thalamtnafsee: Today marks 20 years since the Bosnian Serb Forces shelled and burned the famed bui
thalamtnafsee: Today marks 20 years since the Bosnian Serb Forces shelled and burned the famed building of Sarajevo Library. This act of destruction of memory and cultural wealth of peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina and world heritage is yet to be acknowledged by the Republika Srpska government and Serb political leaders. The library in Sarajevo served the University of Sarajevo, and was a national repository of Bosniaca — with works devoted to subjects about Bosnia or published in Bosnia, many of them centuries old. Some of these were irreplaceable handwritten manuscripts, though many of the books can be found elsewhere. When Serb artillery bombarded the library on 25 August 1992, flames engulfed almost 50,000 feet of wooden bookshelves and burned a central atrium, richly carved staircases and the ceremonial auditoriums of the structure, built in 1896 as the town hall. The auditoriums had become reading rooms in 1951, when the building was converted to the national library for the republic within the Yugoslav federation. Books, original manuscripts, the archives of Serb, Croat, Bosnian and Jewish writers, the entire catalogue system, microfilm, computers and photo labs were all destroyed. this is important. really important. -- source link