BOSNIĆ: SERB CULTURAL HERITAGE IN CROATIA SUFFERS THE SAME FATE AS SERBS - TOTAL DESTRUCTION OR THEFT

BELGRADE, MAY 17 /SRNA/ - Serb cultural heritage in Croatia is suffering the same fate as Serbs themselves, ranging from total destruction to theft and appropriation, Mile Bosnić, president of the Movement of Krajina Serbs, told SRNA, commenting on the publication of photos of Serb icons on a Facebook page for the sale of antiques in Croatia.

“This is yet another indication that what happened to Serbs in Krajina and Croatia in 1991 is only a continuation of what took place from 1941 to 1945 - the total destruction of all traces of existence, with the Serbian Church and Serbian books being the first targets,” Bosnić stated.

He reminded that during the Second World War, Croats either closed, burned, or demolished all Serbian churches, converting some of them into Roman Catholic ones, while destroying or looting everything else.

Bosnić stated that Croatia, 50 years later, from 1991 onwards, burned more than 2.5 million books printed in Cyrillic, in the Ekavian dialect, or dealing with the fight against fascism in the Second World War, as well as more than 3,000 Serb monuments.

“They stole our ojkača, the Sinjska Alka, and now they also want to take the Slava as their own intangible heritage. I have also heard that they want Badnjak and Serbian Christmas customs. They even want Cyrillic. That is already going in the direction of claiming that it is supposedly an old Croatian script,” Bosnić said.

He believes that Croatia should have been asked to return those 2.5 million books to the Serbs.

“Look, they burned 2.5 million books, that’s this European Croatia. I watched, on the occasion of the anniversary of the suffering at Petrova Gora, the monument to the uprising of the people of Banija and Kordun /in the Second World War/. They destroyed it because Serbs fought the Ustashe there and the Serb people suffered. It has been devastated,” Bosnić said.

Bosnić said that all that remains is for Serbs to be stripped of their land as well, completing the destruction of Serb cultural heritage.

“On one hand, it is total destruction, and on the other, theft and appropriation,” he added.

On the Facebook group “Antiques, Old Items and Works of Art Croatia,” a member posted photographs of several Orthodox icons painted on wood that appear to be very old.

The author of the photos claims that he found the icons in a house in the Croatian Zagorje, which he purchased three years ago.

Art historians contacted by SRNA said they were unable to determine the origin and authenticity of the icons based on photographs alone, but did not exclude the possibility, among other reasons, due to the wooden frames, that they may originate from one of the Serbian church log cabins that once existed in large numbers in Slavonia, Banija, and Kordun.