The Petersburg Tradition: Essays in Honor of Nina Perlina

Women on the Home Front and Cultural Preservation in the National Museum of Sarajevo (1992–95)

John Bartle, Michael C. Finke, and Vadim Liapunov, eds. From Petersburg to Bloomington: Essays in Honor of Nina Perlina. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2012, 251–63. (Indiana Slavic Studies, 18.) Women on the Home Front and Cultural Preservation in the National Museum of Sarajevo (1992–95)   Cynthia Simmons       The  writing  of  the  unfettered  cultural  and  revisionist  histories  of  the   siege  of  Leningrad  during  World  War  II,  and  particularly  of  the  role   women  played  in  the  survival  of  the  city,  began  in  earnest  nearly  five   decades  after  the  real  events  and  in  consequence  of  political  upheaval   in  the  Soviet  Union.  The  history,  cultural  and  otherwise,  of  the  war  in   Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  and  of  the  siege  of  Sarajevo  (1992–95)  remains   to  be  written  as  well,  but  in  2009,  fourteen  years  after  the  end  of  that   war,  this  bipartite  country  of  the  Serb  Republic  and  the  Federation  (in-­‐‑ formally,  the  Muslim-­‐‑Croat  Federation)  still  faces  such  serious  political   and  economic  challenges  that  the  writing  of  official  history  seems  to   many  to  be  a  luxury  that  currently  cannot  be  afforded—and  a  product   of  relatively  dispassionate  scholarship  whose  time  has  not  yet  come.   Nonetheless,  “small  stories”  of  these  tragic  years  have  attracted  world   attention,  and  so  much  of  this  still  unofficial  history  remains  to  be  told.   One  of  these  stories  worth  telling  is  that  of  the  twelve  women  curators   and   preparators   of   the   National   Museum   (Zemaljski   Muzej)   in   Sara-­‐‑ jevo.1  During  the  siege  of  Sarajevo,  these  women  were  left  to  pack  and   store  the  Museum’s  holdings  in  the  face  of  shells  and  artillery  fire  that   rained  down  from  the  surrounding  hills.  They  fought  the  war  differ-­‐‑ ently  than  men  at  the  “front”  (simply  the  edges  of  the  city),  and  they   protected   the   cultural   heritage   that   is   so   crucial   to   Bosnia’s   sense   of   and   claim   to   historical   continuity   and   nationhood.   This   is   not   a   rare   story—the   battle   on   the   home   front   that   is   often   fought   by   women   non-­‐‑combatants.  An  entire  “city  of  women”  fought  their  own  “war”  to                                                                                                                   1  The  National  Museum  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  is  the  preferred  English   translation  of  “Zemaljski  Muzej  Bosne  i  Hercegovine,”  which  itself  is  a  trans-­‐‑ lation   of   Landesmuseum   für   Bosnien   und   der   Herzegowina.   The   museum   was   founded  in  1888,  soon  after  the  occupation  of  Bosnia  in  1868  by  Austria-­‐‑Hun-­‐‑ gary.  Its  German  name  at  the  time  has  led  to  the  less  favored  English  transla-­‐‑ tion  of  “Land  Museum.”     252 Cynthia Simmons save  Leningrad  (1941–44)  and  serve  as  an  emblem  in  modern  history   of  women’s  heroism  “at  home.”  A  small  group  of  women  in  the  Na-­‐‑ tional  Museum  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  like  their  sisters  in  Lenin-­‐‑ grad,  at  the  other  end  of  the  Slavic  world,  played  a  crucial  role  in  the   preservation  of  their  own  historical  monuments  and  culture.   The  fate  of  the  National  Museum  was  a  matter  of  concern  among   museum  professionals  and  others  in  the  international  community  who   were   aware   of   its   holdings.   Yet,   the   attacks   on   this   museum,   which   houses,  in  fact,  three  departments  (separate  pavilions  of  architecture,   ethnography,  and  natural  science),  did  not  attract  the  same  degree  of   media  attention  as  did  the  fire-­‐‑bombing  of  the  National  and  University   Library  on  25  August  1992.  In  that  resulting  inferno,  the  ashes  of  world   literature  “rained”  onto  the  city  for  two  days.  Aida  Buturović,  a  librar-­‐‑ ian   aiding   the   evacuation   effort,   was   killed   by   a   sniper.   And   ninety   percent  of  the  library’s  holdings  were  destroyed.  Images  of  the  once   stunning  tribute  to  Moorish  architecture,  now  gutted,  became  an  em-­‐‑ blem   for   the   incendiary   attacks   on   Bosnian   cultural   heritage.   The   photographs   below   and   on   the   facing   page   depict   the   National   and         Figure  1.  The  Old  Town  Hall  (Vjećnica)  and     National  and  University  Library,  1920s.     Women on the Home Front 253   Figure  2.  After  the  Fire-­‐‑Bombing   University  Library  in  the  Yugoslav  period  (the  former  Vjećnica,  or  City   Hall,   completed   in   1896,   when   Bosnia   was   under   Austro-­‐‑Hungarian   rule)  and  the  shell  that  remained  after  the  fire-­‐‑bombing.2   A  similar  fate  befell  the  Oriental  Institute,  targeted  on  17  May  1992.   A  barrage  of  incendiary  weapons  destroyed  the  building  and  its  entire   collection,   while   neighboring   buildings   remained   unscathed.   The   country’s  largest  collection  of  Islamic  manuscripts  (5,263),  the  Ottoman   provincial  archives,  and  registers  documenting  land  ownership  at  the   end  of  the  Ottoman  period  all  attested  to  more  than  five  centuries  of...