to give you email address of the Archives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina if you decide to donate to us: