National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina Closed

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Yesterday, October 10, 2012, the representatives of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the oldest and most important cultural institution in the country, boarded up the door of the Museum which had to be closed, for the first time in its 124 years long history, because of problems with financing and its unresolved status.

Students expressed their revolt over the treatment of cultural institutions (Photo: Feđa Krvavac/klix.ba)

The Director of the Museum Adnan Busuladžić said that the staff –already cut to a half of the necessary number of employees - worked for a whole year without pay, but it only prolonged the agony and covered for passivity of others and the general lack of care and attention for the culture in the country.

"The fate of the Museum has to be resolved. We have to know who has the competence over its funding, even if it turns out that the local community of Marijin Dvor is in charge! We intend to sue the state and the Council of Ministers at the Court of BiH, with the hope that the Court will ultimately decide who has the competence over our institution”, said Busuladžić.

After the closing of the Museum, its war-time director Ibrahim Spahić, together with Busuladžić and the staff, performed the exit performance, with all of them lining up at the door and walking backwards stepped away from the door.

Inside the boarded up Museum, the AntiDayton Group’s activists who chained themselves to one of the pillars in the main hall remained, determined to continue their protest and prevent the full closure of the Museum.

In front of the main entrance, the BiH flag was lowered on half-mast, to symbolize the death of yet another national cultural institution for which no politician, focused solely on the struggle for power and position, cares or pays any attention.

“The nails that boarded up the doors of the National Museum are nails in the coffin of culture and arts in BiH, which the ruling politicians decided to bury. We have seen the end of the Art Gallery of BiH, the National Museum, and the same fate awaits the Cinematheque of BiH, the Historical Museum, the Library for the Blind and Persons with Impaired Vision, the Museum of Literature and Theatrical Arts, and the National and University Library”, comments the Klix.ba portal in its report on the closure of the National Museum.

Around one thousand students of the University of Sarajevo gathered yesterday to protest the closing of the National Museum of BiH.

"We called on the students to support the Museum and to send a message that we won’t allow the aggressors to destroy our cultural institutions. Once they destroy the culture, they have already destroyed the nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We can’t allow to the aggressors of 1992 to destroy us again today. The young people have no jobs, have no hope, but we still care about this”, said Ahmed Nurković, the president of the Student Parliament of the University of Sarajevo. (Source: Klix.ba)