Sarajevo 1878-1918 Museum, Sarajevo

...world, especially those who remembered Sarajevo as it was just a decade earlier when the city hosted the Winter Olympic Games of 1984. This was Sarajevo’s heyday: the eighties were a good time for the city and the hosting of the games was considered a success. However, that fact that the games went to Sarajevo at all, or, more correctly, that it was even considered as a candidate, was a contentious one. Many believed, certainly within Yugoslavia ...
...event. The debate was fierce; Sarajevo had no proper facilities and no particular history of competitive skiing and other snow sports while resorts in Slovenia had plenty of facilities and hosted international competitions already. While most countries would have been proud to have any of their cities host such a prestigious event, the debate in Yugoslavia dragged on and on.

Seventy years before Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics, ... more

Poor Sarajevo; if ever there was a city beaten repeatedly by the bad luck stick, this would be it. Between 1992 and 1995 the city was under siege: by the time it was finished, over ten thousand people had died, most of them civilians, and virtually the whole city required rebuilding or major structural repairs.

The siege was shocked people around the world, especially those who remembered Sarajevo as it was just a decade earlier when the city hosted the Winter Olympic Games of 1984. This was Sarajevo’s heyday: the eighties were a good time for the city and the hosting of the games was considered a success. However, that fact that the games went to Sarajevo at all, or, more correctly, that it was even considered as a candidate, was a contentious one. Many believed, certainly within Yugoslavia (and especially Slovenia) that there were places in Slovenia that were better equipped to host such an event. The debate was fierce; Sarajevo had no proper facilities and no particular history of competitive skiing and other snow sports while resorts in Slovenia had plenty of facilities and hosted international competitions already. While most countries would have been proud to have any of their cities host such a prestigious event, the debate in Yugoslavia dragged on and on.

Seventy years before Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics, the city acquired the dubious distinction of being the place where the First World War started. Actually, it was in Sarajevo that Gavrilo Princip, a Yugoslav before that country properly existed, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia, an event that led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia (setting into motion a chain of alliances and ententes that had been negotiated and agreed in the previous few decades). It’s a charge that is more than a little unfair on Sarajevo. Princip was an ethnic Serb, he was not Bosnian (though he was born in Bosnia), and that the assassination took place in Sarajevo was merely happenstance. As there was growing opposition to the Austro-Hungarian rulers, an attack might have happened anywhere in the southern part of the Empire; it was by no means significant that it took place in Sarajevo.

The powers that be have obviously decided that if Sarajevo must be lumbered with this distinction, they should get out of it what they can. To this end there now exists a museum housed in the building on the very corner where the shootings took place. It’s actually the “Museum of Sarajevo 1878 – 1918” and it covers the run up to the assassination, the event itself and the aftermath. It’s limited in scope but the exhibition has been cleverly put together (to justify its existence, I expect).

*The background – why does the museum exist?*

What is now Bosnia and Herzegovina, was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1878 and 1918; this vast Empire stretched from what is now eastern Germany to what is now the middle of Romania. By the 1910s there was growing dissent in some parts of the empire, especially the Balkans. Gavrilo Princip was part of a group of young men who wanted independence for Serbia and on 28th June 1914, they turned up in Sarajevo where the Archduke and his wife were paying a special state visit.

The events of this day are dramatised in a short film which is shown on a screen in the museum. There’s no dialogue so to compensate, it seems the actors have been directed to over-emphasise their reactions. It’s quite comical to watch but it does explain what happened that day and I learned a few things about the incident; the most surprising of these was that before the shooting, one of Princip’s fellow nationalists threw a grenade into the Archduke’s open car which the Archduke swiftly caught (there is no truth in the rumour that he was known in Vienna as “The Cat”) and quickly lobbed out of the vehicle to explode in the crowd. Is this true? If it is, it differs from the version I’d heard, which was that the grenade was thrown under the wheels of the Archduke’s car. I also thought that the couple were shot when they were travelling to the hospital to visit the people injured when the grenade had exploded – this film tells a different story.

THE MUSEUM

The museum is on the corner directly beside the Latin Bridge. A poor quality screen on the outside wall shows parts of the video that is shown inside, perhaps to get your attention and entice you inside. On the exterior wall beside the entrance there is a stone plaque that describes how this is the spot where the assassination took place.

Just inside the door is the ticket desk and then you turn directly into the exhibition space. The screen is immediately on your right and you should follow the exhibition from the right. Even if you are familiar with the history, it’s worth watching the film as it helps put some of the exhibits in context.

I won’t describe the exhibition in great detail as it is not vast. Sarajevo has had a chequered history and the museum acknowledges that by contrasting the Ottoman period with the Austro-Hungarian era. It does this using mock-ups of a domestic interior from each period (one would lounge in an Ottoman house whereas with the Austro-Hungarians came more formal furniture) and with costumes that correspond accordingly. There is military memorabilia, documents relating to the arrest of Princip and his accomplices and a number of other items that relate to the Berlin Congress of 1878 at which Bosnia and Herzegovina became officially annexed to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The exhibits are presented behind large picture windows with a small card listing each item with a short explanation in Bosnian and English, at the front of each display. A longer text is presented on the wall as you come to each new window. There was sufficient information and it was written in pretty good English, which is unusual for this part of the world.

The highlight (for us) was a wonderful tableau using dressed mannequins to represent Franz Ferdinand and Sofia. Unfortunately the mannequin of the Archduke has posture issues and looks like he’s about to keel over; his moustache, however, is the business.

IS IT ANY GOOD?

While I found it fairly interesting, I was more fascinated to learn about what the museum USED to be; when it opened in the 1950s, the museum was actually dedicated to Gavrilo Princip, who was regarded, for many years, as a hero. Just outside the building there had been a plaque with an imprint of supposedly Princip’s footprints. This caused great controversy; while some accused him of being a terrorist, others hailed him as a hero and would leave burning candles there in his memory. In actual fact the footsteps were not Princip’s at all but they were removed anyway as a result of the Bosnian War because Princip was a Serb and therefore no longer a hero in Sarajevo.

A visit to this museum will take up anything between twenty minutes to an hour depending on how interested you are in the displays. While the exhibition doesn’t cover things in much depth I did like the fact that it addressed a wider concept – that of Sarajevo under the Austro-Hungarian Empire – rather than just the assassination, and it looked at the domestic and cultural changes rather than merely looking at the political ones. Certainly worth a visit if you are interested in history and as it is very central, it's easy to get to. I'd say it's well worth the couple of Euro admission charge.

Museum of Sarajevo 1878 – 1918
Zelenih Beretki 1, Sarajevo

Opening hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 10:00-15:00,
Closed Sun. From 15 Oct - 14 Apr closes at 16:00 on weekdays.

The museum is on the ground floor; it is wheelchair accessible.
There are no other facilities.

 

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