Andrew Herscher, Andras Riedlmayer - Monument and Crime, The Destruction of Historic Architecture in Kosovo

Kulla (Mansion) of Jashar Pasha, Peja/Pec. ´ Photo: Xhavit Lokaj. 108 if not inevitable. Inc. such as atrocities against non-combatants. architectural heritage associated with Kosovo’s Albanian majority has been subjected to institutionalized disregard in the management of Kosovo’s cultural heritage and. that cultural artifacts can unproblematically be distinguished from legitimate military targets. the population of which has been predominantly Albanian since Serbia claimed Kosovo as a province in 1912. a prevalent dimension of discourse on that heritage. As such. then. pp. Fall 2000. etc. architecture. however. and specifically.. the war in Kosovo is characteristic of a new form of conflict that is produced not out of geopolitical or ideological disputes. but out of the politics of particularist identities. can be distinguished by the degree to which culture. destruction of historic monuments. catastrophic destruction. was sanctioned by recourse to little else than culture. competing versions of Kosovo’s cultural identity were staged as the bases for competing claims for sovereignty over the province. The situation in Kosovo. was—and remains—the symbolic centerpiece of Serb nationalist claims to the province. this legal protection implies that war is not waged over questions of culture and thus. during the 1998-1999 conflict. and cultural artifacts were presented as precise evidence of those claims. Reciprocally. now constitutes an essential component.Monument and Crime: The Destruction of Historic Architecture in Kosovo ANDREW HERSCHER AND ANDRÁS RIEDLMAYER While international accords prohibit the targeting of cultural artifacts during warfare. however. was less an avoidable anomaly of the conict than one of the conict’s constituent elements. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 109 . Kosovo’s Serbian Orthodox buildings—both surviving medieval monuments and the products of twentieth-century church construction programs— have served as proxy for a Serb population to substantiate Serbian state sovereignty over Kosovo.1 The 1998-1999 conflict in Kosovo. “behavior that was proscribed according to the classical rules of warfare and codified in the laws of war in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. © 2000 Grey Room. 108–122. The entanglement of the cultural and the political that led to the widescale destruction of historic architecture in Kosovo. In this new form of conict. sieges. While this destruction constitutes a war crime in violation of the Hague Grey Room 01.” 2 The recruitment of cultural heritage as evidence in support of a political project is. it is also the counterpart to a sanctioned cultural heritage policy carried out for decades before the war. utilized a historicist architectural vocabulary drawn from medieval Serbian Orthodox churches. as prominent historic churches in Kosovo. institutionalized the production of cultural heritage in Kosovo and provided another field on which an ideology of culture would play itself out. only Žfteen of the more than six hundred mosques in Kosovo were listed as historic monuments. this campaign led both to the reconstruction of ruined Serbian Orthodox churches and the construction of new ones. it set out three justifications for Serbian rule in the province: the “moral right of a more civilized people. in both Kosovo and Serbia. churches built in this period.4 Indeed. whether or not this architecture actually existed on a material level. even if no elements of the original building remained. and the Serbs’ historic right to the place which contained the Patriarchate buildings of the Serbian Orthodox Church. founded in 1952.3 While these buildings directly substantiated the third of these justiŽcations.” the ethnographic right of a people who “originally” constituted Kosovo’s majority population. were often used as direct models for contemporary churches elsewhere in Serbia. the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of Kosovo. To reinforce the same historical continuity. it is often difŽcult to distinguish between the two procedures. and gravesites were listed as protected historic monuments in Kosovo. While the construction of religious buildings in Yugoslavia was restricted from the establishment of Tito’s Communist government in 1945 until the relaxation of church-state relations in the mid-1970s. Between the world wars. When the Kingdom of Serbia wrested control of Kosovo from the Ottoman Empire in 1912. the medieval architecture of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo testiŽed both to the Serbs’ level of civilization and to their past presence in the province.and Geneva Conventions. the merging of the historicist with the historic mirrored the intended merging of Kosovo with Serbia proper. this patrimony of medieval architecture was supplemented by an extensive churchbuilding campaign in Kosovo. 110 Grey Room 01 . some 210 Serbian Orthodox churches.5 By the time of last year’s war. such as the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin at Gra`canica Monastery. SigniŽcantly. This equivocation between reconstruction and construction reflected the manner in which Serbian Orthodox architecture in Kosovo was endowed with a continuous existence on an ideological level as a marker of Serb presence in the province. including over forty churches built between the 1930s and the 1990s. as what was termed a “reconstructed” (obnovljena) church was sometimes located on a site where a medieval chronicle or charter attested that a church once existed. they also were scripted as evidence for the preceding two claims. In contrast. monasteries. Kosovo’s cultural heritage was materially transformed: while listed buildings received all funds designated for historic preservation. many with the patronage of prominent members and supporters of the Milo`sevi´c regime. Albanian resistance to Serbian control of Kosovo was sometimes expressed through the vandalism of precisely those artifacts by which that control was legitimated: historic and contemporary Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries. the declaration of a state of emergency in the province. Monument protection was seized upon by the Serbian government as one of the pretexts for its decision to impose direct rule on Kosovo. the historic architecture associated with that population was systematically targeted for destruction.7 Beginning after the death of Tito in the 1980s.9 Increasing repression and the evident failure of non-violent resistance to bring about change led to the formation of an armed insurgency. while dozens of smaller churches were also constructed in provincial towns and villages. if architecture legitimated Serbia’s claim to Kosovo. New Serbian Orthodox churches constructed in the 1990s were prominently positioned in the centers of cities such as Prishtina and Djakovica. then damage to that architecture became damage to that claim. At the same time. This targeting took place both as groups of people were being expelled from their places of Herscher and Riedlmayer | The Destruction of Historic Architecture in Kosovo 111 . the resurgence of Serb nationalism and the formation of new relations between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Belgrade government led to the initiation of a new program of church building in Kosovo. the renovation of unlisted mosques was undertaken without the Institute’s supervision and frequently resulted in the damaging or destruction of original architectural elements. Serb forces initiated a counterinsurgency campaign in March 1998. and the outbreak of open conflict between the KLA and Serbian government forces in 1998. as large numbers of Kosovo’s Albanian population were forcibly deported from their homes.6 As the criteria for considering mosques as “historic monuments” were far more restrictive than those for Serbian Orthodox buildings. and a series of human rights abuses perpetuated by Serb security forces in the province led to escalating tensions between the province’s ethnic Albanian majority and the Serb government. In this campaign.8 This vandalism was heavily publicized in the state-controlled media as part of a campaign charging Kosovo’s Albanians with “genocide” against Kosovo’s Serbs and their cultural heritage. directed against the KLA and Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian population. The revocation of Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989.even though well over half of these mosques date from the Ottoman era (fourteenth through nineteenth centuries). the Kosovo Liberation Army. a province that had in Tito’s era received considerable control over its own internal affairs. the forced removal of ethnic Albanians from all public institutions. The damage sustained by these buildings was not collateral.000 homes were destroyed in Kosovo from March to June 1999. to provide liaison with the international security mission. In the weeks after the war. eyewitnesses have also been able to precisely describe attacks on historic monuments. apparently to remove visible evidence of Kosovo’s deported Albanian community. minarets of mosques toppled with explosives. less well-known churches and monasteries in rural areas abandoned by the eeing Serb minority population became the targets of revenge attacks by returning Albanians.11 Other architectural targets of Serb forces were Islamic religious schools and libraries. the destruction of historic architecture has a unique significance in that it signifies the attempt to target not just the homes and properties of individual members of Kosovo’s Albanian population.10 The primary buildings singled out by Serb forces for destruction in 1998 and 1999 were mosques. at least 207 of the approximately 609 mosques in Kosovo sustained damage or were destroyed in that period. In a number of cases. and the types of damage which monuments received (buildings burned from the interior. some dated from the medieval period and were listed monuments. apparently to diminish these people’s incentive to return to their hometowns and villages. Three out of four well-preserved Ottomanera urban cores in Kosovo cities were also severely damaged. While this petition was unsuccessful. and “to maintain a presence at Serb patrimonial sites. but that entire population as a culturally deŽned entity. but also after expulsions took place. While the United Nations High Commission on Refugees has estimated that 70. more than 500 kullas (traditional stone mansions. 13 The Serbian government has used these attacks as the basis to petition the United Nations to allow the return of its troops and police to Kosovo to guard historic monuments. often associated with prominent Albanian families). and historic bazaars. rather than the result of monuments being caught in the cross-Žre of military operations.”12 Although international peacekeeping forces took measures to guard the most famous medieval Serbian Orthodox sites. more than seventy buildings were vandalized or destroyed. The United Nations Security Council resolution that authorized the United Nations administration in Kosovo following the end of the war in June 1999 allows official Yugoslav and Serbian personnel in Kosovo for certain limited purposes: to mark and clear minefields. in each case with great loss of historic architecture. anti-Islamic and anti-Albanian vandalism) indicate that this damage was deliberate.residence. Damaged and destroyed monuments were often situated in undisturbed or lightly-damaged contexts. while most were built in the twentieth century. the postwar attack on Serbian cultural heritage has been appropriated by Serbian cultural institutions as a means to deect attention from the 112 Grey Room 01 . 15 The international community in Kosovo has also been reluctant to acknowledge the damage that was done to Albanian cultural heritage in Kosovo. the NATO intervention in Kosovo was based on an ideology of victimization: “when NATO intervened to protect Kosovar victims.14 As a result. The only official acknowledgment by the Serbian government that damage was done to Albanian cultural heritage in Kosovo was made in the frame of an assessment of NATO war crimes. it ensured at the same time that they would remain victims.16 More generally. Herscher and Riedlmayer | The Destruction of Historic Architecture in Kosovo 113 . These institutions have reported only on the postwar damage sustained by Serbian Orthodox heritage and these reports have been regarded as neutral and objective assessments by international cultural heritage institutions. there has been little awareness of or concern for the damaged cultural heritage of Kosovo’s Albanian majority. As some commentators have pointed out. The initial UNESCO report on the state of cultural heritage in Kosovo after the war was based primarily on information supplied by Serbian cultural heritage institutions. the international community has conceived of its mission in Kosovo as simply a humanitarian triage to provide for the basic needs of Kosovo’s ravaged postwar population. however. a population which is dealt with less as peoples with distinct and valuable cultural heritages than as generic refugees.assault on Albanian cultural heritage that preceded it. which ostensibly included the aerial bombardment of several Albanian historic monuments.”17 The same ideology also underlays the bracketing-off of cultural heritage from what is called the “reconstruction” of Kosovo. inhabitants of a devastated country with a passive population. The minaret still stands. 1999. Informant statement: “On April 4.Village Mosque. We spent the rest of the war in refugee camps in Albania. When we returned in August. Constructed at the beginning of the twentieth century. Photo: Andrew Herscher. but we have no money to rebuild the mosque. we cleared away the ruins. we found the village destroyed and the mosque burned out. all residents of the village were expelled by Serb paramilitaries and the village was burned. To keep children from getting hurt by falling rubble.” 114 Grey Room 01 . Lismir/Dobri Dub. Informant statement: “The imam of the mosque. was taken from his house next door to the mosque and was killed in front of the mosque with his family watching. in the nineteenth century. 1999. Photo: Andrew Herscher.Top: Before destruction. This was done by Serb paramilitaries on June 13. The paramilitaries wore military-style camouage uniforms and red bandannas tied around their heads. Mosque of Halil Efendi. Photo: Raif Virmica. Herscher and Riedlmayer | The Destruction of Historic Architecture in Kosovo 115 .” Bottom: After destruction. Dobërçan/ Æ Constructed in the seventeenth century. the day before the Žrst KFOR troops arrived in the village. restored Dobrcane. The imam had been called into the Serb police station and threatened almost daily during the war. Nusret Hajdari. Then the mosque was burned down. Photo: Raif Virmica. they called the people of this town to prayer from that mosque. 116 Grey Room 01 . restored Vushtrri/Vucitrn.” Bottom: After destruction. in the nineteenth century. 1999). My family name is Mejzini (son of the muezzin). Market Mosque and Old Market. There’s nothing left for me here. My father and his father were muezzins. They bulldozed the entire site that Sunday (March 28. My house is the one across the street. Æ Constructed in the Ž fteenth century. The paramilitaries wore masks and were led by a Serb nationalist politician. Photo: Andr s Riedlmayer. I am leaving Vushtrri and not coming back. Informant statement: “Two days after the start of the NATO bombing.Top: Before destruction. Now it’s all gone. Serb paramilitaries burned down the Market Mosque and looted and burned 50 shops in the old bazaar next to the mosque. They burned it down after they burned the mosque. the local boss of Arkan’s political party. Founded in the late fourteenth century. But those who did it are ignorant people. I know the place because I worked here years ago on a project to restore the frescoes. Informant statement: “This church is genuinely old. dating back to Classical Antiquity and even earlier to prehistoric times. the roof made out of thick slabs of slate.Top: Before destruction. Orthodox Monastery Church of the Presentation of the Holy Virgin. Herscher and Riedlmayer | The Destruction of Historic Architecture in Kosovo 117 . The site is even older —just look at the huge stones at the base of the wall encircling the hilltop. Photo: Andrew Herscher. This church was built with the traditional technique that both Serbs and Albanians in this area use for their houses and their churches: stone walls.” Bottom: After destruction. Dolac. They thought they were taking revenge. Someone must have set off explosives inside to make the church collapse like this under the weight of the roof. Svetinje Kosova i Metohije Æ1999). (Novi Sad: Pravoslavna rec. That was an archaic fortress. Photo: Slobodan Mileusni´c. restored in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This was done by Albanians. ´ Constructed in 1803. Informant statement: “This kulla had been restored just before the war by the doctor whose family it belongs to. Peja/Pe c. so they set up ladders and had a man climb up on the roof and throw buckets of gasoline into the house and burn it from the top down. The man who set the Žre was an employee with the municipal roads department. restored in the twentieth century. It took them several days. It was burned in May 1999 by local Serbs. Photo: Xhavit Lokaj.Kulla (Mansion) of Jashar Pasha. he got the ladders from where he worked. led by civilians.” 118 Grey Room 01 . Three or four times they tried to set a Žre inside but it didn’t burn. where the Albanian League of Peja Žrst met in 1899. you can see the ofŽcial historic marker next to the door. It was a famous landmark. Informant statement: “On the Žrst night of the NATO air war. the announcer said that Belgrade. Prishtina. even though I live in the middle of the old town. Four hours later. Serb police and paramilitaries began setting Žre to the old market district around the Hadum Mosque and killing people in their houses. around midnight. Photo: Xhavit Lokaj.m.” Herscher and Riedlmayer | The Destruction of Historic Architecture in Kosovo 119 . I thought this was strange since I had not seen or heard any explosions nearby. Gjakova/Djakovica. on the 8:00 p. Constructed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Novi Sad. and the center of Djakovica had been bombed by NATO. newscast on Serbian state television.Old Market. Photo: Xhavit Lokaj.Kulla (traditional stone mansion). We were living inside until the war. We want to rebuild. They poured gasoline all over the kulla before setting it alight last April 14. Informant statement: “This kulla has been my family’s home for many generations. This is a historic monument. but we need help to rebuild the stone walls and especially a new roof. A kulla without a roof will quickly fall apart. It was burned by Serb paramilitaries. The walls are very old. very old. Constructed in the eighteenth century. The room for male guests on the top floor was especially splendid— a rare example of Albanian architectural heritage. perhaps they were here even before the Turks arrived. Junik. It is very.” 120 Grey Room 01 . They used that large jerry can you can still see lying in the rubble. Top: Before destruction. There were a lot of valuable goods taken. Herscher and Riedlmayer | The Destruction of Historic Architecture in Kosovo 121 . Photo: Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of Kosovo.” Bottom: After destruction. Among the shops next to the mosque that were burned were two dozen that belonged to the charitable foundations of the local Islamic community. Catholic Albanian silversmiths who specialize in Žligree work. Peja/Pec. and anything still left standing wrecked with bulldozers by local Serb police and civilians. Informant statement: “All the shops and houses in the old market district around the Bajrakli Mosque were looted and burned. Photo: Xhavit Lokaj. Old Market. ´ Constructed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. especially from the goldsmiths’ shops and from the shops of the argjendarët. 1999). For a documentation of postwar attacks on Serbian Orthodox sites. 8.yunet. 28 (October 1999): 14.” in 17. Annex 2. however. 12. 1999). See NATO Crimes in Yugoslavia: Documentary Evidence 24 March-24 April 1999 (Belgrade: Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.htm). Nearly half (47 percent) of Kosovar refugees reported seeing places of worship destroyed before they left Kosovo. see Physicians for Human Rights. In two cases (Djakovica bazaar and Prizren League Museum in Prizren) in which NATO is alleged to have destroyed Albanian historic monuments in Kosovo.decani. 10. 15. The early history of this institution—originally. 5. see Mileta Mili´c . 14. 114. Æ “Attempts to Escape the Logic of Capitalism. New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1999). 122 Grey Room 01 .org/docs/scres/1999/99sc1244. International Helsinki Federation Responses to Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo (Vienna: International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. 4-14 July 1999 (Paris: UNESCO. MA: Physicians for Human Rights. 86. For example. 6 (www. publication forthcoming. 1 (March 1997): 16–41. the damage sustained by these monuments is incompatible with the damage produced by aerial bombing. Cal. 1998). Kosovo (Alhambra. Cultural Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija (Belgrade: Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the Republic of Serbia. 1988). 1999). 16. See Noel Malcolm. xlvii. On listed historic monuments in Kosovo. Kosovo: A Short History (New York: New York University Press. 11. On international accords on the protection of cultural property in ÆToman.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 56. see Bratislav Panteli´c . On early twentieth-century Serbian historicist architecture. see Destroyed and Desecrated Christian Orthodox Shrines in Kosovo and Metohija (www. 6.Notes 1. Report on Mission to Kosovo. see International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.un. see Ji rí of Armed Con ict (Paris: UNESCO. 3. reports from the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in Yugoslavia and the Society of Conservators of Serbia were consolidated in “War Damage in the Balkans. See United Nations Resolution 1244. ed. Mary Kaldor. A partial list of vandalized Serbian Orthodox sites is given in William Dorich. 4. 8. no. Slavoj Zi London Review of Books 21. sec.” US/ICOMOS Newsletter (March-April 1999). “Nationalism and Architecture: The Creation of a National Style in Serbian Architecture and Its Political Importance. See Colin Kaiser. “Rad Zavoda za Æ i proucavanje Æ zastitu spomenika kulture AKMO od svog osnivanja do danas. War Crimes in Kosovo: A Population-Based Assessment of Human Rights Violations Against Kosovar Albanians (Boston. no. 7. 1999).. Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.” Glasnik Muzeja Kosova i Metohije. For an account of this period in Kosovo. 1 (1956): 357–365. This and the following data on damage sustained by cultural heritage in Kosovo are from a survey carried out by the authors in the fall of 1999. Bashkësitë fetare në Kosovë (Prishtina: Instituti i Historisë së Kosovës. 1996).: Kosovo Charity Fund. 21.com). 2. the Institute for the Protection and Study of Cultural Monuments in the Autonomous Province of Kosova-Metohija—is given in Ratomir KarakusÆ evi´c. 9. See Haki Kasumi. 1992). 226-228. 13. 1999). The Protection of Cultural Property in the Event warfare. Æzek.