Historical Background of the Sarajevo region

by Prof.Dr. Nedæad Kurto
from

Sarajevo has a long urban history, longer than half of a millennium. The people came, built the city and stayed there. This city, with various places of worship but with common holidays, was and still is, the expression of spirituality of all nations through the centuries. Sarajevo gets its urban functions in 1462. According to that, Sarajevo is the oldest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the European sense of this word. The middle age cities have been existing in the past but they have been only the residences of the estate-owners with suburbs. After this long development the city included the territory of about 2000 km2. According to the census from 1981 447.000 inhabitants have lived in Sarajevo and that number has represented 11% of the whole Bosnia and Herzegovina population at that time. The down town area had a surface of 486 km2 and 303.000 inhabitants.

The wider surrounding of the city was already inhabited since Neolithic in continuity.The Neolithic finding place, Butmir is an important locality where the traces of houses made from wood and earth are still preserved. The small stone ceramic with the human figures has been discovered there what is the true rarity for this historical period. The decoration on the ceramic dishes fragments in the form of vertical meander is identical with the decoration found in Orhamenos, Greece. It speaks about developed communications in that time.The conservation and locality presentation is the intervention level.

The bronze epoch has the traces of the Panonia culture. The fortified settlements have arisen in the iron period on the surrounding mountains. These single findings are protected as archeological localities.

The Romans ruled this region at the beginning of the first millennium. The inhabited region with the status of the colony and the administrative center was on Ilidæa locality. The building technique in high developed Corinthian style, typology of the discovered objects and the floor mosaics are the proof of the high architectural level.Additional research works are necessary. That will determine the level of protection and presentation.

For the first time today‘s down town area has been mentioned in the work ""De Administrando Imperio" by Byzantine emperor, Constantin Prophirogenet in the X century. He has mentioned Bosnia and Cater town - fortification in Sarajevo valley- Kotorac locality today.This region is protected as archeological locality.

Feudalism develops between X and XII century, and the middle-age culture is under strong influence of the surrounding countries. Romanic and Gothic architecture and sculpture appear in three basic monumental forms: fortified residences, churches and tombstones.

The traces of middle-age fortifications in Gothic style are on the Vratnik locality. The Turkish and after Austrian-Hungarian fortress have been on the same place. And all that makes an archeological finding place in layers. After certain researches the intervention level will be conservation and presentation of archeological finding places.

The central functions of this rarely inhabited region in that time, have been established by the rich foundation of the Turkish government high officer. The city arose in 1460. Ambients in the whole and individual objects of this foundation have building and artistic values as well as documentary values, that is a condition for a high level protection.

During further Sarajevo development there have been numerous foundations which characterize the phases of its development as well as the achievement of its building and artistic creation. The Gazi Husref-bey foundation from the beginning of the XVI century was the most important and the richest foundation among them. The city achieved the culmination in its economic development and extension of the territory, which stayed in that size until the Austrian occupation 1878.

This rich heritage appears in the form of ambients in the whole building ensembles or individual objects.The protection levels exist but totally different, that is quite understanding.

The Turks have brought the high developed city planning principles. The settlement is being developed according to the rules of strict division in business and dwelling zones. The different typology building forms appear in the business part of the city due to different functions, what gives extraordinary compositions together with monumental objects.

The total Carsija area has the highest monumental value not only with regard to the preserved middle-age plan corresponding basis and objects with building quality or preserved ancient handicrafts but also with regard to the kind of their preservance.

Almost all objects built from ruinous materials have been destroyed and the monuments built from stone have been damaged significantly. Instead of being cleaned and new objects to be made on the plan corresponding basis in this area, what was to expect in that "romanticism" period in protection, the constructors have chosen the reconstruction - the proceeding legitimate for to-days active protection. According to this, the value of this area is not only in the sense of preserved values but also in the document related to the attitude towards them, what was the early announcement of to-days understandings.The area of Bascarsija as a highest monumental value has been proposed for the inscription in the UNESCO list of the world heritage.

The principle of the free standing structures of individual houses, high developed cult of the yard and the garden, nature and aspiration for beautiful panorama sight have been respected in the dwelling zones.A large number of the ambiental entireties which have these qualities carry various protection levels.

The individual monumental objects have the value themselves besides their importance in the entirety context. The highest value has Gazi Husrefbey mosque built in early Byzantine style. It is the only mosque today which has more rooms. Mosques in classic Osman style, Bezistans and temples built in Bosnian style according to the type of "ulu" mosque, medrese (Secondary religious school) with the Hellenistic yard inside, Bezistan made according to the Romanic concept, Caravan Saraj (gesthouses) built according to the Persian patterns have very high values.Antologic character of the various culture influences on one place make their values more emphasized.

The cemeteries are important from the documentary, religious, artistic and urban point of view. At the end of last century there have been about 270 cemeteries in the very urban area of Sarajevo. Many of the cemeteries are protected due to their values. The Jewish cemetery among them, from XVI century, is one of the most precious in Europe.

The essential changes of social economic order have taken place at the beginning of Austrian-Hungarian government 1878. The collective way of dwelling appears for the first time and consequently the public green areas-parks governmental and administrative objects, markets, railway stations, hotels. The construction block system is being introduced. Besides a large number of objects there appear the new ambiental entireties.

A larger number of ambiental entireties arose in the Austrian-Hungarian time as important art and construction ensembles are registered as cultural monuments.Historicism of that period had significant individual monuments of the high value. There are prevailing the administrative and communal activity objects.

The imported historicism in spite of high developed forms did not succeed to be or to remain the generally accepted phenomenon. Here appears the pseudomorphose of expression on the wrong place and in the wrong time and remains as characteristic of the topic of the institutional importance. Those contents which have the local culture as a starting point are marked with the so called pseudoexpression. Decoration material is being taken over from some regional schools of Islamic art and that presents an eclectic relation. But it is not the case in the sense of physical solution. It has been carried out of sedimentary experience related to the characteristics of space which have become a part of the memory of the local people. So they are not the copies of something what has been already seen but the interpretation of the well known topic. According to that, this style .. expression presents the transitive form between historicism and Moderna. It is interesting that the local topics are characterized with this style expression. For one part of the historical core that style expression has been conditioned with the urban regulations. The secession art has been developing here almost at the same time as in its starting point. European secession anti historical oriented and resisting the conventional academism has been easily reaching for something what acted exotically to the middle-european culture. It has been the logic pre-condition for the parallel development of the secession art in two basic directions: architecture with the characteristic of the middle-european secession and the other one which was establishing a creative dialogue with the heritage.

The art of secession, discovering the essential values of the existing culture, transforms the formal relations from the past into the essential relations resulting in expression of art with the radical consequences - or so called Bosnian syllable. This has not been any retardation of style but the creative expression of the associations related to the Bosnian heritage through many centuries. As an authentic expression of culture of the determined nation in the determined time, it is historically documentary and as such represents the early Moderna. European Moderna appears only in 1911 in the work of Jan Kotjere - "Slavija" bank. The influence of the Prague architecture school dominates between two world wars. The influence of the socialistic realism is evident after the second world war but a large number of objects have not been built during that period. In sixties of this century the architecture, in the sense of technical perfection, becomes the esthetical ideal and some realizations have significant values. The recent artistic and building achievements show the more complex expression, keeping distance from orthodox functionalism more and more. These achievements document exactly the high range of thoughts in this period of this time.