Status of monument -> National monument
Published in the „Official Gazette of BiH“ no. 97/07.
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 5 September 2005 the Commission adopted a
D E C I S I O N
I
The architectural ensemble of the Čaršija mosque (Sinan-kadi effendi or Čučkova mosque) in Nevesinje is hereby designated as a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the National Monument).
The National Monument consists of the mosque with burial ground and harem wall.
The National Monument is located on a site designated as cadastral plot no. 537 (new survey), corresponding to 470 (old survey), title deed no. 455, cadastral municipality Nevesinje, Municipality Nevesinje, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The provisions relating to protection and rehabilitation 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 Government of Republika Srpska shall be responsible for providing the resources needed to draw up and implement the necessary technical documentation for the repair, conservation and restoration of 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 zones are hereby designated:
Protection Zone 1 consists of the area defined in Clause 1 para. 3 of this Decision. In this zone the following protection measures shall apply:
- 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),
- the restoration and reconstruction of the elements required must be conducted on the basis of documentation on their original form and the results of published investigative works
- research works and restoration of the painted surfaces in the interior of the mosque.
In order to prevent any further deterioration of the National Monument, the following urgent protection measures shall be taken:
- fencing off the harem of the mosque,
- structural repair and restoration of the remains of the courtyard wall, harem and mosque (foundations, walls and roof structure),
- removal of litter and waste material and clearing the harem area,
- securing the roof structure of the mosque to prevent it from collapsing.
Protection Zone II consists of the zone in direct contact with the National Monument, consisting of cadastral plots nos. 528, 529, 530, 531, 536, 538 and 539.
Alterations in height to the buildings around the National Monument are prohibited, and the height of new buildings shall not exceed two storeys (ground floor and one upper floor) with a maximum height of 6.5 m to the roof cornice and maximum dimensions of 10 x 8 m.
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 restoration 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 – 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.
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.
No: 08-2-668/03-9
31 August 2005
Sarajevo
Chair of the Commission
Ljiljana Ševo
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.
On 17 March 2003 the Commission to Preserve National Monuments received a petition from the Centre for Islamic Architecture to designate the property of the Sinan Kadi effendi (Čučkova) mosque as a national monument.
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 title deed, 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 Čaršija mosque (Sinan Kadi effendi or Čučkova mosque) in Nevesinje stands in the centre of the town, in Višnjeva mahala, on a site consisting of c.p. 537 (new survey, corresponding to 470 old survey), title deed no. 455, owned by the Islamic religious community, cadastrasl municipality Nevesinje, Nevesinje Municipality, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The approach to the National Monument is from the south-west, from a passageway linking Braće Derviškadić and Marshal Tito streets (former street names).
The main axis of the Čaršija mosque runs north-west/south-east. The entrance is to the north-west, and the mihrab wall to the south-east.
Historical information
Nevesinje came under Ottoman rule between 1465 and 1466. On his way from Belgrade to Herzegovina in 1774, the Turkish travel chronicler Evliya Çelebi passed through the small town (kasaba) of Nevesinje, noting that it was a kadiluk of three hundred akčas(1), with seventy villages(2). He also noted that Nevesinje had six mahalas, of which two were Christian. He named and described three mosques, the clock tower, two medresas, a dār ul-hadīs (school for the study of Islamic traditions), a daru'l-kurrā (school for training in the proper manner of Qur'anic recitation), and six primary schools, one imaret (public kitchen), a han (hostel), a hammam and a tekke.
One of the mosques mentioned by Evliya Çelebi was the Čaršija mosque, which stood in the Višnjeva (former Sinan-beg) mahala, in the centre of Nevesinje. It is not known when the mosque was built, since the vakufnama (deed of endowment) has not survived, and nor has any other document referring to it. Since Evliya Çelebi refers to it in his travelogue, the assumption is that it was built in the first half of the 16th century(3).
In the 17th century the mosque was roofed with lead(4). Hivzija Hasandedić notes that the mosque originally had a stone minaret about twelve metres in height(5).
No reliable information on the founder of the mosque has survived. According to Hasandedić, Sinan effendi was a native of Nevesinje and a qadi by profession. He probably also built a maktab by the mosque(6).
The mosque was set on fire on 29 August 1875, during the Herzegovina uprising, when the insurgents raided Nevesinje. During the raid, a number of worshippers were killed; they were buried in the small harem by the sofas of the mosque. By the end of the 20th century all that survived was a single nišan tombstone marking the burial place of the imam of the mosque at that time, Hasan-effendi Trebović. In the late 1980s this nišan, too, disappeared(7).
The mosque was rebuilt in about 1880 at the expense of hajji Derviš Čučak, and has since been known as the Čučkova mosque. This rebuilding did not include erecting a minaret alongside the mosque(8).
The mosque was closed in about 1930. After World War II it was used for warehousing.
As a result of lack of routine maintenance, the Čaršija mosque is now in rather poor condition.
2. Description of the property
The architectural ensemble of the Čaršija mosque is in the centre of Nevesinje, in Višnjeva mahala. The mosque courtyard is to the north-west only of the building, and is surrounded by a stone wall. There is a small burial ground within the courtyard.
The architectural ensemble is entered from the south-west. The mosque courtyard is approximately 50 cm above street level.
Čaršija mosque (Sina Kadi effendi or Čučkova mosque)
In layout, the Čaršija mosque in Nevesinje is of the single-space type of mosque with open portico. It has a hipped roof.
The exterior dimensions of the building are approx 13.0 x 10.0 m (including the portico; the sides of the building are about 10.0 m long).
The mosque has stone walls, whitewashed and painted inside, but with the structure of the walls visible on the outside (there are traces of plastering on the exterior only on the entrance wall in the portico area). The building was constructed of smallish stone blocks, with the quoins composed of larger ashlar blocks.
The walls of the mosque were built multi-layered fashion (probably in three courses).
The volume of the interior space is enclosed by the four walls that take the load of the flat ceiling and the structure of the hipped roof.
The mosque no longer has a portico. The former existence of a portico, probably with a three-sided roof, can be identified from the remains of the roof cladding and plaster on the entrance wall of the mosque.
The exterior sofas of the mosque are made of unusually large stone blocks.
The hipped roof was formerly clad with lead(9), but is now tiled.
The mosque now has no minaret. There is no visible entrance to a minaret from inside the mosque, but this could be because following the 1880 reconstruction the mosque was painted with the decorations still visible today. On the exterior south-west wall of the mosque, a slight shift in the wall can be observed where the minaret would have abutted onto the mosque.
The windows on the facades of the building are set in a single horizontal row.
The entrance (north-west) and mihrab (south-east) walls of the mosque each have two windows. Those of the entrance facade are rectangular, framed on the outside by simply executed stone windowframes. Those of the mihrab facade are markedly taller than those of the entrance facade, and terminate in a depressed arch. On the inside, shallow decoration is visible in the plaster above the arch.
The north-east and south-west walls of the mosque each have one window. The north-east window is rectangular, and the south-west window terminates in a depressed arch. On both the inside and the outside the arch is accentuated by being set back from the wall surface. The interior moulding was executed in plaster.
In addition to these windows, there are another two small apertures in the south-east and south-west mosque walls, directly below the roof cornice.
The aperture in the south-west wall is rectangular, and framed, with a depressed arch above it.
The aperture in the south-east wall is circular, also with a frame, and is set in the axis of the wall, directly above the mihrab.
In general concept and typological features, the entrance portal belongs to the second group of portals (as classified by A. Andrejević in his Islamska monumentalna umetnost XVI veka u Jugoslaviji [16th Century Islamic Monumental Art in Yugoslavia). The portal stands out from the wall surface by about 30 cm, and has no frame or moulding. The entrance aperture is set back in a niche terminating in a stepped, pointed arch. Inside the arch are five rows of stalactite decorations, all set in the same plane. There is no tarih (chronogram) recording the construction or renovation of the mosque.
The floor of the mosque is of wooden boards.
The main prayer space is a regular cuboid, with a flat wooden ceiling.
All the interior walls of the mosque are plastered. Painted decoration can be seen in the mahfil area. Two types of stencil were used to decorate the mosque: floral at the lower level, and geometric at the upper level. The colours used for the lower level were beige, ochre and brown, and for the upper level pale pink and red. There are vestiges of colour visible on the other walls too, particularly traces of green edged with a red at the starting point of the walls.
The mahfil of the Čaršija mosque is reached via a wooden staircase in the right hand corner of the mosque as one looks towards the mihrab. The mahfil is of the front mahfil type, i.e. it is set against only one wall, the entrance wall. The wooden structure of the mahfil rests via corbels on two square wooden pillars.
The mimber is of wood. All that now survives are the podium, the structure of which abuts onto the wall, and two wooden uprights. The mimber is painted green.
The mihrab area projects out from the wall surface by about 15 cm. A simply moulded rectangular stone frame surrounds the seven-sided mihrab niche, which is overarched by three rows of decorative folding.
Burial ground by the Čaršija mosque
The courtyard of the Čaršija mosque contains a small burial ground. Mehmed Mujezinović notes that the burial ground contains six tombstones, of which he dated one, the nišan tombstone of Hasan, Jusuf, Trebo(10).
Hasandedić says that on his last visit the tombstone of the said Trebo was not in the mosque courtyard.
A few nišan tombstones, most of them broken, are now to be seen in the burial ground.
3. Legal status to date
There is no information concerning any legal protection of the property to date.
4. Research and conservation and restoration works
No research or conservation and restoration works have been carried out on the building under the supervision of the heritage protection authority.
The only known renovation of the mosque was in 1880, after it was burned by insurgents in 1875. This did not include the renovation of the minaret(11).
Since 1930 the Čaršija mosque has been used as a warehouse. The following interventions were carried out when it was closed and converted into a warehouse:
- All the windows, other than those on the sofas and the two small apertures below the roof cornice, were walled up. In the course of these works the stone frames and arches were either covered over with plaster or destroyed.
- Much of the painted decoration of the interior was destroyed.
- The portico of the mosque was demolished, or fell, at some time after 1975(12).
5. Current condition of the building
As a result of the lack of regular maintenance, the Čaršija mosque is now in rather poor condition.
- The courtyard area, burial ground and sofas are overgrown with tall vegetation and covered with litter and waste;
- All that survives of the courtyard (harem) wall, and at that in poor condition, is the lower part, to a height of about 50 cm;
- The structure of the mosque portico has been completely demolished;
- The sofas are in poor condition;
- The roof structure is on the point of collapse;
- The mahfil and mimber have been almost completely destroyed;
- The wooden flooring is in poor condition;
- The interior painted decoration remains visible only on the mahfil walls;
- The inside of the mosque is covered with litter and waste matter.
6. Specific risks
- Collapse of the roof structure of the mosque
- Lack of maintenance and inappropriate use of the building constituting the architectural ensemble
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.iii. proportions
C.iv. composition
D. Clarity
D. iv. evidence of a particular type, style or regional manner
E. Symbolic value
E.ii. religious value
E.iii. traditional value
E.v. significance for the identity of a group of people
F. Townscape/ Landscape value
F.ii. meaning in the townscape
The following documents form an integral part of this Decision:
- Copy of cadastral plan no. 7 and title deed no. 455;
- Photodocumentation (photograph of the state of the building at the time of adoption of a final decision on the property by the Commission, June 2005);
- Drawings (geodetic map of relevant area of Nevesinje).
Bibliography
During the procedure to designate the Čaršija mosque (Sinan-kadi effendi or Čučkova mosque) as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina the following works were consulted:
1990. Hasandedić, Hivzija, Muslimanska baština u istočnoj Hercegovini (Muslim Heritage in eastern Herzegovina), El Kalem, Sarajevo, 1990.
1996. Çelebi, Evliya, Putopis (Travelogue), Sarajevo Publishing, Sarajevo, 1996.
1998. Mujezinović, Mehmed, Islamska epigrafika Bosne i Hercegovine (Islamic epigraphics of BiH) bk III, Sarajevo-Publishing, Sarajevo, 1998.
Statements and documentation provided by Adem efendi Omerik, imam of the mosque from 1975 to 1992
(1) The lowest denomination Turkish silver coin
(2) “The earliest reference to the Nevesinje kadiluk dates from 1467. At the end of 1567 the Gabela ferry belonged to it, as did the kasaba of Sopot in 1582 – this is now a village 12 km to the east of Nevesinje, which could therefore have had 70 vilages But it could not possibly have been a kadiluk of three hundred akči, but only of a hundred and fifty.“, note by Hazim Šabanović, translator of «Evlija Čelebi, Putopis», 414.
(3) Hivzija Hasandedić, Muslimanska baština u istočnoj Hercegovini, 137
(4) “The mosque of qadi Sinan effendi is also an old, lead-clad mosque” Evliya Çelebi, Putopis, 416
(5) Hivzija Hasandedić, Muslimanska baština u istočnoj Hercegovini, 137.
(6) Hivzija Hasandedić, Muslimanska baština u istočnoj Hercegovini, 137.
(7) According to the epitaph on the nišan, recorded by Mehmed Mujezinović (Islamska epigrafika BiH). Hasandedić says that he found no nišan during his second visit to the building (Muslimanska baština u istočnoj Hercegovini, 137.)
(8) Hivzija Hasandedić, Muslimanska baština u istočnoj Hercegovini, 138.
(9) “The mosque of qadi Sinan effendi (Sinan Qadi effendi) is also an old, lead-clad mosque.” Evliya Çelebi, Putopis, 416.
(10) Mehmed Mujezinović, Islamska epigrafika BiH, 347.
(11) There is evidence of the previous existence of a minaret in the somewhat different structure of the mosque wall at the point where the minaret would have been.
(12) The portico of the mosque is marked on the map of Nevesinje Municipality surveyed in 1974.
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