Status of monument -> National monument
Pursuant to Article V para. 4 Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 39 para. 1 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, at a session held from 30 August to 4 September 2004 the Commission adopted a
D E C I S I O N
I
The architectural ensemble of the Catholic church of St Joseph in Pale is hereby designated as a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the National Monument).
The architectural ensemble consists of the parish office and church with movable property consisting of: the main altar dedicated to St Joseph, a side altar dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the original statues from the main and side altars – St Joseph with Jesus, St Anne with Mary, and the Blessed Virgin Mary with Jesus.
The National Monument is located on a site designated as cadastral plot no. 1995 (new survey), corresponding to 630/6, 630/9, 630/4 in part and 630/3 in part (old survey), title sheet no. 1389, cadastral municipality Pale Grad, Municipality Pale, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The provisions relating to protection measures set forth by the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, established pursuant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of Republika Srpska no. 9/02) shall apply to the National Monument.
II
The Government of Republika Srpska shall be responsible for ensuring and providing the legal, scientific, technical, administrative and financial measures necessary to protect, conserve, display and restore the National Monument.
The Commission to Preserve National Monuments (hereinafter: the Commission) shall determine the technical requirements and secure the funds for preparing and setting up signboards with the basic data on the monument and the Decision to proclaim the property a National Monument.
III
To ensure the on-going protection of the National Monument, the following protection measures are hereby stipulated:
- all works are prohibited other than conservation and restoration works with the approval of the Ministry responsible for regional planning in Republika Srpska and under the expert supervision of the heritage protection authority of Republika Srpska (hereinafter: the heritage protection authority),
- the section of the north-east wall of the sacristy that is of boards shall be reconstructed,
- damaged decorative elements of the church shall be restored and missing elements reconstructed (crosses on the coping of the intermediate uprights, trefoil arches on the portico of the apse, damaged window frames),
- the damaged statues of the main and side altars shall be restored,
- the parish house and office shall be conserved and restored,
- the dumping of waste is prohibited.
IV
The removal of the movable property referred to in Clause 1 para. 2 of this Decision (hereinafter: the movable heritage) from Bosnia and Herzegovina is prohibited.
By way of exception to the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Clause, the temporary removal from Bosnia and Herzegovina of the movable heritage for the purposes of display or conservation shall be permitted if it is established that conservation works cannot be carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Permission under the conditions stipulated in the preceding paragraph shall be issued by the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, if it is determined beyond doubt that it will not jeopardize the items in any way.
In granting permission for the temporary removal of the movable heritage from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Commission shall stipulate all the conditions under which the removal may take place, the date by which the items shall be returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the responsibility of individual authorities and institutions for ensuring that these conditions are met, and shall notify the Government of Republika Srpska, the relevant security service, the customs authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the general public accordingly.
V
All executive and area development planning acts not in accordance with the provisions of this Decision are hereby revoked.
VI
Everyone, and in particular the competent authorities of Republika Srpska, and urban and municipal authorities, shall refrain from any action that might damage the National Monument or jeopardize the preservation and rehabilitation thereof.
VII
The Government of Republika Srpska, the Ministry responsible for regional planning in Republika Srpska, the ministry responsible for culture in Republika Srpska and the heritage protection authority of Republika Srpska, and the Municipal Authorities in charge of urban planning and land registry affairs, shall be notified of this Decision in order to carry out the measures stipulated in Articles II – VI of this Decision, and the Authorized Municipal Court shall be notified for the purposes of registration in the Land Register.
VIII
The elucidation and accompanying documentation form an integral part of this Decision, which may be viewed by interested parties on the premises or by accessing the website of the Commission (http://www.aneks8komisija.com.ba)
IX
On the date of adoption of this Decision, the National Monument shall be deleted from the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of BiH no. 33/02, Official Gazette of Republika Srpska no. 79/02, Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH no. 59/02, and Official Gazette of Brčko District BiH no. 4/03), where it featured under serial no. 455.
X
Pursuant to Art. V para 4 Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, decisions of the Commission are final.
XI
This Decision shall enter into force on the date of its adoption and shall be published in the Official Gazette of BiH.
This Decision has been adopted by the following members of the Commission: Zeynep Ahunbay, Amra Hadžimuhamedović, Dubravko Lovrenović, Ljiljana Ševo and Tina Wik.
No: 09-02-211/04-6
2 September 2004
Sarajevo
Chair of the Commission
Dubravko Lovrenović
E l u c i d a t i o n
I – INTRODUCTION
Pursuant to Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, established pursuant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a “National Monument” is an item of public property proclaimed by the Commission to Preserve National Monuments to be a National Monument pursuant to Articles V and VI of Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and property entered on the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of BiH no. 33/02) until the Commission reaches a final decision on its status, as to which there is no time limit and regardless of whether a petition for the property in question has been submitted or not.
The Commission to Preserve National Monuments issued a Decision to add the Catholic church of St Joseph in Pale to the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, numbered as 455.
Pursuant to the provisions of the law, the Commission proceeded to carry out the procedure for reaching a final decision to designate the Property as a National Monument, pursuant to Article V of Annex 8 and Article 35 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments.
II – PROCEDURE PRIOR TO DECISION
In the procedure preceding the adoption of a final decision to proclaim the property a national monument, the following documentation was inspected:
- Documentation on the location and current owner and user of the property (copy of cadastral plan and copy of land registry entry)
- Data on the current condition and use of the property, including a description and photographs, data of war damage, data on restoration or other works on the property, etc.
- Historical, architectural and other documentary material on the property, as set out in the bibliography forming part of this Decision.
The findings based on the review of the above documentation and the condition of the site are as follows:
1. Details of the property
Location
The architectural ensemble of the Catholic church of St Joseph in Pale stands in the very centre of the town, in the so-called Stara Čaršija (old trade and crafts centre) or Male Pale. The architectural ensemble is located on a site consisting of c.p. 1995, title sheet no. 1399, in sole ownership of the Roman Catholic parish of Pale; c.m. Pale Grad, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Access to St Joseph's church is from the north-east, from Slaviša Vajner Čičo street.
The main axis of the church lies north-east/south-west, with the entrance to the north-east.
Historical information
The origins of timber buildings in Bosnia and Herzegovina, be they homes or places of worship, go back to the ancestral home of the Slavs, the trans-Carpathian regions famous for their dense forests. The Slavs probably brought the idea of a single-roomed log-cabin with them to the areas they later settled that were also rich in forests. Log-cabins are thus to be found in Russia and Poland, as well as throughout the Balkans. True, they differ considerably in appearance, as a result of the different socio-historical and cultural relations predominant in a given area (Slobodanka Lalić).
The earliest documentary evidence of chapels, timber-built churches and bell towers dates from the chronicles of the princely period of the tenth century in Ukraine.
More than 800 churches were built in Norway, Scandinavia, France and Germany, with a few in England. Most were built at the time Christianity was spreading through Europe. The erection of timber churches in these countries initiated a period of construction of timber churches.
Timber-built churches in Bosnia and Herzegovina constitute a distinct type of place of worship and form part of folk creativity.
There are now about 30 timber-built churches of Orthodox origin in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Momirović Petar, «Drvene crkve zapadne Bosne», Naše starine, 1956, no. 3, p. 149), but available reference works list only one of Catholic provenance (Katolička crkva u Sarajevu, p. 33) – St Joseph's church in Pale(1).
In addition to these, religious buildings of Islamic provenance too were entirely built of wood. According to Madžida Bećirbegović, about thirty timber-built mosques have been recorded, of which only six now survive. There is no written information when the oldest wooden mosque was built in Bosnia, but folk tradition associates them with the very earliest years of Turkish rule.
A comparison of timber-built churches in Bosnia with timber-built mosques reveals several similar architectural and structural elements, which can be explained by the fact that they were the work of local builders(2).
Timber-built churches of Catholic provenance in Bosnia and Herzegovina have not been studied at all. There is no reliable information as to their dates of origin, the form they took, or whether they derived from the indigenous architecture of the region.
St Joseph's church differs in its architectural features from timber-built churches of Orthodox provenance, as it does too from such churches of Catholic provenance in the Republic of Croatia(3). It was built in 1911 in the Stara čaršija or Male Pale by Austrian engineers for their own religious purposes(4). “The church is built in mountain-chalet style, entirely of timber, and is the only wooden church in the Vrbosnian archbishopric” (Katolička crkva u Sarajevu, p. 33).
The church was consecrated to St Joseph on 9 July 1911.
St Joseph was the husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the earthly father of Jesus Christ. A labourer or carpenter, St Joseph is regarded as the patron saint of the family, and of wood-cutters and craftsmen in general.
St Joseph’s day is 19 March or 1 May (the festival of St Joseph the Labourer).
2. Description of the property
In layout, St Joseph's church is of the single-nave type of church with rectangular ground plan, polygonal apse and a bell-tower above the frontispiece.
The exterior dimensions of the building are 17 x 8 m including the apse, or 12 x 8 m without the apse. The height of the walls of the church from floor level to the start of the vault is approx. 4 m, and to the top of the vault approx. 7 m.
The walls of the church are made of massive logs with narrow wooden beams between. The logs are set on a stone foundation 40 cm high made of irregular cut stone blocks laid in two horizontal courses. The interior walls of the church are plastered. The interior has a vaulted ceiling resting on the longitudinal walls, with a gabled roof over.
The gabled roof is clad with tiles, and the many-sided roofs of the apse and bell tower are clad with sheet metal.
Given the large size of the church and the fact that it was impossible to find such long logs, the longitudinal walls of the church are intersected by solid intermediate uprights every 4 metres, into which the logs are «plugged». These uprights are not only a structural feature but also a decorative one, for each is moulded and terminates in a gabled coping with decorated gable-end and a cross on the ridge. There are no intermediate uprights on the entrance wall of the church, their role being fulfilled in part by the door jambs.
The front and rear walls, together with the transverse walls of the sacristy, differ in construction from the other walls of the church – in their case, wooden boards were used as well as logs.
A bell tower with baroque elements is set over the entrance to the church. This two-storey bell tower, of which the first storey has a square ground plan and the second is octagonal in plan, terminates in an arch-like dome. The open gallery of the first storey has a balustrade of wooden boards decorated in relief-cut arcades with trefoil arches. The windows, of which there are two on each side, terminate in trefoil arches. The semi-enclosed gallery of the second storey has just one round-arched window on each side.
The entrance facade stands out thanks to its treatment.
The entrance wall is divided horizontally, in treatment and use of materials, into three sections. In height the first matches the height of the intermediate uprights, i.e. a height of approx. 3 m, and is of the same construction as the remaining walls of the church, of logs with narrow wooden beams between. The next two sections, which are separated from one another by a horizontal serrated string course, are of wooden boards set at right-angles to the logs. These boards are decorated in relief with round-arched arcades.
The perpendicular central axis of the church is formed by a portal with a gabled roof resting on pillars with a tripartite window above. The pillars are extended to support the roof gable. The perpendicular axis terminates in the baroque bell tower.
The pillars framing the portal and supporting the canopy roof and roof gable are richly moulded, as is each separate component of the entrance facade and of the church as a whole – rafters, struts and the visible sections of the roof beams. Decorative features contribute further to the rich appearance of the facade – the arched gable of the canopy roof over the portal, the wooden door-frame (with the jambs and lintel joined into a single unit), the door itself, and the wooden window-frames.
The details of the workmanship of all these components are evidence of the skill of the builder of this church.
The longitudinal walls of the church are fitted with windows set centrally between the intermediate uprights. There are thus three windows in the north-west facade of the church and two in the south-east, given that the section between the intermediate uprights by the apse is extended to form the sacristy. The windows consist of two windows within a single window-frame to which is attached a further extremely richly moulded frame. The supports of the wooden windowsills, three to each window, are also moulded.
The roof of the church terminates on the rear facade, as it does on the entrance facade,with a roof gable.
In terms of building materials, the rear wall of the church and the transverse walls of the sacristy are divided into two sections. The first, which extends up to the roof cornice, is of logs with narrow wooden beams between. The second is of wooden boards set perpendicularly to the logs, and decorated in relief with round-arched arcades(5).
The pentagonal apse has a polygonal roof of two levels. The logs from which the walls are built are joined by double angle overlap with rounded angled ends.
Like the entrance and rear facades, the south-west facade is divided into three horizontal levels with a prominent vertical axis.
The first horizontal section consists of the portico of the apse, set on a stone foundation, like the rest of the church. The portico has a low balustrade of wooden boards decorated in relief with round-arched arcades. The richly moulded uprights supporting the first roof of the apse are linked by stylized trefoil arches made of boards.
There is one window on each of the side walls in the second horizontal band of the pentagonal apse, with richly moulded attached window frames. There is one dormer window over the south-west wall of the apse, decorated in the same way as the former.
The third horizontal band is the part of the rear wall of the church that is made of boards.
The perpendicular axis of the rear wall of the church consists of the polygonal roofs of the apse and gable.
The interior of the church appears light and spacious.
The ceiling of the church is flat in part (by the transverse walls of the church), but mainly consists of a plastered barrel vault. The flat part of the ceiling is supported by struts, and the transition to the vault is emphasized by a narrow serrated wooden beam.
The floor of the church consists of square 30 x 30 cm tiles of mock marble.
The walls are plastered and painted. The first level, up to ceiling height, of the entrance and transverse walls is white-plastered. The altar wall and flat ceiling are painted warm ochre yellow, and the vault is light blue. The apse area is painted rose-red.
The choir gallery is located over the entrance area, and is supported via corbels by two wooden pillars on stone plinths. In addition to the choir, these pillars also support the wooden bell tower, which rests via two wooden pillars on the choir railing. Access to the choir is via a spiral staircase.
The transition from the nave to the apse is emphasized by wooden pillars and a serrated arch.
All the structural and decorative wooden elements within the church – pillars, struts, railings, string courses and window frames – are richly moulded.
The pulpit, which stands by the entrance, is of wood and is exceptionally richly decorated. The double door, decorated with floral designs, stands out in particular.
The entrance to the sacristy is in the south-east wall.
There is one row of wooden pews inside the church.
St Joseph's church now (6) has two altar, the main and a small altar.
The main altar, which is in the south-west, apsidal part of the church, is dedicated to the patron saint of the church, St Joseph.
The apse area is raised above the level of the rest of the church by two stone steps.
The altar is entirely made of wood, and stands on a richly moulded wooden chest. It consists of three parts – the altar mensa, the predella, and the tabernacle. The central part of the altar mensa projects forward. The vertical edges are decorated with floral designs painted gold. A medallion is applied to the central part of the mensa. Within it is the Sacred Heart, surrounded by rays. The Sacred Heart is painted red and the medallion and rays are painted gold.
The tabernacle stands on the predella, which extends from the mensa. The tabernacle is painted white, with certain parts (the uprights and floral motifs) painted gold. The statue of St Joseph, 1.5 m. in height, stands inside the tabernacle. The saint is carved in wood and shown with his arms crossed, holding his attribute (a protractor).
The small altar stands against the north-west side wall of the church. It is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and stands on a wooden table. The statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1.10 m in height, is painted.
On the south-east side wall of the church is a reproduction on paper of the fourteen stations of the cross.
According to Snježana Mutapčić, the mass vestments of this church, chasubles (misnice) and chasubles (kazule) [translator's note: both these words have the same meaning in English and it is not clear from the context whether they refer to different types of vestments in this case], were very expensively made. They bore «portraits both embroidered and in colour on the fabric» (documentation of the Cantonal Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage, Sarajevo). Two items of mass vestments bore the label of the Vienna makers Felinger-Halinger; the others had no labels. These items, which are no longer in use after having been replaced in the 1960s, are now housed in the sacristy of the church.
The original altar statues are stored in the area beneath the steps.
The statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Jesus, standing 1.00 m high, is the least badly damaged. It is missing part of the head and the left hand of St Mary, and the paint is damaged over the entire statue.
The statue of St Joseph with Jesus, standing 1.30 m high, has a plaque from the workshop of Ferdinand Stuflesser of Tyrol (Austria) on the base. This is the most seriously damaged statue. It is missing the head and neck and the right hand of St Joseph, and the head, right hand and part of the left foot of Jesus.
The paint on the statue of St Anne with Mary, standing 1.40 m high, is damaged, and the head and both hands of St Mary are missing.
The parish house and office are located in an extension to the church. The parish house was built in 1902/03. The building is rectangular in ground plan, measuring 10 x 10 m, and consists of a simple bungalow with usable attic space. It has a gabled roof. Before the 1992-1995 war, a wooden porch was added to the north-east entrance facade.
3. Legal status to date
The Catholic church of St Joseph in Pale is on the Provisional List of National Monuments under serial no. 455.
4. Research and conservation and restoration works
Up to the 1992-1995 war, no research or conservation and restoration works had been carried out on the building. When conducting a preliminary survey of the church in 1985, experts from the Cantonal Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Sarajevo identified the presence of damp inside the church, caused by the proximity of the Repašnica brook.
As a consequence of lack of maintenance from 1992 to 1995, the building deteriorated, and renovation works were carried out on the church in 2004.
These works were not conducted under the supervision of the heritage protection authority.
Timber components that have a structural role and that were damaged have been replaced (the wooden boards on the north-east wall of the sacristy have been replaced by unsuitable timber and have no relief decoration). Wooden components with a decorative role have not been replaced (crosses on the coping of the intermediate uprights, wooden window frames).
The interior of the church is plastered and all the woodwork is painted. A new statue of St Joseph has been placed in the altar area.
No signs of damp are currently to be seen on the walls of the church.
5. Current condition of the property
During the 1992-1995 war the church was abandoned and used for storage purposes. The church building itself was not damaged, but all the statues from the main and side altars were badly damaged.
The parish house and office is in a state of devastation. The wooden porch on the entrance facade has been completely destroyed. The building is not in use.
III – CONCLUSION
Applying the Criteria for the adoption of a decision on proclaiming an item of property a national monument (Official Gazette of BiH nos. 33/02 and 15/03), the Commission has enacted the Decision cited above.
The Decision was based on the following criteria:
A. Time frame
B. Historical value
C. Artistic and aesthetic value
C. i. quality of workmanship
C.ii. quality of materials
C.iii. proportions
C.iv. composition
C. v. value of details
C.vi. value of construction
D. Clarity
D.ii. evidence of historical change
D. iv. evidence of a particular type, style or regional manner
E. Symbolic value
E.ii. religious value
F. Townscape/ Landscape value
F.ii. meaning in the townscape
G. Authenticity
G.i. form and design
G.ii. material and content
G.iii. use and function
H. Rarity and representativity
H.i. unique or rare example of a certain type or style
I. Completeness
I.iv. Undamaged condition
The following documents form an integral part of this Decision:
- Copy of cadastral plan
- Copy of proof of title;
- Photodocumentation;
- Drawings
Bibliography
During the procedure to designate the architectural ensemble of the church of St Joseph in Pale as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina the following works were consulted:
1984, Catholic church in Sarajevo, guidebook for the local congregation and tourists, Sarajevo, 1984
1999, Bećirbegović, Madžida, Džamije sa drvenom munarom u Bosni i Hercegovini (Mosques with wooden minarets in BiH), 2nd. Ed, Sarajevo Publishing, Sarajevo, 1999
Folklorni elementi u dekoraciji u crkvama brvnarama u Bosni i Hercegovini (Folklore elements in the decoration of log-built churches in Bosnia and Herzegovina), Slobodanka Lalić, unpublished paper presented at the conference «Art in churches: History, Conservation, Restoration, New Creations» in St Petersburg from 26 to 29 April 2004
Crkve brvnare (Log-built churches), Mirzah Fočo, unpublished work
Documentation from the Cantonal Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Sarajevo
(1) The parish church of St Mihovil in Vareš has certain elements that suggest it could be regarde as a timber-built church.
(2) Madžida Bećirbegović, Džamije sa drvenom munarom u Bosni i Hercegovini, pp. 73 and 92
(3) Timber-built churches feature in the northern regions of the Republic of Croatia, and include the wooden churches and chapels of Turopolje, Zagreb parish, representing the apogee of folk baroque architecture. The wooden churches of Turopolje were built during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and are as a rule single-nave churches with polygonal apses. They are characterized by a bell tower above the vestibule, which was usually painted, and their baroque fittings.
(4) One of the priority tasks of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in BiH was to build a narrow-gauge railway line, one branch of which ran through Pale. Thanks to the building of the railway line, but also because of the exploitation of the surrounding forests, a large number of Austrian workers, including a significant proportion of engineers, moved to Pale at the beginning of the 20th century.
(5) The wooden boards on the north-east transverse wall of the sacristy are not decorated in relief with arcades, and furthermore the timber used is not of the same colour as those used on the other walls of the church. The reason could be recent repairs to the church.
(6) Before the war, there were two side altars in the apse area as well as the main altar. To the west were statues of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Blessed Virgin Mary with Jesus,and to the east was a statue of St Anne with Mary. These statues, together with the one from the main altar, of St Joseph with Jesus, were badly damaged during the war and removed from the altar area. A new statue of St Joseph has been made while the originals are awaiting restoration.
|
