TANASIĆ: DESTRUCTION OF SERB HERITAGE WILL NOT SUCCEED

BELGRADE, NOVEMBER 10 /SRNA/ – Sreto Tanasić, a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Republika Srpska /ANURS/, has said that the shameless and savage destruction of Serb cemeteries in the Federation of BiH, Kosovo and Metohija and Croatia reflects the irrational hatred of those who carry it out and those who order it. He said it was part of a deliberate project.

Tanasić said the aim of the project was to erase traces of the centuries-old presence of Serbs in those areas. He said it could not succeed because those traces ran too deep.

"There is an attempt to destroy Serbian material and written cultural heritage. That is why, after such acts of vandalism, as a rule, `the perpetrators have not been found and are being sought,`" Tanasić told SRNA.

He said that this in itself revealed who the real perpetrators were.

"Of course, history will not forget the global mentors under whose protective wing all this is being done today. After all, it is already quite clear that data on these misdeeds are being diligently collected and kept there as well," he said.

Tanasić said that by destroying Serb cemeteries, cemetery chapels and other religious buildings with the one hand and claiming everything Serbian as their own with the other, those responsible were unwittingly reinforcing the evidence of the life and creative genius of Serbs in those areas. He said that the hand behind Serbian written and other cultural heritage could never be forged.

He said that the great poet Aleksa Šantić, in his line "the souls of millions weep within me", had expressed the harsh reality of his time, which was sadly also the reality of today.

"Here we see attempts at a definitive solution to the Serbian question on both fronts, through the destruction of material and cultural heritage. On these monuments that they are tearing down today, an invaluable layer of Serbian culture was created over the centuries, in the many inscriptions and epitaphs they bear. This is not only Serbian cultural heritage; it is also the heritage of that civilized Europe which today has sidelined itself," Tanasić said.

He said the fact that no one was held accountable for numerous misdeeds was no guarantee that the project to erase the Serbian identity would succeed, however much Serbs suffered because of it.

He said that after so many centuries and millennia, a great deal was reliably known about the lives of ancient peoples and civilizations. So how, he asked, could facts about the lives of present-day peoples over the past five or six centuries and more be hidden or destroyed?

"Evidence of this is scattered all over the world. Still, that does not mean that in times of evil we should not do a little more ourselves to resist it. We should speak about examples of such work. For instance, after the pogrom against the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija in this century, Professor Mitra Reljić collected and documented an enormous and invaluable body of testimony," he said.

Tanasić said it was also important to recall Ante Lešaja's great contribution in documenting the "libricide", the destruction of books in Croatia, and the attempt to destroy "historical memory".

"Those who wisely keep silent are not even aware of how many voices have sprung up around the world, like the elderwood pipes of folk legend, that refuse to be silenced. In that sense, I also see the importance of the initiative launched by the Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Serbs in the Federation of BiH to map old Orthodox cemeteries, which should be supported in every socially acceptable way," Tanasić said.