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----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I am writing in response to Ms. Cappelli's critique of my exhibition
announcement, which I posted to ARLIS-L for the information of colleagues.
Those who have read what I actually wrote in the announcement and followed
the link to the ArchNet website, which provides both information on the
exhibition and sample images from our Kosovo Cultural Heritage Survey
http://archnet.org/calendar/item.tcl?calendar_id=2658
know that the accusation of one-sidedness is baseless. When we conducted
our fieldwork in October 1999 for the Kosovo Cultural Heritage Survey,
we went to considerable effort and some risk to document all cultural and
religious heritage in Kosovo, including the heritage of all ethnic groups
(Albanians, Serbs, Turks, Gypsies and others) and religions (Muslim,
Orthodox Christian, Roman Catholic, Jewish) indigenous to the region.
We documented not only mosques, but also churches, monasteries, historic
civil architecture, museums, libraries, and archives.
Our field survey, which was the first attempt to conduct a systematic
post-war assessment of the state of cultural heritage in Kosovo, has
been followed by expert missions to Kosovo sponsored by IFLA, UNESCO, the
Council of Europe, and other international organizations. Their findings
have confirmed our own.
I recommend to your attention the latest such report, released this week
by IFLA ( http://www.faife.dk/faife/kosova/kosorepo.htm ) in particular
the section 3.5 "Allegations and responsibility of destructions" ...
Colleagues who are members of the ALA International Relations Round Table
can also check out my article in the current issue of International Leads.
Andras Riedlmayer
Fine Arts Library
Harvard University
>Cybele Cappelli <[log in to unmask]> wrote
>
> This message on burned books and blasted shrines failed to mention that
> the damage was done on both sides, that Kosovo Albainians have been
> destroying Serbian churches and civillians for centuries and are
> continuing to do so at the present time. The Albainians are also attacking
> other ethnic groups in the area, primarily gypsies, under the U.N.
> "peacekeepers" noses. The Albainians are not just victims, they have blood
> on their hands, and this information should be documented as well.
>
> C. Cappelli
> Pratt Institute.
>
> On Thu, 4 May 2000, Andras Riedlmayer wrote:
>
> > BURNED BOOKS AND BLASTED SHRINES:
> > CULTURAL HERITAGE UNDER FIRE IN KOSOVO
> >
> > Exhibition - April 15 through July 31, 2000
> > Fine Arts Library, Harvard University,
> > 25 Prescott Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts
> >
> > Features photographs and other materials documenting the systematic
> > destruction of cultural heritage during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo.
> > The photographs, by Andras Riedlmayer, bibliographer at the Harvard
> > Fine Arts Library, and Andrew Herscher, a practicing architect and
> > Ph.D. candidate at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, were taken
> > in October 1999 as part of a post-war survey of damage to cultural
> > heritage in Kosovo. The Kosovo Cultural Heritage Survey is sponsored
> > by Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
> >
> > Among the goals of the Survey was to gather evidence to assist the
> > investigations of the U.N. Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
> > (ICTY). The deliberate destruction of cultural property is a serious
> > violation of international law and those responsible for ordering and
> > carrying out such attacks can be prosecuted for war crimes.
> >
> > On May 24, 1999, the United Nations Criminal Tribunal for
> > the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted Yugoslav President
> > Slobodan Milosevic and four other senior Serbian and Yugoslav
> > officials, charging them with "criminal responsibility for
> > violations of the laws or customs of war." According to the
> > Tribunal's statute, this includes the seizure of, destruction,
> > or willful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion,
> > charity, and education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments,
> > and works of art and science. The full texts of the indictment
> > and of the statute are posted on the Tribunal's web site
> > http://www.un.org/icty/index.html
> >
> > Another aim of the Survey was to provide a basis for planning the
> > reconstruction of cultural monuments and institutions. Documentation
> > assembled by the Survey has already been used to find support for the
> > first emergency protection projects for cultural heritage in Kosovo
> > since the end of the war.
> >
> > Documentation on the destruction of architecture in Kosovo, compiled
> > by the Survey, will be published later this summer as a database
> > on the new ArchNet website http://www.archnet.org
> >
> > A sample of the Survey's more than 2,000 photographs of destroyed
> > historic architecture, manuscript libraries, mosques and churches
> > in Kosovo can be viewed at
> > http://archnet.org/calendar/item.tcl?calendar_id=2658
> > (click on - "sample images from the Kosovo Cultural Heritage Survey")
> >
> > The Survey's reports on the state of libraries, archives and museums
> > in Kosovo appear in the Dec.1999/Feb.2000 and Mar./May 2000 issues
> > of Bosnia Report, published by the Bosnian Institute (London).
> > The reports are available on line at the Bosnian Institute's website
> > http://www.bosnia.org.uk
> >
> > For more information, call +1-617-495-3372 e-mail [log in to unmask]
> > __________________________________________________________________________
> > ABOUT BURNED BOOKS ...
> > In preparing my exhibition, I took my little packet of burned books
> > (which I'd brought back from Kosovo inside a Zip-lock bag wrapped in
> > paper towels and stuffed into the cut-off bottom half of a large empty
> > plastic Coke bottle) up to the paper conservators at the Straus Center
> > for Conservation, on the top floor of Harvard's Fogg Art Museum.
> >
> > They helped me to unpack them and to arrange a sample for display.
> > As we watched a conservator and an intern gently picking through the
> > remains with tweezers, we all learned something new about the way books
> > burn. They don't turn into wispy paper ash, like the crumpled newspapers
> > one uses to start a fire in the grate. When scores of books packed
> > into shelves or in piles are set ablaze, the pages fuse and carbonize,
> > turning into clinkers in the intense heat due to the lack of oxygen.
> >
> > We watched as the conservator picked out these small bits of charcoal --
> > the carbonized fragments of manuscripts and old books. They were hard
> > and black, some had shiny surfaces that reflected the afternoon sunlight.
> > Looking closely, one could distinguish: smooth, blackened fragments of
> > leather bindings; loose fibers or carbonized pieces of woven cloth from
> > the inside of the spines of books; chunks of charcoal in which one could
> > still see the fused layers of pages; still smaller fragments of burned
> > paper; black charcoal dust. One larger piece, softer and grayish in color,
> > not completely turned to carbon, was still recognizable as a book: the
> > remains of a spine, or perhaps the fore-edge of a volume, less than an
> > inch wide and perhaps 2-3 inches long, with the curled edges of charred
> > pages still visible on the narrow ends. It had come from the burned-out
> > interior of a 15th-century mosque in Pec, torched by Serbian policemen
> > on June 11, 1999, the day before the first NATO peacekeepers arrived.
> >
> > It was an odd feeling to take the glass laboratory dishes with these
> > burned remains of books down to the Fine Arts Library to put them in
> > the display cases. Sad, almost reverential ... and also furious at those
> > who have burned both books and human beings in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and
> > in too many other places in recent years.
> >
> > In my office, I keep a copy of a poem, an elegy for the burned Sarajevo
> > library by a Bosnian poet, which talks about the removal of ten tons
> > of such clinkers from the ruins of the burned out National Library.
> >
> > It brings home the vulnerability of the human knowledge that institutions
> > such as universities and libraries are established to cultivate and
> > preserve. We like to believe that we can be keepers of the records
> > of civilization and we do our best to preserve them from fires and floods
> > and other natural calamities. But what can one do to keep books and
> > human beings safe from the barbarians?
> >
> > Andras Riedlmayer
> > Fine Arts Library
> > Harvard University
>
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