Ethnic cleansing and destruction in Stolac
Public collections
- Library of the Muslim Community Board in Stolac – a valuable collection
of printed and manuscript documents and books, as well as forty manuscripts
from the 17th-19th centuries. This library was destroyed in mid-July 1993,
along with the branch at Tepa and the offices and records of the Muslim Community
Board. - Library of the Emperor’s Mosque in Stolac – tens of manuscripts in Bosnian,
Arabic, Turkish and Persian, from the 17th-19th centuries. Burned and together
with the Emperor’s Mosque (Careva dzamija, Mosque of Sultan Selim I, built
1519) in early August 1993; the ruins were dynamited and removed. At the time
of the burning, soldiers of the HVO unit responsible were quartered in a nearby
primary school. Among them were: Marijan Prce (father’s name Nikola), police
officer, resident of Crnici, village of Jasoc, Stolac municipality; Nikola
Vojnovic (father’s name Vinko); Zrdavko Pazin (father’s name Ljubo), resident
of the village of Dabrica, Stolac municipality. - Library of the Pogradska Mosque in Stolac – tens of manuscripts and documents
from the 18th-19th c. The library was burned in the fire set by HVO to destroy
the Pogradska Mosque (founded in 1732-33 as the Mosque of Hadzi-Salih Buro,
in 1812-13 renamed Mosque of Ali Pasha Rizvanbegovic after extensive renovations).
The mosque was burned at 11 o’clock in the evening of 28 July 1993, and mined
on 8 August 1993. The rubble remaining after the explosion was trucked away
and the site was leveled. According to available eyewitness testimonies, in
addition to Marijan Prce, Nikola Vojnovic and Zdravko Pazin, Rudolf Colic
(father’s name Niko), a resident of the town of Stolac, and Zdenko Beno (father’s
name Miho), also a resident of Stolac, were among those who took part in the
destruction of the mosque.
Private collections:
Several important family collections of documents, manuscript books and valuable printed books were destroyed as Muslim families were expelled from Stolac and their homes looted and burned in the summer of 1993. There is only partial information on the contents of some of these collections. [The 50 bound manuscripts (39 Arabic, 2 Persian, 9 Turkish) of the Habiba Mehmedbasic collection are described in an article published in _Anali Gazi
Husrev-begove Biblioteke_ vol. 11-12 (1985), pp. 181-200, by Fehim Nametak.]
Totally destroyed were the manuscript libraries and archives of the following
old families of Stolac:
- Behmen
- Mahmutcehajic
- Mehmedbasic
- Rizvanbegovic