HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS OF SARAJEVO

Husref Redzic

Looked at from a wider aspect, Sarajevo is one of the oldest towns in the Balkans. True, it was not a real town until the first half of the 15th century, and became known under its present name for the first time 500 years ago. There were, however, very ancient settlements where the wider area is todey, more than four thousand years old. During their long history, from the beginning of the Christian era, the settlements on the site of today's sarajevo were the center of an even wider region. From the first mention of Bosnia, regardless of how its administrative-political frontiers later changed, the settlements and fortifications of the Sarajevo region always formed a core of identity and integrity.

THE BUTMIR NEOLITHIC

The oldest known settlement in Sarajevo region is the large and very rich Neolithic find in Butmir. From 1893-96 the remains of one of the richest Neolithic settlements in the Balkans were excavated here. It had over ninety dugouts and other types of habitation, large quantities of various weapons and tools, clay figures and richly ornamented pottery. A specific variant of Neolithic culture was named the Butmir culture after this find, which dates from 2400-2000 B.C.

ILLYRIAN SETTLEMENTS

At the end of the Bronze Age the first ethnically identified group appeard in this region-the Illyrians. In the Sarajevo region there were fortified Illyrian settlements on Debelo brdo, Zlatiste and Soukbunar. Many remains on Debelo brdo date from Later Iron Age, but one of the Illyrian tribe was built here during the Earlier Iron Age. Zlatiste and Soukbunar were rather small Illyrian forts on the slopes of Trebevic, with remains from the Late Bronze and Iron Ages.

THE ROMANS IN THE SARAJEVO REGION

In 9 A.D. the Romans vanquished the Illyrians and built an important settlement in the region of Sarajevo. It was the administrative center for the region, built close to the Ilidza thermal spring. During work on the building of the spa medical center the remains of a large number of villas baths and buildings were found. They had hypocausts and were decorated with lovely mosaics. The complete Roman name of the settlement is not known (COLONIA AQVAE S.). By the bank of the Miljacka river close to Marijin dvor, the Romans built another settlement of the open type, whose main street ran down what is today Zmaja od Bosne St. and Marsala Tita St. In Marijin Dvor there was a post station and hospice, a brickyard by the bridge on the Vrbanja, necropolis where Marsal Tito Army Barracs and the Technical School now stand. At the beginning of the 6th century the Romans built their refuge on Debelo brdo, on the site of the earlier Illyrian fortress.

MEDIEVAL VRHBOSNA

The Slavs settled the region in the Middle Ages. The first mention of bosnia is by constantine Porphirogenitus, and dates from the middle of the 10th century. Its center was in the sarajevo-Zenica valley. From the 12th century Bosnia had her over own rulers, and grew more and more independent of the dominance of Hungaro-Croatian rulers. The territory grew and reached its largest extent in the second half of the 14th century under King Stjepan Tvrtko I. The center of the state was still in the upper part of the Bosna river, where the Vrhbosna parish with the forts of Hedidjed, Kotorac and Vrhbosna were. Civitas Vrhbosna with the Church of St. Peter is mentioned for the first time in the 1244 in the charter of the Hungarian King Bela IV, but its exact position is still uncertain. Late Turkish sources suggest that there were several settlements in the region of today's Sarajevo. These settlements had a common market place, probably close to Bascarsija. Medieval remains are the ruins of the fort of Hedidjed, the stecci (tomb stones) necropolis on Hresa, stecci by Kosevo creek and in some other localities, and a Romanesque capital from the 11th or 12th century.

BOSNA-SERAI AND THE TOWN OF SARAJEVO

In the first of the 15th century the Turks raided this region more and often from the east, until in 1435 they finally took medieval Vrhbosna. Here, on the banks of the Miljacka river, the Duke of the Western Regions, Isa-bey Ishakovic-Hranusic, founded today's capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the middle of the 15th century, but certainly beforre than 1462. Between three of four small medieval settlements he built a bridge across the Miljacka river. On the left bank he built a serai, i.e. a residance with houses for his family, suite and soldiers, and official administrative-government buildings for the needs of the province. Beside the court he built the first Moslem mosque, the so-called Emperor Mosque, the first public baths and hippodrome. Facing the mosque on the right bank of the Miljacka, close to the old market place, he built first caravanserai Kolobara, and around it a large number of shops for merchants and craftsmen. Upriver, in the medieval settlement of Brodac, he built an inn with a monastery, and also the first waterworks. The surrounding settlement necessarely became "satellites" of this new town center, and in this way an important conurbation was created. After the fall of the Modieval Bosnian Kingdom in the 1463, Sarajevo rapidly developed inti one of the most important towns in the Balkans. The residence in Bosnia was called Bosna-serai, and the still poorly settled valley around the serai was called the field of Serai, or field of Sarajevo, whence the name of the town of Sarajevo. The following hundred years were a period of rapid development, economic prosperity and growth. At the end of the 15th century the town had already spread to the mouth of the Kosevo creek.

All around, on the slopes, were homes among the trees, divided into more than a hundred mahala small settlements with about 50 houses each, a mosque and elementary school. How the town grew can best be seen from the writings of travelers. According to them, there were only about 150 houses in the town in 1485, and in the middle of the 18th century that number grew to 4,500 houses. If we bear in mind that at the end of the 17th century, to be more exact in 1697, the town was destroyed and gutted during an attack by Prince Eugene of Savoy, and that it never again recovered completely, there is no reason not to assume that it was already as large in the 17th century, as it was in the 18th. Before the above attack, sarajevo had over a hundered mosques, many of which were covered with lead, an Orthodox and Catholic church and a Jewish synagogue. There were over seventy confessional elementary schools. About ten secondary schools and colleges and several libraries and monasteries provided higher education. Intercontinental trade took place in thousands of shops and storehouses. There were about 50 inns, which could accommodate over 2,000 guests at a time, and three large covered markets specializing in the trade of expensive textiles. Over ten bridges crossed the Miljacka and its tributaries. There several public baths. From 1461 to 1866, 68 water-pipes were laid, some of which were eight kilometers long, and five pipes crossed the river. Connected to them were about 200 public drinking-wells and a large number of fountains.

Buildings were planned so as as not to spoil the landscape. Houses were for single families, with gardens and courtyards. "The town.is full of gardens and good orchards, wrote the Venetian envoy Catarino Zeno in 1550, every house has its own garden and upper floor. the gardens are as beautiful as those in Padua". The cemeteries were also inside the town, mainly around the churches and mosques. For all these reasons in the 16th century the town had already spread as far as today's Marijin Dvor, reaching the borders that it was not to pass until the end of World War II. The catastrophic Austrian attac in 1697 led by Eugene of Savoy left a destroyed town, which needed many years to recover. The devastation and poverty that overcame the inhabitants of Sarajevo taught them to think of the town's defenses. Because of Sarajevo's size they had to restrict themeselves to a smaller area on Vratnik Hill, where the building of town walls, forts and gates started in 1727. The fortified area could be antered through one of the seven gate-towers, three of which still stand: the Sirokac, Ploca and Visegrad Gates. Bastions for cannon were also built and the famous Yellow Bastion was not finished until 1819.

Not a single building worth mentuioning during the whole 18th century. Everything was concentrated on renewing what had been burnt and destroyed. It seams that during this phase only the architecture of dweling-houses went through any important change. Combineng a native heritage with very present Turkish-Islam influences the creative genius of local craftsmen went into beautiful exhamples of Bosnian-oriental homes. The first influences of European architecture were felt in the 19th century. Austro-Hungarian occupation soon folowed and took the place of the former Turkish one.

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN PERIOD

In the desperate effort to stop the exchange the one occupation for another, representatives of all the Bosnian-Herzegovinian people: Muslims, Serbs, Croats and Jews formed a Peoples Government, a colective body of organised resistants. They withdrewo obedience to the Turkish Sultan and put up armed resistents against the Austro-Hungarian solders. On 19th August 1878, after havy street fighting, the Austro-Hungarian forces of about 13,000 solders broke the resistance of the rebels and occupied Sarajevo.

The new administration wanted to demonstrated its cultural carring mission in the capital of the occupied land. During the forty years of its rule (from 1878 to 1918) many diferent public buildings were built in Sarajevo, institutions were founded and promenades and parks laid out. Still preserving and developing its function as the political and cultural center of the province, Sarajevo, formely a comercial and craft center, started industrializing rapidly. Although influences of European architecture were already felt in the town in some Turkish 19th century buildings, after the Austro-Hungarian occupation there was a strong influences of European building and of eclectic styles. Already in 1878/79 commune services were organized, in 1880 the army barracs were constructed, in 1882 a narrow gauge railway line to Bosanski Brod, in 1889 the town sewage system, in 1894 an electric power station, in 1896/97 the Miljacka was embanked . There was a great increase in population. According to the 1897 census the town had 21,377 inhabitans, and 1910 it had about 52,000. Many new homes were also built, although the town did not spread much beyond the borders of the earlier Turkish Sarajevo. Stylistically ther was a mixture of various pseudo-historical experiments, from pseudo-Moresque, through the neo-Renaissance, to neo-Baroque and Secession. The later found favorable conditions for development and there are several buildings of lasting value in that style.

The architecture of the "neo" and "quasi" styles similar to that of other cities of the Monarchy is expressed in various historical styles, and even combination there of. The Renaissance style is prevailing in public buildings. A cultural compromise was to create so called "Bosnian style" or "Moorish" style. It was a result of an extreme misundersanding of the two civilisations. The buildings were mixture of Moorish solutions from Spain and details gathering in Cairo and the Arabic world. The western architects on Bosnian ground realised a new architectural hybrid.

The Secession style of architecture is perhaps the most interesting appearance of that period. Some solutions are under the direct influence of stronger cultural centres (mostly Vienna). There is also buildings which express the authors personal interpretation of the local architecture through their stylized external shaping elements. Here the meeting of two cultures was crusial to the achievement of an individual stylistic expresion. The inherited influence is to fold. The stylistions has often its origin in the lical folklore, or the architectural elements are sugested by the elements of the existing architecture. Toward the end of this period the architecture of Moderna began to occur (the "Slavia" by the Check architect Jan Kotera, 1911).

From the municipal point of view, in this period sarjevo went through a series of significant undertakings. In 1885 the first trolley started operating, driven by horses, and ten years later, replaced by electric drive. The electric power plant operates since 1895, etc.

In the period between the two World Wars Sarajevo was developing slower than before. It was development mostly toward the West. There is no any completely new urban scheme. The influence of the Prague architectural school prevails with the emphasis on Constructiveness and functionallity. The tendencies of the then contemporary European architecture (particularly the strong influence of the Bauhaus school) are reflected in the design of certain leading Sarajevo architects. Immediately after the end of the Second World War the activities were renewed. Further development goes mostly to the West with many new residental schemes with attempt to keep in step with present day trends in world architecture.

At the beginning of this period, architecture, particularly of the monumental type, developed under the strong influence of the socialist realism, but had freed itself by the end of fifties. The next tendency is based on transposition the inherited architectural expression. This architecture based on subtle relationship between the traditional and the contemporary, is continued till now by some younger architects. The general characteristics of the sixties was the tendency to create architecture of technical perfection as an aestet ideal, and the articulation of the structure was solved exclusively by structural criteria. The architecture of the seventies is generally influenced by the international brutalism, but the most recent architectural achievements show a tendency toward the application of a more complex architectonic language, and separating from the orthodox functionalism.