2004.08: Moje/Naše Evropsko Sarajevo

Moje/Naše Evropsko Sarajevo. A bridge made of roof – on the site of SICE2004 in Europsko Sarajevo
verschenen in: an. The Sarejevo Living Room / 2nd SICE Project. Sarajevo, SICE (Sarajevo International Cultural Exchange), 2004 [1]

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When nothing yet was here, Miljacka River was, meandering Westwards through grassy pastures. The SICE-site was part of Sarajevsko Polje – the wide open plain of Sarajevo that seemed Paradise to early travellers, arriving here across the rough mountains.

I
At Miljacka’s South bank, Muslim rulers from Constantinople in the 1460’s started the town of "Saraj-ovasi" – ‘saraj’ meaning ‘palace’, and ‘ovasi’… well, sounds like ‘oasis’, doesn’t it? A first mosque was built, a first ‘hammam’ (‘Turkish’ steam-baths), a first bridge. By 1540, Catharino Zeno from Italy described Sarajevo as a “[…] town […] full of gardens and fine fruit groves. It is a place of bazaars and shops, inhabited by Turks and Christian Serbs and Ragusians.” [2] In 1697 happiness ended when Prince Eugen of Savoy attacked the city and burnt it, his armies camping along Miljacka…

II
Miljacka was canalized and regulated by the Austrians between 1900 and 1913. Immediately after arriving here in 1878 they had started building the 32 ha military barracks still visible today. Along the North bank of Miljacka, their horses were housed in neat rows of sheds – as shown on a 1912 Sarajevo postcard. Could the wood for the roofs of these stables have come from trees growing on this very spot? A promenade was built along Miljacka’s North bank, named after Benjamin von Kallay (1839-1903), an Austrian politician who tried convincing the Catholics, Orthodox, Jews and Muslims here to call themselves ‘Bosnians’, rather than ‘Croats’, ‘Serbs’ or ‘Bosniaks’…. After 1918, the promenade was renamed ‘Vilsonovo Šetalište’, in honour of Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), idealist US-president and founding father of the League of Nations, predecessor to the United Nations.

III
Miljacka’s South bank, Grbavica, largely empty still, was developed in the 1950’s and 1960’s: one of many massive Modernist housing schemes by the ‘Socialist Federal Republic of Yougoslavia’ under Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980). Sarajevo boomed from 95.000 inhabitants (1939) to 500.000 (1991): Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim – although in daily life that counted little. ‘Vilsonovo Šetalište’ was renamed ‘Omladinsko Šetalište’ / ‘Promenade of Youth’ – during World War II it had been ‘Musolinievo Šetalište’… The XIV Olympic Winter Games of 1984 – Holiday Inn was built then – marked the peak of this third period of Sarajevo growth and prosperity. Gradually, the former army buildings lost their military function: in 1971 Unioninvest moved in. Ironically, during the ‘Siege of Sarajevo’ (1992-1995), Miljacka became frontline-area; artillery on the once peaceful hills, and snipers in the Grbavica highrises killed 12.000 Sarajevans (1800 children) and wounded 61.000 (15.000 children); more than 150.000 Sarajevans took refuge elsewhere. After the deliberate shelling, in August 1992, of the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, what was left of its unique and priceless collections found shelter in one of the old military barracks, next to SFOR…

IV
Miljacka has been bridged by one more ‘most’ – Renzo Piano’s ‘ArsAevi’-bridge. Grbavica flats are no longer snipers’ nests. Sarajevo is slowly recovering… will it ever be back to its ‘normal’ character of openness and tolerance? Characteristically, Sarajevans once more stroll along ‘Vilsonovo Šetalište’, visiting the SICE2004 ‘LivingRoom’-site, declared mine-free on July 27, 2004… Two of the cavalry sheds, later used for commercial purposes, now house young artists, arriving here from across the world. Before starting individual projects, they did a communal one: out of old planks and beams – leftovers from the roofs of the old cavalry-stables – they built a 30 meter long bridge, joining together two isolated buildings into one coherent ‘atelier’-cum-party space-cum-exhibition hall. Building this bridge not only turned individual artists into a ‘we’; the bridge also made possible that ‘we’ met Sarajevans and vice versa. Let’s hope SICE2004 (…2005, …2006, etc) will be both roof and bridge for Sarajevo and the rest of the world…

Postscript
And Miljacka? Miljacka, trickling out of the steep mountains East of Sarajevo will forever flow West, to the spot – just outside the present town – where it joins the waters of the Bosna River. From here the waters flow North, through heart-land Bosnia. At Bosna Brod they meet the waves of the Sava River, the border with Croatia, flowing East… In due course, Sava is welcomed into the waters of the ‘blue’ Danube, coming all the way from the Black Forest in Germany, past Ulm, past Regensburg – where I greeted her last May – past Passau and Vienna in Austria, past Bratislava in Slovakia and Budapest in Hungary, now on her way to Belgrade in Serbia and Bucharest in Romania; finally, near Galatii, she flows into the Black Sea – home also to her Russian cousins Don and Dnjepr, to Jalta and the Battleship Potemkin, to Jason and Medea, and earlier still to Noah’s ark… From there, I could sail Westward, past Constantinople-now-Istanbul, past Athens and Rome, past Granada and Porto, past Poitiers and Paris, until I reach my home in Rotterdam, where the Rhine River joins the North Sea. A truly European trip!

[1] Between 9 and 14 August 2004, alongside SICE2004, I did a small research project: ‘Moje/Naše Europsko Sarajevo’ [My/Our European Sarajevo]. I would like to thank mrs. Sadžina Šahmanovic of the Cartographic Department of the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina – NUB BiH – and mrs. Alma Bejdic, ‘kustos’ of the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina; two cultural institutions on the former military area…
[2] Ragusa = old name of the city of Dubrovnik