TRAGOVIMA PREDAKA WEBSITE PROMOTED TO PRESERVE CULTURAL HERITAGE

BIJELJINA, APRIL 27 /SRNA/ - The website Tragovima Predaka /In the Footsteps of Ancestors/, part of a project aimed at collecting and digitizing data on Serbian Orthodox cemeteries, chapels, churches, and monasteries in the FBiH, was promoted today in Bijeljina.

The application has been active since March 15, and so far data on 117 Serbian Orthodox cemeteries and 20 churches in the FBiH have been entered. Entries are made daily, and citizens were invited at the promotion event to submit photographs and any information they have about these locations.

The Tragovima Predaka project is implemented with co-financing and support from the Directorate for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region, a body within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia. It is carried out by the Dekom Association from Banja Luka in cooperation with the Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Serbs in the FBiH from Republika Srpska.

Assistant Director of the Directorate for Cooperation with the Diaspora Nikolina Milatović-Popović said that the project grew out of long-standing intensive cooperation with citizens' associations in Republika Srpska on the topic of protecting the property rights of Serbs from the FBiH.

"Through work on numerous projects, we concluded that neglected cemeteries, chapels, small churches, and minor church properties have been overlooked. Already at the beginning of cataloguing this property in the FBiH, we observed a large number of, to put it mildly, unfavorable registrations concerning the Serbian people," Popović told reporters.

According to her, the goal of the project is to map these cemeteries, churches, and chapels, and through the very act of documenting and increasing their digital visibility, to also improve their overall visibility in the FBiH and thus influence the collective memory of the Serbian people.

Dragan Jošić, on behalf of the Dekom Association, pointed to numerous examples of incorrect entries in land registries concerning Serbian cemeteries, churches, and chapels in the FBiH, where property of the Serbian Orthodox Church is registered under other holders, even though similar property of other religious organizations is properly recorded.

He stated that the goal is to preserve from oblivion the presence of Serbs in the present-day territory of the FBiH, noting that it is being, in his assessment, suppressed and erased in numerous ways and on a large scale. The project also aims to contribute to preserving Serbian cultural heritage, educating young people, and enabling future scientific research.

The President of the Committee for the Protection of Serbs in the FBiH Đorđe Radanović called on Serbs to participate in the digitization of data important for the Serbian people by submitting photographs and information to the platform. He stated that 70 percent of Serbian cemeteries in the FBiH have been desecrated and neglected, warning that this erases the truth about Serbian heritage.

He also referred to a case in the Serbian village of Smoljana near Bosanski Petrovac, where a draft by the Federation Government related to waste management envisages the construction of a regional landfill for the areas of Bihać, Cazin, Sanski Most, and Ključ.

"They want to place a regional landfill in a Serbian community so that even the few Serbs who remain there would leave, just as they built a regional landfill in Bradina on Serbian property, a migrant center in Lipa, or a center for drug addicts in Smoluća. And, of course, they always create some arrangement to prevent the return of Serbs," Radanović said.