IDEAA applied to the “7 most endangered monuments in Europe”

IDEAA applied to the “7 most endangered monuments in Europe” program through the candidacy of the Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar.

The 7 Most Endangered program was launched in January 2013 by Europa Nostra with the Institute of the European Investment Bank as a founding partner. It is also supported by the Creative Europe program of the European Union, as part of the Europa Nostra network project ‘European Cultural Heritage Agora’. The 7 Most Endangered Program is a civil society campaign to save endangered European heritage. It gets the word out, conducts independent technical assessments, proposes recommendations for action and seeks to garner support for saving selected threatened areas. Being on the list of the 7 most vulnerable often serves as a catalyst for action and as an incentive to mobilize the necessary public or private support.

The Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar represents a significant heritage and belongs to the collective memory of the anti-fascist struggles and victims of the Second World War and as such represents the common European heritage and the heritage of all the republics of the former Yugoslavia. The fact that the cemetery is located in the city of Mostar, which during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s went through another terrible period of destruction and war, gives this place an even more important role – a place of memory, a place of peace and reconciliation for all generations. Furthermore, it is a significant work of art, the work of one of the most important architects of the former Yugoslavia, Bogdan Bogdanović. The location represents an ideal place, the unity of nature (water and greenery) with the architectural expression of the author, its undeniable quality. Partisan memorial cemetery in Mostar is part of Bogdanović’s artistic cycle of expression of primordial elements: stone, earth, air, fire and sky.

Expected outcome. 
Memorial area – Partisan memorial cemetery in Mostar is a very important site for the future of Mostar as a city. Our behaviour toward the site will determine the future presentation of the city – hopefully, the city that has the power to include and present all of its historical layers. The relationship to the locality shows, even more, the relationship to the architectural heritage of the socialist period as well as the relationship to the memorial monuments of anti-fascism on the soil of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Precisely for this reason, clearly defining the importance of this locality is of crucial importance for the future of all memorial areas and monuments of anti-fascism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The desired outcome of the nomination, primarily, is the recognition of the Partisan Memorial Cemetery as a site of European importance, a site that inherits and transmits values based at the core of European heritage and culture: democracy, anti-fascism, unity in diversity, and the victory of life over death.

Therefore, the very choice among the finalists would mean a lot in terms of promoting the value and drawing attention to the need to secure financial and administrative resources to ensure the existence and active life of this locality. Also, the selection among the finalists would mean confirmation of the necessity of a systematic approach to the protection of localities compared to the previous ad hoc and occasional dealing with the same.