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Fine Arts Library Collections

Category: historical events

Close-up image of torn and desecrated pages from Qur'ans and religious books, inside the burned-out village mosque.
Carralevë, Kosovo. Inside the burned-out village mosque, October 1999: Torn and desecrated pages from Qur'ans & religious books, in the aftermath of the Kosovo war. (Photo courtesy of András Riedlmayer).

András Riedlmayer puts this war crime on the map

February 25, 2020 /

“… if you really want to make a librarian mad, burn down a library.”

András Riedlmayer, Bibliographer in Islamic Art and Architecture at Harvard’s Fine Arts Library, made this comment when asked why he undertook his project to collect, preserve and publicize evidence of the destruction of cultural heritage in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. The story about his work in the Balkans is profiled in the Harvard Gazette.

Riedlmayer testified at the UN war crimes tribunal (ICTY) in The Hague in the trials of 14 Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials, as an expert on cultural destruction in the Balkans. Among the defendants was former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević, accused of war crimes and genocide in Kosovo and Bosnia. Although Milošević died of a heart attack before the ICTY could deliver a verdict in his case, 11 of the others were convicted and sent to prison.

Read more about his ongoing efforts to preserve documentation on the cultural heritage of the Balkans and its fate in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, in the Harvard Gazette.

 

A young man squatting on the ground to pick up and look at torn and burned religious texts inside the village mosque, torched by Serbian soldiers in 1999. The man is photographed from the side, wearing a dark clothing. The ground is rabbled with pieces of concretes and debris. In the background, burned marks on the concrete wall is visible.

Carralevë, Kosovo. Agim Orllatë, a Kosovar Albanian university student who worked with Riedlmayer as an interpreter, looks at torn religious texts inside the village mosque, torched by Serbian soldiers in 1999. (Photo courtesy of András Riedlmayer)

 

Burned book of a Qur’an, opened to show its pages ripped from its binding and partially burned. The edges of book pages are burned.

Remains of a Qur’an, its pages ripped from its binding and partially burned, among the items collected by Riedlmayer in Oct. 1999 from the village mosque in Carralevë, Kosovo. (Photo: Naoe Suzuki)

 

Riedlmayer looking down on a selection of damaged book pages laid out on the table in the office. He is wearing gloves to handle fragile remains of the torn books.

Riedlmayer selecting damaged book pages to be sent for an exhibition on cultural heritage and war, held at the Imperial War Museum in London in 2019. (Photo: Naoe Suzuki)

 

A selection of the damaged pages of books and manuscripts laid on a table. There are two rows and four columns of stacked pages.

A selection of the damaged pages of books & manuscripts collected by Riedlmayer in Oct. 1999 from the village mosque in Carralevë, Kosovo. These damaged books were written in a number of languages: Arabic, Albanian, Ottoman Turkish, Bosnian, Serbian. (Photo: Naoe Suzuki)

 

A monthly church bulletin, written in Serbian, with partially burned marks. The cover of the bulletin includes a black and white image of religious painting. A couple of burned holes were made from the fire.

A partially burned monthly church bulletin from a Serbian Orthodox monastery chapel at Buzovik, Kosovo, targeted in a revenge attack by Kosovo Albanians after the end of the war. One of the items collected by Riedlmayer during his fieldwork in Kosovo in Oct. 1999. (Photo: Naoe Suzuki)

 

Close-up image of the cover of a damaged and desecrated book. The cover includes an ornate border, but the text is difficult to read due to the fire damage.

One of the damaged and desecrated books & manuscripts collected by Riedlmayer in Oct. 1999 from the village mosque in Carralevë, Kosovo. (Photo: Naoe Suzuki)

Destruction of Memory: Film Screening

February 19, 2019 /

András Riedlmayer, UN war crimes tribunal expert witness and Bibliographer in in Islamic Art and Architecture at Harvard’s Fine Arts Library, will be talking to Tim Slade, the film director and producer of The Destruction of Memory after the film screening on February 20th.

This film chronicles the destruction of culture in Syria, Mali, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and elsewhere from World War II to the present day. It also relates the heroic efforts to save landmarks and libraries from the ravages of war. Through interviews and documentary footage, the film shows how individuals have used law and policy and sometimes risked their lives to save world heritage. The post-screening conversation will be moderated by Bonnie Docherty from Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic.


Destruction of Memory: Film Screening 

February 20, 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Where: Wasserstein Hall (Harvard Law School)

WCC 1010  (https://hls.harvard.edu/about/campus-map-and-directions/)

1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA

Co-sponsored by the Armed Conflict & Civilian Protection Initiative and Islamic Legal Studies: Law and Social Change.  Dinner will be served.

Human Rights @ Harvard Law

András’ research interests include Ottoman history, Islamic art and culture in the Balkans, and the protection of cultural heritage under national and international law. He prepared many expert reports on the destruction of cultural heritage in Bosnia and Kosovo, and testified as an expert witness in nine trials at the ICTY and before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the genocide case Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro.

Please join us for the film screening and the conversations after the film. Dinner will be served.

 

Color lithographs of the Siege of Paris

May 12, 2010 /

La Tramblais, E. de. Les désastres de Paris en 1871.  Paris : E. de La Tramblais, [1871?]

All of the scenes depicted in Les désastres come from the final, desperate ‘May Days’ of the Commune, when many of the great landmarks of Paris were burned to the ground. The printer Badoureau established himself on the rue Sainte-Isaure in the 18th arrondisement, conveniently located just north of the Seine and at the heart of the battle. The fact that the artist Edouard de La Tramblais chose  to render the most famous buildings (the Palace of Justice, the Place de la Bastille, and the Place de la Concorde, for instance) and that the captions were given in both French and English suggest that this work was intended from the start as a war souvenir.

The most well-known image to come out of the Siege of Paris is the destruction and subsequent collapse of the Vendome Column. As a symbol of the hated Second Republic the column was one of the first targets of the Commune. After the crushing of the revolt it was rebuilt and became a symbol of the folly of the Communards – a prototype of the way visual symbols change meaning in our own time.

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