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Redžep pasha tower in Žepa, the historic building

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Status of monument -> National monument

Published in the „Official Gazette of BiH“ no. 36/07

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 6 to 9 March 2007 the Commission adopted a

D E C I S I O N

The historic building of the Redžep pasha tower in Žepa, Municipality Rogatica, 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. 352, Land Register entry no. 32, cadastral municipality Žepa, Municipality Rogatica, 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.

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

To ensure the on-going protection of the National Monument, the following protection measures are hereby stipulated:

Protection Zone I consists of cadastral plots no. 352 and 353. The following protection measures shall apply in this zone:

all works are prohibited other than conservation and restoration works, subject to 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,
the National Monument may be adapted to ensure that it is actively protected. This may under no circumstances be such as to endanger the National Monument.

In the buffer zone indicated on the map forming an integral part of this Decision, archaeological excavations of the site to uncover the original structures of the boundary walls and other parts of the property may be permitted.

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

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.

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 – VI 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.

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. 07.2-2-257/04-7

7 March 2007

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.

Following receipt of a petition from Kulovac Benjamin of Sarajevo dated 13 October 2004, and 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 para. 4 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:

Data on the current condition and use of the property, including a description and photographs
Details of war damage, data on restoration or other works on the property, etc.
The current condition of the property
Copy of cadastral plan
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

Žepa is a village in the extreme east of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Rogatica Municipality. The village is located in mountainous terrain and has a typical alpine climate. The basic economic activities of the region are agriculture and animal husbandry.

The Redžep pasha tower is on the left bank of the river Žepa, very close to the famous bridge (to be exact, the new location of the bridge), opposite the old Vratar form which is about 5 km to the east of the tower.

Historical information

The earliest reference to Žepa as an inhabited area is in a summary Ottoman defter dating from 1485, which describes it as a village belonging to the old Vratar fort. The importance of the village is suggested by the fact that during Ottoman rule two stone bridges were built over the river Žepa, a left tributary of the river Drina – one very close to the source of the river, and the other about ten metres above its confluence with the Drina, on the road that branched off in Višegrad from the old Istanbul road and ran downstream along the left bank of the Drina.

The Vratar fort stands on a crag rising more than 400 metres above the right bank of the river. The extremely difficult mountain terrain means that it can be reached only from the south(1).

A number of lone stećak tombstones and one necropolis, in the village of Ljubomišlje, have been found in the environs of Žepa. There are stećak tombstones in other surrounding villages too; one of the best preserved is in the village of Tulež(2), in the Trojan cemetery, but there is no precise information as to its date.

Vlajko Palavestra wrote: "In Žepa we found a total of 162 mediaeval monuments, most in the shape of undecorated slabs with no plinth. Next in number were low ridge-shaped tombstones with monolithic plinths, and chest-shaped ones with no plinth. Few of the mediaeval tombstones in Žepa are decorated (only 11 in all), but as regards the form and method of decoration, they combine the forms and ornamental elements of mediaeval tombstones from the eastern Bosnian region and the Drina valley with those of western Serbia.(3)"

There is no exact information on when the Redžep pasha tower in Žepa was built(4). There is a tradition that it was built by Redžep pasha and that the basement contained a dungeon. The section on the history of the property in the file of the property combined by the Institute for the Protection of Monuments includes the detail that the tower was probably “the seat of a feudal lord who had his ziyamet [fief] in this area.” Kreševljaković notes that he is not certain when such buildings first began to be erected, but is sure that they existed in Bosnia by the 17th century. He observes that by the early 19th century there were more than two hundred of them (Naše starine II, p. 73).

During World War II the property was damaged by explosives, and the civilians who had taken refuge in it were killed.

After the bridge was relocated, repair works on the tower were also carried out in 1969.

During the recent war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Žepa was an enclave protected by a UN Security Council resolution(5). In July 1995 the RS Army overran the enclave and the entire village was torched, including the Redžep pasha tower.

2. Description of the property

The Redžep pasha tower is of the residential type of feudal tower or "spahi's" tower (Kreševljaković, pp.71-73)(6).

The tower is square in ground plan, with outer dimensions (taken from the 1959 survey) of 6.54 x 6.65 metres. Measurements taken on site revealed that the building measures 6.23 x 6.30 metres at ground level (measured at ground floor level), suggesting that earth has piled up around the tower in the past fifty years.

The tower has a basement and three storeys above ground, each of which contained one room. Judging from the loopholes to be seen on the building, the first two above-ground storeys were probably used for defensive purposes, and the third as residential quarters, since this storey has windows on all four sides, with an oriel window to the south and a fireplace to the west.

The basement of the tower measures 4.25 x 4.39 metres. There is a rectangular opening 65 cm in width to the south, leading outside at an angle of 45 deg. (a washroom or privy?), and loopholes on the south side – or as Kreševljaković calls them, mazgala. These loopholes measure 40 x 5 cm on the outside and 84 x 80 cm on the inside. The walls of the basement are about 1.10 m thick, and the ceiling is about 2.50 metres high.

The ground floor measures 4.37 x 4.78 metres. The entrance to the tower is to the east, and is some 2.84 m above ground level. There are no visible traces of any wooden or other stairway.

The rectangular entrance doorway measures 0.70 x 1.39 m. The remains of the iron hinges of the iron shutter, probably added during the most recent works in 1969, can still be seen on the stone door jambs. On the inside, the door is 1.10 m wide, and the sockets can still be seen in the side walls into which a horizontal wooden beam would be inserted to prevent the door being forced open. The original door has not survived, but by analogy with similar properties it was probably made of wood (most likely softwood) with iron fittings on the outside.

There are three loopholes on the south side, measuring 43 x 5 cm on the outside, and 50 x 70 cm, 60 x 70 cm and 60 x 75 cm respectively on the inside. The walls of the tower are about 90 cm thick at ground floor level, of which the ceiling is about 2.20 m high.

At gallery level, the tower measures 4.40 x 4.79 metres. Here the loopholes are located on the east and west sides. Those in the east wall measure 40 x 5 cm on the outside and 60 x 70 cm on the inside, and those in the west wall [presumably: not clear from original – Trans.] measure respectively 43 x 4 cm and 40 x 5 cm on the outside and 90 x 70 cm and 87 x 90 cm on the inside. The ceiling in this part of the tower is about 2.20 m high.

The topmost floor of the tower measures approx. 5.18 x 5.20 m. This storey has an oriel window on the south side, projecting outwards from the wall face by 1.20 metres. The east and north walls of this storey have rectangular windows openings measuring 47 x 74 cm, with iron bars. The west wall has two such windows, with a fireplace between them, containing a one-metre wide hearth and a stone chimney more than five metres in height.

This storey is covered by a stone dome of which the load is transferred to the walls of the tower by triangular spherical sections. The daylight height of this storey is about 4.50 m measured at the centre.

The entire tower had a polygonal wooden roof frame clad with wooden shingles. Sadly, during the recent war in Bosnia and Herzegovina all the timber elements and woodwork of the tower was destroyed by fire, including the floor and ceiling joists and the roof truss. The remains of the bearings for the beams can be seen on the chimney, from which the pitch of the roof can be deduced.

The tower was built of precisely cut limestone blocks. A number of different types of local stone can be seen, the structure and colour of which range from white (in the lower reaches of the building) to reddish-grey at the top. The window and door frames were made of ashlar blocks. The walls of the tower have a slight inward batter of approx. 4 deg. All the ceilings had timber joists with boards fixed to them.

3. Legal status to date

By Ruling of the National Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and National Rarities of the People's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, no. 1739/50 of 13 December1950, the property was placed under state protection.

By Ruling of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the People’s Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, no. 02-736-3 of 18 April 1962, the Redžeb pasha tower in Žepa was added to the Register of Immovable Cultural Monuments.

4. Research and conservation and restoration works

1959

The property was surveyed, with an analysis of the damage, by the Institute for the Protection of Monuments of BiH;

1969

Conservation and restoration works were carried out on the property:

the damage to the south-west corner of the lower part of the building was repaired
the damage to the upper part of the building – crown of the wall and window lintels – was repaired
the stone was cleaned and repointed with cement mortar
the oriel window was repaired and the parapet wall was reconstructed (probably using concrete)
the timber floor joists were renewed
the dome of the building was repaired
the chimeny was repaired
the roof truss was renewed and the roof was clad with wooden shingles (a company from Han Pijesak).

5. Current condition of the property

During an on site inspection it was ascertained as follows:

there is no visible subsidence
there are no visible cracks on the building that might pose a threat to the structure
the building has no roof, and is thus fully exposed to the elements
a layer of vegetation has formed on the stone dome, posing a threat to the structure of the dome.

6. Specific risks

exposure to the elements
plant growth

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 (documentary, scientific and educational value)

D. iv. evidence of a particular type, style or regional manner

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

E. Symbolic value

E.iii. traditional value

E.v. significance for the identity of a group of people

F. Townscape/ Landscape value

F.i. relation to other elements of the site

F.iii. the building or group of buildings is part of a group or site

G. Authenticity

G.i. form and design

G.ii. material and content

G.iv. traditions and techniques

G.v. location and setting

The photodocumentation and drawings listed below form an integral part of this Decision:

condition in 1959 – ground plan of basement and gallery, scale 1:50, Institute for the Protection of Monuments of the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sport;
condition in 1959 –plan of ground floor and first floor, scale 1:50, Institute for the Protection of Monuments of the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sport;
condition in 1959 – south-west facade, scale 1:50, Institute for the Protection of Monuments of the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sport;
condition in 1959 – north-west facade, scale 1:50, Institute for the Protection of Monuments of the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sport;
condition in 1959 – cross-sectrion a-a, scale 1:50, Institute for the Protection of Monuments of the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sport;
condition in 1959 – cross-section b-b, scale 1:50, Institute for the Protection of Monuments of the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sport;
photographs of the property taken on 17 August 2005 by Mirzah Fočo, architect
drawings – analysis of photographs with basic dimensions, measured and drawn by Mirzah Fočo, architect

Bibliography

During the procedure to designate the monument as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina the following works were consulted:

1900. Bašagić, Safvet-beg, Kratka uputa u prošlost Bosne i Hercegovine: (od g. 1463-1850) / Safvet-beg Bašagić-Redžepašić (Mirza Safvet) (Brief Introduction to the History of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1463-1850), Sarajevo

1931. Bašagić, Safvet-beg, Znameniti Hrvati, Bošnjaci i Hercegovci u Turskoj carevini (Prominent Croats, Bosniacs and Herzegovinians in the Turkish Empire), Zagreb, 1931.

1953. Kreševljaković Hamdija, Stari bosanski gradovi, Gradovi oko Drine i njenih pritoka (Old Bosnian Towns, Towns Around the Drina and its Tributaries) Naše starine, I, Annual of the National Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and Natural Rarities of NR Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo

1954. Kreševljaković, Hamdija, Kule i odžaci u Bosni i Hercegovini (Towers and Manors in Bosnia and Herzegovina), Naše starine, II, Annual of the National Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and Natural Rarities of NR Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo

(1) According to legend (quoted in the annual Naše starine, issue no. I) this fort was built by the accursed Jerina, and was laid waste and occupied by one Redžep pasha. During the drafting of the decision to designate the property as a national monument, a resident of the village of Slab (Mr. Mednolučanin Safet) repeated this story to Mirzah Fočo. He also said that the entire hill on which the remains of the fort still stand is riddled with a system of tunnels and channels.

(2) It is possible that the name of this village derives from a compound of the words "tu" + "leži" (“there lies...”)

(3) From http://bs.wikipedia.org

(4) The name Kulovac derives from the noun ”kula”, meaning tower (petitioner)

(5) On 16 April 1993 the Security Council adopted a resolution demanding that ”all parties and others concerned treat Srebrenica and its surrounding areas [which includes Žepa and Goražde] as a safe area which should be free from any armed attack or any other hostile act."

(6) “Towers were also known as outings houses, built around larger towns as the summer residences of wealthier townspeople. Towers of this kind sometimes had stabling on the ground floor, and only one or two upper storeys. These towers too had loopholes. There were many such towers around Sarajevo, particularly in the area below Mt. Igman, from Hrasnica to Vrelo Bosna [the source of the river Bosna]. The same name was also given to the watchtowers along major roads, which were built in the same way as the towers of feudal lords …”

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