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 historic building of the Ceković house in Pale is hereby designated as a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the National Monument).

            The National Monument is located on a site designated as cadastral plot no. 686 (new survey), corresponding to 745/33 (old survey), title deed no. 184, 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, and display 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

The following protection measures are hereby stipulated, which shall apply to the area defined in Clause 1 para. 2 of this Decision:

• all works are prohibited other than conservation and restoration works, including those designed to display the monument, 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),
• while conducting works on the restoration, conservation and display of the building, the original appearance of the building shall be retained, with the use of original materials, original treatment of the said materials, and original building techniques,
• the dumping of waste is prohibited.

Urgent protection measures are hereby stipulated, as follows:

• the water supply to the bathroom of the building shall be made good,
• the presence of rising damp shall be investigated and damp proofing of the building shall be carried out,
• the damaged parts of the building shall be made good,
• the temporary board and panel partition walls in the attic of the building shall be removed,
• the woodwork shall be restored and conserved and damaged parts replaced.

IV

            All executive and area development planning acts not in accordance with the provisions of this Decision are hereby revoked.

V

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.

VI

            The Government of Republika Srpska, the Ministry responsible for regional planning 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 to V of this Decision, and the Authorized Municipal Court shall be notified for the purposes of registration in the Land Register.

VII

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) 

VIII

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.

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. 453.

X

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.

Chair of the Commission

Dubravko Lovrenović

No: 09-02-215/04-3                                                                                              

2 September 2004                                                                       

Sarajevo                                                                                   

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.

            In its previous complement the Commission issued a Decision to add the Ceković house in Pale to the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, numbered as 453.

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 historic building of the Ceković house in Pale stands on a site consisting of c.p. 686, title sheet 184, in 100% ownership of Ceković, Risto, Petar (1); c.m. Pale Grad, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

            Access to the Ceković house is from the south-west, from Romanijska street.

            The long axis of the building runs south-west/north-east, with the main entrance to the southwest.          

Historical information

In the mid 19th century Petar (Mije) Ceković moved from  Bijelo Polje to Sarajevo, where he was the tenant of the well-to-do widow Jovanka Hadžimarković (née Crnčević), who lived in the northern quarter of the čaršija in Kraljević street.  According to the customary law of the day, as a widow Jovanka inherited a third of her late husband's property and bought a house in Patke.

After some time, Petar and Jovanka married.  They had five children, two sons and three daughters.  Petar Ceković was engaged in colonial trade, and often travelled in his capacity as a merchant to Istanbul, Rumelia, Dubrovnik, Vienna, Split, Trieste, Leipzig and so on.

Petar and Jovanka's second son,  Risto, was born in 1865.  Like his father, he was a successful merchant, trading goods with both the orient and the west.  He bought a warehouse magazine and shop close to the old Orthodox Church.  In 1901, with his business beginning to prosper, Petar bought a house in Varoš (now no. 49 Mula Mustafa Bašeskija street) from Stjepa Srškić.  Here, according to research conducted on primary sources by Dr. Ibrahim Tepić, he opened the Stako Skender girls' school on 19 October 1858.

In 1902, Risto Ceković married Vasilija Đokić of Mostar, a member of a prominent bourgeois family.  Risto was wholly engaged in trade, in his endeavours to provide his family with a comfortable living and pleasant lifestyle.  Between 1902 and 1915 they built a house in Pale, which they used as a summer holiday house.

In 1915 Risto died, and thirty-three-year-old Vasilija took over sole care of the children.  Of her and Risto's six children, only two lived to see the end of World War II: Petar, also a merchant, and Milojka, a professional teacher.

Neither Petar nor Milojka had any children.

Between 1894 and her death in 1995, Mrs Milojka Ceković gifted to the National Museum of BiH a total of 80 items from the legacy of her family.  The items were allocated to various collections: women's urban costume, men's and children's costume, jewellery, and textile household goods (Bajić, 2003).

Just before the outbreak of the 1992-1995 war in BiH, Mrs Milojka left the family summer holiday house in Pale and all its furniture in her will to the Dabrobosnian Metropolitan's Diocese.

2. Description of the property

The house of the Ceković family in Pale is a single-storey building with an attic storey.  It stands on a steeply sloping site, allowing for outbuildings-style premises to be housed on the ground floor to the south-east.  A particular feature of the house is the wooden veranda (pillared porch) extending the length of the south-east facade.  The ground plan of the building is a regular rectangle measuring 20 x 11 m, or 20 x 13 m including the wooden veranda.

The ground floor is solidly built of stone.  The upper floor is half-timbered, with unbaked brick infill.

Timber was used to construct the veranda, the main and side entrance porch, stairs, floor/ceiling joists and roof structure.  The floor and ceiling structure of the house consists of wooden beams supporting the wooden floor of the upper storey, with the underside plastered. The cladding of the gabled roof is tile and sheet metal.

The house's most elaborate facade is the south-east facade, facing the centre of town. A wooden veranda extends over the full length of the south-east facade, supported by eight wooden pillars with stone plinths.  The veranda rests directly on these pillars with struts, not corbels.  In the centre of the facade, between the fourth and fifth pillars, the wooden beams of the upper floor extend forward by one metre, thereby constituting a projecting roof.

The facade is characterized by its pronounced symmetry and the play of wooden partitions on the veranda, where a low railing with uprights alternates with the wooden partitions, which are of lattice.

The main entrance facade faces south-west.  An arched timber structure on four wooden pillars covers the entrance porch.  The floor of the porch is twelve steps higher than ground level.

The side entrance to the house, on the north-east facade, is also covered over, by a wooden pent-roof porch on five pillars.  The floor of this porch is five steps higher than ground level.

The facades of the building are plastered and whitewashed.  All the windows are of the same size, rectangular double windows with each divided into three panes.  The window frames are bare of any moulding or decoration, and were painted light green, which has faded over time.  Only the attic windows in the gables have moulded window frames.

The layout of the house displays perfect symmetry around the long axis.

The main entrance leads into a large room which neither leads into the rest of the house nor has any access to the veranda.

The side entrance leads into a long, narrow corridor.  There are three rooms on each side of this corridor.  The only exit to the veranda on the south-east facade is from the L-shaped corridor.

The sanitary facilities are on the north-west facade, right by the entrance to the house.  The bathroom is separate from the WC, which can also be reached direct from the porch.

There is a steep, single-flight staircase to the attic in the part of the corridor leading to the veranda.  There are attic rooms at the sides of the house.

3. Legal status to date

            The Ceković house in Pale is on the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina under serial number 453.

4. Research and conservation and restoration works

No research or conservation and restoration works have been carried out on the building.

5. Current condition of the property

            As a result of lack of maintenance, the Ceković house was already in relatively poor condition even before 1992.

            During the 1992-1995 war the building was used to house refugees.  One room and the outbuildings-style premises on the ground floor are in use.  The remaining rooms are locked.

            The north-west facade has been damaged as a result of faulty water installations.  New partition walls of board and panel have been installed in the attic.

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

C.  Artistic and aesthetic value

C.iii. proportions

C.iv. composition

D. Clarity

D. v. evidence of a typical way of life at a specific period

F. Townscape/ Landscape value

F.ii. meaning in the townscape

G. Authenticity

G.i. form and design

G.ii. material and content

            The following documents form an integral part of this Decision:

o        Copy of cadastral plan

o        Proof of title;

o        Photodocumentation;

o        Drawings

Bibliography

            During the procedure to designate the historic building of the Ceković house in Pale as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina the following works were consulted:

2003     Bajić Svetlana, «Darovani predmeti porodice Ceković Zemaljskom muzeju BiH» (Items belonging to the Ceković family gifted to the National Museum of BiH), Exhibition catalogue, Sarajevo, 2003

            Documentation from the Cantonal Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Sarajevo

(1) According to Mrs Ljiljana Hadžidedić, Mrs Milojka Ceković, Petar Ceković's sister, bequeathed the house in Pale in her will to the Dabrobosnian Metropolitan's Diocese.  This has been confirmed by priest Vanja Jovanović.