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 6 to 12 May 2003 the Commission adopted a
D E C I S I O N
I
The site and remains of the architectural ensemble of the Town Mosque in Derventa is hereby designated as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the National Monument).
The National Monument covers the site designated as cadastral plots nos. 1936/1 and 1937/2, cadastral municipality Derventa, Derventa Municipality, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The mosque being built on the site of the Town Mosque demolished in 1992 is not subject to protection since it has not been built in conformity with the state of the building before demolition and has not been rehabilitated in compliance with the Law on the Implementation of 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) and other valid standards and principles of protection, and thus does not meet the Criteria for the designation of property as national monuments (Official Gazette of BiH nos. 33/02 and 15/03).
The National Monument comprises the site of the mosque, turbe and harem alongside the mosque.
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 shall apply to the National Monument specified in the preceding paragraph.
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 rehabilitate the National Monument.
The Government of Republika Srpska shall be responsible for providing the resources for drawing up and implementing the necessary technical documentation for the rehabilitation of the National Monument.
The Commission to Preserve National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina (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
Protection measures:
Ÿ The site and remains of the architectural ensemble of the Town mosque in Derventa and surrounding harem area and turbe are subject to protection
Ÿ The mosque building being erected on the site of the Town mosque demolished in 1992 must conform to the Law on the Implementation of Decisions of the Commission and other regulations in force
Ÿ The reconstruction of the turbe is to be carried out according to its 1992 condition prior to demolition, to a design project approved by the ministry responsible for regional planning of Republika Srpska and under the professional supervision of the relevant heritage protection authority of Republika Srpska
Ÿ all fragments of the mosque that remain following demolition on site or in the dumps to which they were removed after demolition or that may be found during the building works being carried out on the site of the Town Mosque shall be recorded, conserved, returned to the site of the mosque and displayed in appropriate fashion within the mosque ensemble.
IV
The Regulatory Plan for part of Derventa centre dated 1999 shall be revoked to the extent that it does not comply with the provisions of this Decision.
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 specified in Clause I of this Decision 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-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.anek8komisija.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
This Decision shall enter into force on the date of its adoption and shall be published in the Official Gazette of BiH and the Official Gazette of Republika Srpska.
This Decision has been adopted by the following members of the Commission: Zeynep Ahunbay, Amra Hadžimuhamedović, Dubravko Lovrenović, Ljiljana Ševo and Tina Wik.
Chairman of the Commission
Amra Hadžimuhamedović
No: 07-6-735/03-1
7 May 2003
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.
The Commission received a petition from the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Office of the Banja Luka mufti, in August 2002. 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:
Ÿ Documentation on the location and current owner and user of the property (copy of land registry entry no. 1561, Derventa Municipality, c.m. Derventa I dated 7 November 2001 and copy of cadastral plan issued by Derventa Municipality, c.m. Derventa I, dated 7 April 2003)
Ÿ Current condition of the property
Ÿ Data on the current condition and use of the property, including a description and photographs
Ÿ 1999 Regulatory plan for part of Derventa centre
Ÿ 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 site
Location
The Town Mosque is in the centre of Derventa; c.p. nos. 1937/1 and 1937/2 c.m.. Derventa I, Derventa, Republika Srpska.
Historical data
According to the 1600 census, the rural settlement of Gornja Ukrina had the status of kasaba (town) with three developed mahalas and three mosques. The oldest of these, the Ali-aga mosque mahala, was named after its founder Ali-aga, dizdar of the Dobor fort, who built the oldest mosque in the kasaba (then known as Gornja Ukrina) prior to 1570.
It is not known exactly when the name of the place was altered from Gornja Ukrina to Derbent (meaning dangerous passage); the earliest reference to the place by the name of Derbent dates from the period between the two Turkish-Austrian wars (1718-1739) in Austrian sources.
Ali-aga's mosque is known as the Town Mosque because it was in the centre of the fortifications within which the people took refuge from attacks from the north and where they could also perform their obligatory prayers. The fortress, built prior to 1716, was damaged and repaired on several occasions (1750, 1777 and 1778). In about 1773 Derventa became the seat of a kapetan, and the fortifications were demolished in about 1890.
Neither the original chronogram nor the vakufnama of the founder of the mosque has survived. Based on data from the censuses taken during the period of Ottoman rule, it can safely be said that dizdar Ali-aga, the vakif or endower of the Ali-aga mosque, endowed 33,000 akčas to pay the salaries of the imam, hatib, muezzin, mu'arrif and muteveli of the mosque.
The Town Mosque was radically renovated in 1895, when the works were managed by a special committee of the Vakuf-mearit Commission. The chief supervisors were the major landowner Šemsibeg Širbegović and the prominent merchant Hrustembeg Alibegović, who were also the major donors. The Austrian Emperor, Franz Joseph I, also contributed the sum of 500 forints for the renovation of the mosque. The form the mosque then took was retained until 31 May 1992 when it was demolished.
Beside the mosque and to the east a turbe or mausoleum was built containing the graves of Shaikh Omer and his wife Aiša. Shaikh Omer was an educated man who had graduated from Al Azhar religious collage and came to Derventa in the early nineteenth century, at the time of the Derventa kapetan Muhamed-beg. He was the keeper of the muhur or town seal, with which he notarized contracts and other documents. A native of Derventa, Derviš Alibegović, inherited Shaikh Omer's muhur (seal), which was carefully safeguarded by Esed-beg Alibegović, Derviš's grandfather.
During the month of Ramadan and on other religious festivals the pious citizens would light candles and put them in the windows of the turbe, and sometimes also when someone at home was sick. There was no endowment for the maintenance of the turbe, but many believers gave money for the guardian of the turbe and its repair and maintenance to the hafiz of the Town Mosque, so that the turbe was well maintained.
In the mosque harem there was a graveyard where only members of the alim class of Derventa were buried. Here lies the first kapetan, Salih-beg of the Begović family, who took part in the Dubica war, was wounded near the village of Koraće on the Sava and died in Derventa in 1790 from the injuries he sustained. (Alagić, 2001, pp. 11, 12, 38, 47, 48; Handžić, 1974, pp. 118,121, 122, 127-131; Omerhodžić, 1981, p. 18; Kreševljaković, 1991, p.159 ).
2. Description of the monument
Architecture
The building, which was totally rebuilt in 1895, had external dimensions of 12 x 15.10 metres and two rows of windows. It was made of Austrian format bricks, with walls 75 cm. thick. The exterior façade of the mosque was stuccoed. The mosque had a hipped roof and a minaret set alongside the western façade wall level with the north wall of the mosque; the top of the minaret was about 27.90 metres higher than the mosque floor level. The roof structure was wooden double-seated, overlaid with curved tiles. The pitch of the roof was about 20 degrees.
In ground plan the mosque had an entrance portico (4.10 m. deep x 12.00 m. wide) and so-called front mahfil or gallery (approx. 2.80 m. deep and 10.50 m. wide) where two rows of worshippers could prayer.
The central prayer area was very spacious, square in plan and measuring 10.50 x 10.50 m. The mahfil was reached via the spiral staircase of the minaret.
The mahfil rested on two wooden pillars, and there were no railed-off sofas beneath the mahfil, at the level of the central space.
The total height of the minaret was 28.50 m. (measured from ground level to the top of the alem on the minaret, which had four pommels). The minaret, with sixteen equal sides, was about 1.75 m. wide at the base, 1.70 m. at the gallery, and 1.40 near the top, beneath the cap.
The interior had a mihrab, mimber, kursi and mahfil. The mihrab, measuring 88 x 290 cm., was in the form of a niche with a semicircular recess topped by a depressed arch, decorated with six horizontal bands of decoration in the base of the depressed arch. The mihrab niche was set in a rectangular shallow frame measuring 188 x 330 cm (the outer level of the frame projecting some 15 cm from the level of the mihrab wall into the central area). Above the mihrab, in an oculus with a diameter of about 140cm, there was a levha. To the left and right of the mihrab wqas a lamp.
Like the kursi, the mimber was made of wood, with the following dimensions: overall height about 720 cm, width about 100 cm, height of the steps 250cm, 14 steps with treads 24 cm wide and risers 19 cm high.
The ceiling was plastered, and moulded along the walls. The moulded band of the ceiling structure was about 85 cm high and about 55 cm wide.
The windows were set in two rows in the façades. There were three windows on the long side façades, two each in the upper and lower section of the mihrab wall, and three in the upper part of the entrance façade, where there were two windows and the entrance door in the lower part. The lower range of windows were rectangular, measuring about 100 x 170 cm, while those of the upper range were round-headed and measured about 80 x 135 cm.
The entrance portico to the mosque was emphasized by arcades of depressed arches (with a span of about 290 cm and a rise of about 170 cm) resting on pillars about 375 cm high, and three domes resting on the arcades. The domes of the entrance portico were set below the single hipped roof.
The depressed arches of the entrance portico and the window frames were emphasized on the façade. The roof cornice took the form of a frontally moulded wooden board concealing the front of the rafters and roof beams. The moulding of this board took the form of a series of arcades of depressed arches.
The turbe for Shaikh Omer and his wife Aiša was built in the harem of the Town Mosque right by the mosque itself. The turbe had a regular octagonal ground plan and a dome covered with sheet metal, with an alem in the form of two pommels with a crescent moon on top. The turbe had round-headed windows and a solid oak entrance door. There were two graves in the turbe, above which were two joined wooden coffins. The graves were covered with green cloth over which were two embroidered drapes, and alongside the graves were an engraved copper handbasin and a ewer full of water, and two brass candlestands a metre high. There were large candles in the candlestands, which were lit for Friday and other festival days.
3. Current condition of the property
The mosque was destroyed on 31 May 1992.
Works have been begun to rebuild the Town Mosque, and in the course of an on-site inspection on 7 April 2003 to verify the condition of the property it was noted that construction of the building had begun, that the foundations and foundation walls had been built, the ground floor concrete slab underlay completed, the walls of the ground floor laid to a height of about 285 cm (from the floor underlay of reinforced concrete to the upper level of the central string course of the outer mosque walls) with a combination of vertical and horizontal string courses, and four reinforced concrete pillars for the portico. According to the design to which the works were being carried out, the dimensions are 13.00 x 1600 m. There are two lower windows on each side. The design gives dimensions for the central space of the mosque of 12.50 x 12.50 m, and of the porch 3.00 x 13.00. The roof covering is to be plain tile, and the roof pitch 30 degrees.
Pursuant to the Law on Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission, every national monument, including those for which petitions have been submitted, must be reconstructed in compliance with approval issued by the relevant Entity ministry. As a result, the reconstruction works have not been carried out in accordance with the Law
On the date of the site visit no works had been begun relating to the reconstruction of the turbe. According to the design project for the reconstruction of the mosque, the turbe has a regular octagonal ground plan with exterior dimensions along the sides of the polygon of about 240 cm, a height to the alem of 7.20 m, and an alem with three pommels with a total height of 165m, round-headed windows with masonry dimensions of 80 x 180 cm, and a dome about 3.25 m. high.
Inspection of the technical documentation revealed inconsistencies between the design project to which the works on the building are to be carried out and the state of the building in 1895 or 1992, prior to its demolition. These are as follows:
Ÿ The mosque building has exterior dimensions of 13.00 x 16.00 m compared with dimensions prior to destruction of 12.00 x 15.10 m
Ÿ The thickness of the outer walls of the building being built is about 25 cm, compared with the original thickness prior to demolition in 1992 of about 75 cm
Ÿ The dimensions of the central space of the mosque being built are 12.50 x 12.50 m, compared with those of the building prior to destruction of 10.50 x 10.50 m
Ÿ The dimensions of the portico of the mosque being built are 3.00 x 13.00 m compared with those of the building prior to destruction of 4.10 x 12.00 m
Ÿ The portico being built has no domes, whereas the portico of the building prior to destruction was domed
Ÿ In the design project to which the works are being carried out on the building, the access to the mahfil is via a two-flight staircase to the left of the entrance door, whereas prior to demolition in 1992 the mahfil was reached via the spiral staircase of the minaret
Ÿ In the design project to which the works are being carried out, the mahfil is to be supported by two reinforced concrete pillars with a diameter of 25 cm, whereas the mahfil of the building demolished in 1992 rested on two pairs of separate wooden pillars
Ÿ In the design project to which the works are being carried out, the kursi, mimber and mahfil are different from those of the original building prior to its demolition in 1992
Ÿ In the design project to which the works are being carried out, the arrangement and rhythm of windows on the west façade do not match the original building prior to demolition in 1992
Ÿ In the design project to which the works are being carried out, the roof structure, pitch of the roof and treatment of the ceiling are different from those of the original building prior to its demolition in 1992
Ÿ In the design project to which the works are being carried out, the minaret is planned to have a height of about 23.70 m, whereas the original minaret prior to demolition in 1992 was about 28.45 m. Furthermore, in the design project the projected minaret has neither grooving nor mouldings nor is the cross-section of the minaret polygonal
Ÿ In the design project to which the works are being carried out, the projected height of the eaves measured from the ground to the elevation of the roof eaves is about 5.80 m, whereas that of the original building prior to its demolition in 1992 was about 7.7 m from ground level to the roof eaves
Ÿ The materials being used on the building under construction are different from those used in the original building prior to its demolition in 1992.
Pursuant to the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments established pursant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, every national monument, and every property for which a petition has been submitted, must be restored in compliance with the approval for rehabilitation issued by the relevant Entity Ministry.
On inspection of the annex to the regional plan, Regulatory Plan for part of Derventa centre, 1999, it was ascertained that the plot on which the Town Mosque was built is treated as a reserved area.
III. - CONCLUSION
Applying the Criteria for the adoption of a decision on proclaiming an item of property a national monument, adopted at the fourth session of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments (3 to 9 September 2002), the Commission has enacted the Decision cited above.
The Decision was based on the following criteria:
A. Time frame
B. Historical value
E. Symbolic value
E.ii. religious value
E.v. significance for the identity of a group of people
F. Townscape/landscape value
F.ii. meaning in the townscape
F.iii. the building or group of buildings is part of a group or site
The following documents form an integral part of this Decision:
- Copy of cadastral plan
- Copy of land register entry and proof of title;
- Photodocumentation;
- Drawings
Bibliography
Alagić, Nedžmudin, Derventa između dva svjetska rata, (Derventa between the two World Wars) Office to resolve the status of displaced persons and refugees of Derventa Municipality, department of office for Sarajevo, Sarajevo (thanks to services of the library of the Bosniac Institute, foundation of Adil Zulfikarpašić, Sarajevo) 2001
Handžić, Adem, Postanak i razvitak Dervente u XVI stoljeću (Origins and development of Derventa in the 16th c.), Contribution to the history of settlements in Bosnia (Offprint), Contributions, Institute of History Sarajevo, yr X/II, Sarajevo, (thanks to services of the library of the Bosniac Institute, foundation of Adil Zulfikarpašić, Sarajevo) 1974
Kreševljaković, Hamdija, Izabrana djela I (Selected Works I), Cultural heritage editions, Veselin Masleša, Sarajevo, 1991
Ledić, Franjo, Crtice iz prošlosti grada Dervente (Sketches from the past of Derventa), Derventa, (thanks to services of the library of the Bosniac Institute, foundation of Adil Zulfikarpašić, Sarajevo), 1958
Mujezinović, Mehmed, Islamska epigrafika Bosne i Hercegovine (Islamic epigraphy of BiH), bk II, 3rd ed, Biblioteka kulturno naslijeđe, Sarajevo –Publishing, 1998
Omerhodžić, Ahmed, Derventa i okolina (Derventa and Environs), Geographical Society of BiH, special editions, Vol.VI, Sarajevo, (thanks to services of the library of the Bosniac Institute, foundation of Adil Zulfikarpašić, Sarajevo), 1981
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