National Museum celebrates its 131st birthday: Exhibition Three Lives of the Sarajevo Haggadah

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The National Museum of BiH is celebrating 131 years of its existence today. Founded in 1888, the National Museum is the oldest modern Western-type cultural and scientific institution in the country. The first idea of establishing a museum dates back to the mid-19th century, when the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina – as the Bosnian Pashaluk – belonged to the Ottoman Empire. However, the idea was realized almost four decades later with the arrival of new authorities. Austria-Hungary occupied the Bosnian Pashaluk in 1878, bringing new political and social goals, customs, and values. These included the promotion of science through research, academic, and institutional development.

As one of the still unexplored countries of the Balkans, Bosnia and Herzegovina attracted the interest of many scientists, especially those from Austria-Hungary, as well as pseudoscientists and treasure hunters. This resulted in the removal of cultural monuments from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the very first years of the occupation. This situation accelerated the realization of the idea of establishing a museum: first, the Museum Society was founded, and then the National Museum on February 1, 1888. The Provincial Government, as the founder of the institution, appointed government advisor Kosta Hörmann as the Museum's director.

The premises where the Museum was initially located – in the then city center – soon became too small and unsuitable for the growing collection, so in 1909, the construction of a new museum complex of four pavilions and a Botanical Garden began, which was completed and opened in 1913. For a long time, it was the only purpose-built museum complex in the former Yugoslavia. The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina is still located in it today.

Incidentally, due to the neglect of the authorities and its unresolved status, the National Museum of BiH was closed from October 4, 2012, to September 16, 2015. Since its reopening until today, the visitor offer has been improved, the space housing the Haggadah has been renovated, and exhibitions, as well as visits by students and tourist groups, are very frequently organized.

On the occasion of its 131st birthday, the National Museum will open the exhibition Three Lives of the Sarajevo Haggadah today with the support of UNESCO and the US Embassy starting at 3 PM. The promotion of the new edition of the Sarajevo Haggadah will be held the same day at 7:00 PM. The exhibition illuminates and traces the journey of the Sarajevo Haggadah from the medieval Kingdom of Aragon, through Italy, to Sarajevo, where the manuscript was purchased by the National Museum at the end of the 19th century.

Selected pages of the Sarajevo Haggadah, as well as comparative material consisting of archival documents, pages from other medieval manuscripts, and objects from the archaeological and herbarium collections, provide insight into the circumstances and reasons for the creation of this enigmatic Jewish manuscript. The exhibition is complemented by minerals used to make the colors used for illuminating medieval manuscripts, as well as documents about the journey of the Sarajevo Haggadah to Vienna, where its expert analysis was carried out for the first time.

The exhibition highlights not only the artistic and aesthetic uniqueness of the Sarajevo Haggadah, the specificities that distinguish it within the relatively small corpus of other medieval Sephardic Haggadahs, but also, in a broader sense, its cultural-historical significance and the role of the book in the spiritual life of Jews in general.

A special segment of the exhibition includes previous editions of the Sarajevo Haggadah, including the first one from 1898 and the latest printed in 2018, which was published, for the first time independently, by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The authors of the exhibition Three Lives of the Sarajevo Haggadah are Dr. Aleksandra Bunčić and Dr. Mirsad Sijarić.