Young people are stepping in where government efforts have fallen short to preserve cultural monuments and keep ancient crafts alive.
Tucked among the picturesque stone houses of the famous Old Town of Mostar, a city in the south of Bosnia and Herzegovina, sits young artisan Denis Drljevic’s tiny workshop. As you enter, you see the images of his country’s history – from photos to reliefs – that adorn the walls of the square room, while the reddish jewelry decorating the wooden counters invites you to take a closer look at his handiwork.
Denis spends most of his time in his AbrakaBakra Copper Art Studio, doing what his fellow Mostar residents have been doing for hundreds of years: making beautiful things from copper and selling them to customers. Ever since he began practicing this craft, Denis has drawn inspiration from the symbols and designs found on stecaks (Bosnian medieval tombstones) in his work: “They are very inspirational and have a special place on the entire world cultural heritage map,” he says.
Mostar’s Old Town, a top tourist destination in the country, is a historical hub of traditional craftsmanship rooted in the centuries when Bosnia belonged to the Ottoman Empire, when crafts such as coppersmithing, blacksmithing, and silversmithing became part of the local culture. These techniques have been passed down through the generations, and they now reflect a fusion of Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and local culture. Crafts such as Konjic woodcarving and Zmijanje embroidery are inscribed on UNESCO’s world list of intangible cultural heritage.
To preserve the legacy of his predecessors, Denis uses ancient copper-working techniques to portray different aspects of Bosnian-Herzegovinian culture: “Inheriting such a culture instills a certain sense of pride. So, I want to preserve our heritage by turning it into copper,” he says.
Tourists love what he does, but “they fail to understand why local governments don’t help artisans,” Denis adds.
Tourism on the Rise Despite Lack of Government Support
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s governance system – comprising two entities, one district, and 10 cantons – presents a complex landscape that often hampers decision-making processes. Coordination among various governmental bodies is often scanty, leading to a deficiency in strategic planning at many levels, not least the protection of cultural heritage. As a consequence, cultural heritage institutions lack funding for preservation efforts, including restoring and revitalizing sites.
“This leads to the loss or insufficient protection of both tangible and intangible heritage, which other countries leverage as a tourism asset,” states the 2021 report of the Association for Intercultural Activities and Heritage Rescue in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Some heritage experts are calling for more investment into both field research and promotion of both material and intangible cultural heritage, arguing that official neglect of the country’s cultural heritage puts traditional crafts, like Denis’s copper artistry, at risk of extinction.
Despite underfunding of its cultural assets, tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a rapidly growing sector and a cornerstone of the country’s economic growth. Tourism represented 5.5 percent of the GDP in 2018. Between 2014 and 2019, the income generated from international travelers rose by 55 percent.
In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, tourist visits climbed by more than 10 percent year on year,with tourism revenue up by 6 percent. The upward trend continued post-pandemic: In 2023, tourist numbers were up by 5 percent and overnight stays rose by 8 percent over the same period in 2019, according to the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Tourism’s potential is far from being fully tapped, though, according to expert assessments. Recent studies by the World Bank and Germany’s GIZ international cooperation agency indicate that Bosnia and Herzegovina has a limited record of foreign direct investment in tourism and a relatively unfavorable business environment because of the country’s complex political and administrative structure.
“Interactions with tourists who visit Bosnia and Herzegovina made me realize how much our country is valued in Europe, and the whole world, precisely because of the cultural heritage that we have,” says art restorer and conservator Adnan Mujkic.
Just 22 years old, this young man has fused his artistic talent with a scientific education, and he primarily restores paper objects, such as books and documents, and wooden items like furniture. His clients include passionate art enthusiasts committed to preserving cultural and historical heritage, along with collectors of antiquities and artworks.
“As the interest of tourists and inquiries about Bosnia and Herzegovina’s cultural heritage continues to grow, it serves as an added impetus for heritage protection,” says Adnan, who recently joined Homo Faber, an international online community of artisans under the auspices of the Swiss-based Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship. Homo Faber’s website profiles two dozen artisans around the country, creators using a wide range of materials: from metal and leather to musical instruments.
A Festival of Youthful Arts Among Tombs
Adnan and Denis are two young creatives who are part of a larger community of young guardians of cultural heritage working toward the same goal.
Not far from Mostar in the south of the country, the Slovo Gorcina association keeps up the tradition of holding an annual cultural festival of the same name in the historic town of Stolac, which aims to celebrate the rich cultural heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina through art. The festival, envisioned by the famous Bosnian poet Mehmedalija Mak Dizdar but not launched until just after his death in 1971, takes place at the nearby stecak necropolis of Radimlja, one of the most important cultural monuments of the country on UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage list.
With the upcoming edition of the festival approaching in July, the association is redoubling its efforts with the help of young volunteers, including to run the event. Their number has risen from around 10 to close to 35, says the association’s president and Mak Dizdar’s grandson Gorcin Dizdar, who is an expert on cultural heritage.
Young volunteers do everything from website maintenance to event production. The festival itself promotes young artists such as poets and writers, and most of the audience is made up of young people.
And Dizdar does not stop there. Another of his recent projects was to bring together more than 100 young people from all over the country to create an interactive map of stecak tombstones to identify previously unregistered medieval graves and compile a database of already known ones.
“The only hope that Bosnia and Herzegovina will begin to adequately care for the preservation and promotion of its cultural heritage lies in the involvement of young people,” Dizdar says, referring to the current politically fractured and weak system of cultural heritage protection, reliant on politicized and undersupported institutions and organizations.
These bodies “have neither the desire nor the possibility to work with young people,” Dizdar continues. “That is why it is necessary to look for other ways to get young people interested in cultural heritage.”
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Lidija Pisker is a journalist and researcher from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, openDemocracy, Euronews, Equal Times, the BBC, and elsewhere.
The publication of this article is part of PERSPECTIVES – the new label for independent, constructive, multiperspective journalism. PERSPECTIVES is being implemented by seven editorial teams from Central and Eastern Europe under the leadership of the Goethe Institute. The author of this article participates in the PERSPECTIVES Journalists-in-Residence Program at the Goethe Institute Lithuania.
