engleski

Individual and collective histories in the urban landscape of contemporary Mostar. The impact on preservation and presentation of cultural heritage

Documents that help us understand different parts of Mostar's urban and architectural development are fragmented. There are numerous reasons behind that. The civil war that occurred during 1990s is among the most painful ones, but organizational issues of local heritage preservation nowadays are also a relevant problem. The aim of this paper, however, is not to criticize. On the contrary, the intent is to reconsider the potential parallels among different examples of reuniting conflicted areas in global urban landscapes. This puts Mostar into potentially fruitful relation with politically and historically kindred towns with their substantial urban ambience and environmental antipodes. The results could be potentially inspirational for contemporary organs of local government that are directly related to the monuments care. Documents that are used, except photographs and archival units that illustrate phases of the urban development, include material remainders of different periods of town's history. They also include periodical publications of the institutions that took care of the monuments in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the earlier periods. The comparison of these publications with contemporary ones will show that there is a decent tradition that Mostar's citizens have to lean on if they want to reconstruct and to reconsider questions of collective awareness of heritage treatment issues. It is unavoidable to underline the necessity of choosing between learning from the history and learning from mistakes. With this being said and with contemporary political divisions in Mostar being taken into consideration, the conflict of personal and collective defines itself as one of the main problems behind the negligence of important layers of historic development of the town. This will be illustrated on the case- study monuments and urban areas from different parts of Mostar's architectural history and consequently shaped into a story that follows shifts of different political constellations in the country.

Mostar; Bosnia and Herzegovina; cultural heritage; identity

Ovaj rad je financirala Hrvatska zaklada za znanost projektom br. 4153 Croatia and Central Europe: Art and Politics in the Late Modern Period (1780-1945)