In the Movement of Free Citizens (PSG), they collect data on the destroyed or extremely endangered cultural heritage of Serbia. They also created a map on which, for now, there are 26 such facilities registered from 2012 to 2020, and they are preparing a new one on which there will be 17 more that they have examined so far, and certainly most of the thirty that they will examine by the end of the year .
The Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments does not have such a list, at least not a complete one.
"It can be said that we are activist and professional help to the institution," Vladimir Pajić, president of the Belgrade Committee and member of the PSG Presidency, told the "Vremena" portal, otherwise a conservator-restorer with fifteen years of experience in various institutions, including the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments.
"There are many colleagues in the Institute of the Republic who are trying their best to preserve the immovable heritage of Serbia, but the problem is that the government has a very strong intention to destroy it."
Why do they deal with cultural heritage and not cultural assets?
When PSG started collecting data for the Map, Pajić says, he asked the Republic Institute for a list of cultural assets that lost their status as cultural assets, such as those lost by churches and monasteries in Kosovo and Metohija due to physical destruction.
"It turns out they only have a few." If the state does not have complete information about the deleted cultural assets, that is, about something that it protects, what fate can its cultural heritage expect. which he has no obligation to protect, and which may be able to become a cultural asset if we preserve it," says Pajić.
"That's why our Map is about cultural heritage. We started it with the idea of at least detecting and putting on the map what has been destroyed from cultural immovable values and what is about to be destroyed."
At that time, Vladimir Pajić participated in the public debate regarding the Law on Cultural Heritage within the set of laws on culture. He especially insisted that cultural property that no longer physically exists "is not to be deleted from the Central Register, but to leave an indication that it existed and at some point was destroyed, because it is very important for the Central Register to be an archive of cultural property that existed on the territory of Serbia." ". He gives the example of the church and monastery in Mušutište in Kosovo, which were completely destroyed by the KLA.
"Cultural heritage is a political issue and a social category. "It is a political issue because the protection of heritage depends on the social and state attitude towards it," says Pajić.
Cultural heritage that no longer exists is marked in red on the Map, and cultural heritage that is terminally endangered is marked in blue.
With this first Map with 26 locations, they wanted to draw "attention that each cultural heritage is extremely important for the local community or the Republic, and that no one deals with them or deals with them in the wrong way."
It is said that, for example, one part of Ulica Brače Radića in Subotica was completely demolished "although it was a protected city unit, in that city the Green Fountain was also demolished and thrown into the landfill. In Belgrade, the Pavillion on Kalemegdan, the Ikarbus building, the villas in Topolska, Dubljanska, Trg Republike has completely changed its appearance, the house of Đura Jakšić in Kragujevac, the Dečani monastery... All these are the consequences of politics. "
"It's all cultural heritage that is threatened for various reasons, and we think that society must pay attention to it in order to preserve it."
Vladimir Pajič particularly points out "the systematic neglect of NOB monuments all over Serbia, as well as Serbian cemeteries in Kosovo, which we consider a great shame because all cemeteries in the world automatically have the distinction of cultural property because they carry the main memory of people's lives and that is something to protect."
It is obvious, says Pajić, a "historical revision" and mentions the erection of monuments to personalities that need to be rehabilitated "under the auspices of the state".
It also speaks of double cubits. "There is one level of importance for cultural goods, as well as for cultural heritage. When Magura in Gamzigrad is completely abandoned, or a mosaic is erected in the Žiča monastery that ends up in an unknown location, then there is no state. And those cultural assets are equally important and are on the same level as those in Kosovo, about which the state constantly talks, but, in truth, not to protect them, but with another goal."
Vladimir Pajić mentions that the European Union considers cultural goods extremely important for the Community, and states that "Ursula von Leyen says that the new unification of Europe will overcome resource and economic unification and will be based on culture and cultural heritage." If this is an EU trend, we had to participate in it and it can greatly contribute to our status. That is why cultural heritage is a political issue.
"With this Map, we presented cultural heritage as a political topic. I think that in these five or six years that PSG has been dealing with cultural heritage, we have managed to raise it to a level where the threat to cultural heritage becomes news in the media and the public. That's a big plus. The case of the gondola on Kalemegdan, when people reacted very emotionally and defended the heritage, is an obvious example that we are right."
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