The Use and Abuse of Heritage.

The Old Bridge in Post-War

Mostar

By Dragan Nikolić

From Destruction to World Heritage

“The historic town of Mostar, spanning a deep valley of Neretva River, developed in the
15th and 16th century as an Ottoman town and during the Austro-Hungarian period in
the 19th and 20th centuries. Mostar has long been known for its Old Bridge, Stari Most,
after which it is named. In the 1990 conflict, however, most of the historic town and The
Old Bridge, designed by renowned architect, Sinan, were destroyed. The Old Bridge
was recently rebuilt and many of the edifices in the Old Town have been restored or
rebuilt with the contribution of an international scientific committee established by
UNESCO” (UNESCO, n.d. ).

This article is about The Old Bridge in Mostar, a great 16 th century building
achievement. The Old Bridge was destroyed by Croatian military and paramilitary forces on
9th December 1993, during the (Croatian – Muslim) interethnic conflict of the 1990s in BiH.
Aided by international engagement and donations it was later rebuilt; the inauguration
ceremony of The Old Bridge and the Old Town being held on July 23 2004. In July 2005
UNESCO proclaimed it as a World Heritage Site. Not surprisingly, it has also become one of
BiH’s key tourist destinations only a day’s trip away from the Adriatic coast. UNESCO
defines its symbolic meaning in terms of multiculturalism materialised:

“The Old Bridge area, with its pre-Ottoman, eastern Ottoman, Mediterranean and
western European architectural features, is an outstanding example of a multicultural
urban settlement. The reconstructed Old Bridge and Old City of Mostar is a symbol of
reconciliation, international co-operation and of the coexistence of diverse cultural,
ethnic and religious communities. (…) With the “renaissance” of The Old Bridge and its
surroundings, the symbolic power and meaning of the City of Mostar - as an exceptional
and universal symbol of coexistence of communities from diverse cultural, ethnic and
religious backgrounds - has been reinforced and strengthened, underlining the unlimited
efforts of human solidarity for peace and powerful co-operation in the face of
overwhelming catastrophes” (ibid).
The cultural heritage concept is currently experiencing a strong renaissance in both debates
and cultural policy – although at the same time it appears to be both conventional and reified
and examined from the humanities debate point of view. 1 ”This means”, points out Orvar
Löfgren, “that as ethnologists we are obliged to revert to the concept: where does its current
popularity lie and what are the consequences of its use?” (Löfgren 1997:4) The cultural
heritage is sometimes described as the antithesis of a degenerative contemporary culture and
an oasis that renders an endurance of modern life possible – but this only serves to make an
analysis of the phenomenon even more urgent (Svensson 1997:1). In popular terms cultural
heritage appears to be something that functions in peaceful and stable European contexts but
is highly problematical in countries that are still coping with the effects and consequences of
war.
”Monuments are contradictory”, argue the authors in their introduction to the book
Minnesmärken – att tolka det förflutna och besvärja framtiden (Frykman & Ehn 2007)
[Monuments – Interpreting the Past and Conjuring up the Future] and emphasise the
importance of their active use in current conflicts. The Old Bridge in Mostar is an interesting
educational phenomenon in that it illustrates diversity, pain and affliction in the recollections
that are manifested. Tamar Ashuri has pointed to the specific memories of war. On the one
hand a “common memory” is held by those who remember a particular and personally
experienced episode. On the other hand there is a “shared memory” that requires
communication - and where film and other media tend to influence its interpretation (Ashuri
2005: 425). Generally speaking it takes a long time for the latter to triumph over the former.
In Mostar this has not yet happened. Many different interpretations can still be found here,
and memories are still very much alive.
In an earlier study of The Old Bridge in Mostar, historical expert Magnus Rodell
maintains that inaugural ceremonies and destruction are fruitful starting points for those
interested in the shifting significance of monuments and memorials (Rodell 2007:86). But
from an ethnological point of view it is also pertinent to ask what happens in the gap, in
everyday life. How does the local population live and cope with the monument? In this
context it is not the bridge as a monument and material artefact that is in focus, but the
activities and events and the intentions that people assign to it as a thing. This can be
ascertained by following daily practices: how monuments acquire meaning in relation to a
wide range of events and actors.
This in turn raises pertinent questions, such as to who owns the monument and how
is it used today - by whom, how and for what purpose? In looking at the uses of a monument

2
much of the social, political and cultural situation of a particular locale in the aftermath of war
becomes evident.
For people living in the town the bridge constitutes a gap as well as a zone of
contact. By ways of a comment to UNESCO’s definition/inscription, this article adds
fieldwork insights to local practices relating to this World Heritage Site. Ethnography sheds
light on the dynamics between three different levels in the production of meaning: the local,
the national and the international.

The Inauguration

An air of great excitement surrounded the ceremonious inauguration of the restored

bridge. Thousands of policemen were in place and security was at its height. It was rumoured
that the police patrolled the upstream and downstream sections of the bridge across the River
Neretva in an attempt to prevent possible incidents. It was not the evening’s principal
character – the bridge – that was being protected, however, but the hundreds of important
foreign guests and royalty – of which England’s Prince Charles was one. It was as if the
world’s cultural and distinguished elite had gathered to re-establish and restore this mythical
part of Europe and rid it of the memory of war. By their very presence they would blow new
life into this cultural heritage and wonder.

Interestingly enough, the organisation of the inauguration was stage-managed by the

same man who had arranged former President Alija Izetbegovic’s funeral. The organisers
were well aware that people would be watching the event from around the globe. The
instructions were clear: pomp and circumstance á la balkanica. The result was a slet (a
display of traditional and modern dances), a classic concept of grandiose and socially realistic
intent. The aim of the two hour performance was to involve as many people as possible with
as many cultural expressions and interpretations as possible. The organisers were keen to
ensure that the entire range of cultural heritage was on show – not only the narrative and the
material, but the free artistic element as well.

The ceremony began with a high-powered speech. Lord Paddy Ashdown, the then
High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, announced: “The fact that so many people
from around the world have gathered here today to pay tribute to the reconstruction of the
bridge says a lot about BiH itself – about social life and how hope triumphs over misfortune...
The story of this bridge is not only one of bricks and mortar, of building expertise and

3
majestic architecture. It is a story about this part of Europe; its splendour, civilisation and
tragedies”. More speeches and songs followed on.
The celebrations on this balmy and inky-black evening with attendant rain clouds
hovering above the mountains were concluded by legendary leaps from the bridge. The water
was hardly visible below. One after another and with torches in their hands they daringly
jumped the 22 metres into the River Neretva. An onlooker took advantage of the opportunity
to shout “Allah Akbar”. Schoolchildren waved white flags and sang a pre-war pacifist hymn:
“Only that war will never happen...” The bridge was then finally illuminated by a gigantic
display of fireworks.

Majority of inhabitants of Mostar, Bosnian-Muslims and Bosnian-Croats – two

ethnically divided micro-worlds that the bridge was intended to unite, stayed at home
watching television, or at the best, flocked on both shores away from the bridge, lacking
accreditation for accession. It made one wonder: for whose sake was this entire spectacle
intended? Was one supposed to rely on the general enthusiasm displayed in the media to
indicate that the development of post-war Mostar was heading in the right direction? Was that
what the organisers and initiative takers were also reckoning on? The bridge was a symbol for
“multiethnic coexistence, tolerance and cultural development”; a symbol that was capable of
uniting people where politicians and countless words of praise had failed.

The New Partition

The town remained divided after the inauguration; this time in a new way. The arrival of
busloads of tourists only served to make this more apparent. One group of tourists followed the
heels of another while local men sat and played their endless games of tavla (backgammon).
The air was saturated with guided tours, and Italian, English, Swedish or German groups made
a beeline for the souvenir shops. The bridge was the natural climax of the visit. Young men in
bathing trunks perched on the top ready for the performance: one getting ready to jump while
others collected the fee (25 euro per jump) or waited for their turn to jump. Cameras whir and
roll and a hum of expectation runs through the crowd as the leaper vanishes into the blue
Neretva to ripples of applause. The stream of tourists thins out as evening approaches and
young local residents gather on the shore beneath the bridge to sing and acknowledge that
Mostar is theirs and the centre of the universe.

4
Anyone crossing the bridge could visit a photographic exhibition on the eastern shore
illustrating the devastation of full-scale war on the town’s cultural heritage. Or, as some
members of the paramilitary forces said in relation to Bosnia’s cultural heritage in 1993:
“everything that serves as a reminder of them must be destroyed!”2 The war was not only
waged against people, who died in the streets, on the bridge, at the border and in trenches, but
also against mosques, churches, museums and libraries. The idea was to rob the opponent of
everything that indicated continuity, cultural heritage and links to the landscape, town and
history. The attacks were successful. Some informants described the events like this:

The day was peaceful and the sun at its zenith. There was no sound of grenades at
all. All of a sudden there was a boom, boom, boom....When we heard that the bridge
had been destroyed we could hardly believe our ears. For two years we were
hungry, afraid, disillusioned. At that moment I couldn’t imagine how such a thing
could happen. Silence reigned in the town for a long time after that. After that the
only thing you could hear was crying. (Zlaja)

The attack destroyed the bridge, but it almost seemed as though the inhabitants’ biography
had suddenly been torn to shreds:

You know, you live with someone or something throughout your entire childhood
and all of a sudden it no longer exists. It’s hard for a Mostarian – just as for any
person. The shores were the only things that remained. Bosnia’s and Herzegovina’s
gem just disappeared. To think that anyone could destroy the jewel! What kind of
power and hate could do that? (Dida)

The effects of the devastation stretched far beyond the actual town:
As I’m telling you about this my entire body is shuddering. Like a wreck. It was all
to do with destroying heart and soul; reducing the town’s soul to nothing. When the
bridge was obliterated I was in the concentration camp. We heard about it on the
radio. They celebrated by firing a volley of grenades over the town. (Goca)

The photographic exhibition of Mostar under siege testified in detail to the significance of the
cultural heritage attacks. The notorious “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia was preceded and
followed by a “cultural cleansing”. ”Bosnian-Serbs and Bosnian-Croats endeavoured to wipe
out all evidence that for centuries Bosnia and Herzegovina had been a place where varying

5
cultures, religions and peoples had lived and worked side by side. In the light of this ambition
both things and places became of central importance”, writes Magnus Rodell (2007:81).
Oddly enough it was the events of 1993, when a hundred-year long multiethnic coexistence
was suddenly swept away, that resulted in Mostar hitting the world’s headlines. The war
ended shortly afterwards – and the bridge was rebuilt. The pain and distress experienced by
the local inhabitants didn’t have the same impact on the world as the pictures of the bridge’s
destruction.3 The future’s prospects were much more important than healing the wounds of
the past. When it was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2005 it was possible to
read about the reconstruction of the bridge as a “renaissance”, a rebirth. What did the local
population, the bridge hoppers and those making their livings from tourism have to say? How
did they become co-actors, and how did they formulate their own experiences?

Don’t Forget

The whole idea of a monument is to communicate a specific message – although in practical

terms this and the place in which it is situated become impregnated with the inhabitants’ own
lives. This is where they see themselves as belonging to a society or community, and it is
there their identity becomes apparent. At the same time this is where they are controlled and
disciplined. In this way monuments exercise a symbolic violence over their surroundings –
and open themselves to reinterpretations. This forms the basis of Hannah Arendt’s discussion
of the space of appearance. In both cases it becomes a political place where meanings are
constituted (Frykman & Ehn 2007:26f). The Old Bridge in Mostar not only renders different
sides of the town’s history visible, but also facilitates different interpretations of the
destruction.
From the artisans’ district, kujundžiluks, on the northern side, the view of the bridge
is at its most beautiful and pictures taken at twilight the most effective. Here there are also
signs that indicate that this is a World Heritage Site. These signs were erected in 2005; small
plaques with the text CHwB (Cultural Heritage without Borders) also serve as reminders of
international aid contributions.4
The ominous words, DON’T FORGET, are carved into a massive block of stone. A
similar inscription can be found at the “bridge leapers’ club” beside the opposite bridge
buttress. But what is it that mustn’t be forgotten – the evil deed, the suffering? Is it a comment
about the attempt to smooth over the immediate past? Rodell writes: “the importance of
remembering is naturally central, but the risk with this is that if the reconstructed bridge is too
closely associated with the war that led to its destruction, there’s the danger that that which is

6
to be conquered is made permanent” (Rodell 2007:84). This is also what struck me when I
tracked down the work’s creator:

It was in sheer defiance. All the horrors that had been played out here meant that I,
in the midst of the war and late in the evening, protected by the snipers, cemented
the stone in place. It was an appeal to the heavens! Nobody has ever moved it since.
How was I supposed to express my feelings otherwise, if not in this way? No-one
who wasn’t here would be able to understand what happened. Several of us
organised exhibitions on the actual front line. People called me the Minister of
Culture. (Laughs) (Eka – a fifty-year-old man, member of the “Culture Brigade”
and BiH Army)

Rather than forgetting, the artist’s intention was to protest against the war itself – the famous
Never more! A sociologist from Mostar put forward another explanation that was just as
established in the town:

For me, don´t forget is “pop culture”. The people who placed them there, who
wrote this, have themselves condemned the artefacts to death. A message on a
stone isn’t about remembering, it’s not a living message, especially if it’ written
in a foreign language. Forget what? Who is this message for, tourists to
photograph? It could just as easily say U2, Simple Minds, The Cult, it’s all the
same to me. (Huss)

The message was supposed to emphasise the importance of not forgetting – but what? The
stone with the inscription still lies among the official plaques. The context fills the message
with meaning. Today you can also buy postcards with pictures that depict the war, as part of
the contemporary tourist industry, and that say “Don’t forget”.

The originator’s “art” doesn’t mean that anybody can come and “enrich” this space with their
own war-related commemorative expressions. It is Mostar that is the environment and it is
The Old Bridge that is the main character: an opening as well as a discipline, like in Hanna
Arendt’s space of appearance.

7
Forming Memories

The bridge leapers’ clubhouse is situated near the bridge buttress close to the medieval tower
Halebija. A sign bearing the club’s name, with an engraved open bogomils5 hand, is a sign of
welcome. When the club members occupied this space shortly after the reconstruction they
did it to indicate their status as bridge keepers – mostari – also in peacetime, and that they
were the legitimate successors of the legendary medieval bridge keepers. 6 In actual fact the
mostari wanted to safeguard the special history of the bridge that extends beyond any
question of ethnic or territorial affinity and ownership. Today the club is a world-famous
phenomenon and its sponsors include the “Red Bull” sports drink.
On 9th November, the day the bridge was destroyed, the alternative history becomes
increasingly sombre and serious. With regard to the attempt to politicise the bridge’s history
one of the bridge leapers, Sale, said:

What do you mean? There’s nothing political in what we do. We are an NGO
and non-political. In this club we uphold the anti-fascist tradition. How? By not
acknowledging war criminals, not discussing politics, by giving every normal
person around the world the opportunity to jump from this bridge, by
prohibiting all fascists, turbo-folksingers or Wahabists from coming here and
singing or making speeches...we ensure that they disappear.7

They were engaged in a kind of relic-cult, where the bridge linked them to a past that had a
direct connection to the future; to a habitat that was above politics (cf. Kayser Nielsen 2007:
145). But did it do that?
On 9th November 2007, the memorial ceremony was held in the pouring rain. The
stage was set, with primary school children clutching lilies 8 in their hands. Residents and club
members flocked together and gazed at the river. A man prepared himself for the jump. At a
quarter past ten in the morning the sirens began their monotonous whine. The children were
anxious and looked questioningly at school personnel. Older people stood in sombre silence.
When the noise stopped flowers were thrown from the bridge. A symbolic yet shiveringly
cold November leap followed. With the exception of the sirens, this brief ceremony took
place in complete silence. It was a bit like Chekhov’s famous psychological pause that, by its
very absence of sound, left a deep impression on the participants. The ceremony had a
religious connotation in that it honoured the dead. The new generation that hadn’t experienced

8
war were obliged to leave their desks and learn something about the electric atmosphere of the
place. It was an audience with history, “a metaphor for the political community whose nature
is to be a community of remembrance”, to quote the philosopher Sheldon Wolin (Wolin
1977:97). This space of appearance reminded them of a past they couldn’t remember. Here
differences in age were levelled out and the collective memory institutionalised.
Children from the Bosnian-Muslim side were present at the memorial ceremony but
not those from the other, Bosnian-Croatian part. By now the third ethnic group, Bosnian-
Serbs, were hardly visible on the town’s map. The war’s antagonism of everyday life was still
prevalent. Muslim children were encouraged to remember the war, while Catholic Croats
were encouraged to forget. The ethno-politics that separated children into different schools
also gave them different memories of the same town and the same monument. But it was the
conditions that the children themselves had no control over. Here local politics stepped in at a
meaning making level. The two politically ethnic organisations in the town functioned in
accordance with us/them principles. Bosnian-Muslim politicians emphasised their role as
victims, while the Bosnian-Croats scaled down their role in the war.
The silence at the ceremony was broken by journalists taking photographs and
switching on tape recorders. The schoolchildren were ushered away and veterans arrived on
the scene. People started to shake hands. Almost half of those present seemed to be veterans
and several were members of the ethnic parties (with Bosnian-Muslim overtones). They held
short and concise speeches in front of the cameras: about the trauma of the war, the
destruction of the bridge, the evil deeds of the attackers; they sent condolences to the affected
families and repeated messages about everything that shouldn’t be forgotten and forgiven.
This was “the politics of memory” in full ceremonial swing. It was about using individual
memories in an attempt to promote political motives (Sorabji 2006:2).

Aliens Did It!

The bridge leapers – mostari – supervised the ceremony and contributed to it with
their skills. Their reactions illustrated that a space of appearance can never be clear-cut. One
of them made a comment that put the entire spectacle into perspective:

I don’t give two hoots about that, it’s those politicians.

What was this about? The bridge leapers were indeed actively promoting remembrance
politics, but with a lot of reservations. The bridge leaper who emerged from the river placed a

9
lily on another monument – a stone made from remains of The Old Bridge that had been
retrieved from the River Neretva shortly after the war. But it turned out to be a relatively
empty gesture.
After the media crowd had dispersed several of the day’s participants gathered in the
mostari club premises. Coffee was served, cigarette smoke pervaded the room and a BBC
documentary about the destruction of the bridge was shown. A day before, at national
television, a political debate on the same issue was launched. Included in the programme was
the question: Whose fault was it? A well-known Bosnian-Croat politician defended the thesis
that it wasn’t the Croatian forces that had done it, that the media image was misleading and
that it was rather the Bosnian-Muslims themselves who had done it by using dynamite, etc. 9
The feeling of irritation was overwhelming! A couple of war veteran representatives couldn’t
stomach such a lie, and especially not on the 9 th November, the day of the memorial
ceremony! It was time for action and an exchange of strategies. Those present quickly agreed
that the war veterans should protest via the media. The mostari on the other hand, being a
“non-political” association, decided to continue to promote the old and good story about
extraterrestrial beings! Here irony, or rather the famous black Bosnian humour, triumphed.

Have you seen the video archives? The Old Bridge was destroyed on the 8 th November.
50-60 tank grenades hit the bridge that day. The job was monstrously completed on the
following day. I saw it all with my own eyes. On that day the whole world could testify
to the destruction and it was condemned as an act against civilisation. Then, in 1993,
parts of Mostar weren’t even on the world map. Anybody could come here and stab,
rape, capture and put people in concentration camps. Please try to understand me, I’m
the product of a mixed marriage and grew up beside the Neretva, where I played the
guitar and acted. I was wounded two days before my 19 th birthday. The story was
created in order to counteract the nonsensical suggestion that we’d mined the bridge
ourselves.
It was then that we hit on that idea that extraterrestrial beings must have done
it. We made up a story about aliens – and the entire country laughed itself silly. It went
like this: aliens landed in the Sahara and, aided by camels, transported explosives to
the U-boats. After that they negotiated the Mediterranean, reached the River Neretva
and Mostar, where they then mined the bridge. (Sale)

10
 “Aliens attack”,
By Deri (mostari
member)

An analysis of these cultural events surrounding The Old Bridge in Mostar clearly shows just
how multifaceted a monument can be. Destruction is what anthropologist Ashish Chadha
called a “dissonant heritage”, because it “involves a discordance or lack of agreement and
consistency” (Chadha 2006:348, quoted in Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996:22). On the other
hand, the antagonistic narratives about how and who ravaged the bridge, and what the future
might look like after restoration, contain loosely connected if not exactly “dissonant”
narratives. The bridge is now used by interest groups at different levels with a wide variety of
different intentions. For the international community making a transient visit, the bridge
became a pulpit from which high moral principles could be proclaimed without any real
contact with the local reality. It was to do with a symbolic value that everyone could unite on:
“an exceptional and universal symbol of coexistence of communities from diverse cultural,
ethnic and religious backgrounds – has been reinforced and strengthened” as it was expressed
by UNESCO.

In terms of local politics, and for the ethnic groups who were still separated,
physically as well as mentally, the bridge became a constant reminder of who was the
perpetrator and who was the victim. Their interpretation of the bridge was included in a long
nationalistic discourse that was deeply rooted in the antagonisms between Croats and
Muslims in the still divided Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was also the image that was most
visible in the media.

Those people who remember the real war find little comfort in any of the grandiose
gestures and raised voices. They lived with their traumas and personal losses, with
unemployment and a sense of hopelessness about the future. At a more overarching level it

11
was also they who best represented the feelings that prevailed at that time in Bosnian society.
At the time the fieldwork was undertaken the community was still characterised by the
changeover from socialism to democracy and a market economy, by indiscriminate
privatisations, economic and political corruption and social exclusion. What they needed was
more tangible efforts on the part of the international community and national interest groups.

Everything had its context and was unaffected by the other, even though they were
physically inscribed in the same place. The bridge and its surroundings had been relieved of
both its context and daily function to become a plaything in the hands of politicians and
economic interests. The cult that was developed in the political or market tracks became a cult
of the dead. Life in Mostar was laid to rest in memories and narratives from the past, instead
of being represented in hopes for the future.

(translated by Sue Glover)

Dragan Nikolić
PhD Candidate
Lund University
Department of European Ethnology
Lund
Email: Dragan.Nikolic@etn.lu.se

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1
This article is based on my doctoral thesis at the Department of European Ethnology in Lund, with the working title
“Towards Reconciliation and Development: Cultural Heritage in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina”, financed by SIDA since
2007. The material used in the article is based on fieldwork undertaken in 2007 as well as from my previous pilot visit in
2005. Finally, it is important to point out that despite living and being educated in Sweden I am originally from Bosnia and
Herzegovina. All the interviews were conducted in the informants’ native language and were subsequently translated into
Swedish.

2
This is a statement made by one of the members of the Croatian paramilitary forces with reference to the Bosnian-
Muslims and the cultural heritage during the war of 1993 in Mostar (see Sells 2002:125; cf. Riedlmayer 1994).

3
A parallel example is the case of Dubrovnik in Croatia. See Povrzanović Frykman 2002.

4
“Cultural Heritage without Borders was formed in 1995 and is a Swedish organisation that works in the spirit of the 1954
Hague Convention to protect cultural property threatened by war, natural catastrophes, mismanagement, poverty or
political and social conflicts” (CHwB, n.d.).

5
Bogomils – medieval Bosnian heretics.

6
The story about the bridge keepers – mostari – dates from the time before and after The Old Bridge’s construction during
the 16th century. The bridge keepers filled two functions: an economic function where they levied a toll on those who
wanted to cross the bridge and a military formation that defended the bridge’s strategic position from enemy attacks.
Historian Hivzija Hasandedić (2005:126) writes that mostari succeeded in defending the bridge on at least four occasions
when the Venetian military carried out raids on the area.

7
The public appearance of popular singers like Thompson and Ceca, mentioned by my informant, are often associated
with Serbian or Croatian nationalism. A well-known phenomenon, also discussed in the Swedish media and especially in
connection with Ceca’s concert in Malmö in 2007. For further information see Per Ek 2007.

8
The choice of golden lilies is symbolic, both as a symbol on the military flag of the BiH army and today as the emblem of
the bridge leapers’ club. Without delving too deeply into vexillology and colour symbols, golden lilies are, ironically
enough, associated with hate.

9
The Bosnian-Croatian commanding officer in war-torn Mostar, Slobodan Praljak, was sentenced by the Hague Tribunal
for war crimes. The Old Bridge in Mostar was destroyed under his command. In spite of this, current day Bosnian-Croatian
politicians neglect and relativise this fact. The Hague Convention of 1954 was also updated as a result of the active
destruction of cultural heritage monuments in connection with the 1990s war in the Balkans.

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