THE HAGGADA AFFAIR

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS OR POLITICAL OMNIPOTENCE

AIM SARAJEVO, April 18, 1995

The small community of the brave, made up of Jews who did not flee Sarajevo before the horrors of war, recently celebrated its greatest holiday - Passover. This year's celebrations greatly differed from previous ones for many reasons, not negligible among them being political ones because the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina helped and supported their celebration to a much larger extent than done so far in Bosnia. The celebrations were attended by distinguished guests, including the president of the Presidency, Alija Izetbegovic, and the Government decided to lend the Jews the original of the Sarajevo Haggada, one of the costliest museum exhibits in Europe. Besides expressing full support for the Jews and publicly marking their holiday, this gesture of the Government also had an additional motive - namely the widespread rumors that this unique Jewish religious book had disappeared from Sarajevo, i.e. that it had been sold, and the money used to buy weapons. Denying such rumours, the Government assessed that Passover was the most convenient opportunity to show the Haggada in public.

But, the ensuing reactions showed that good intentions are not always necessarily clever or preferable. Prof.Dr.Enver Imamovic, Director of the National Museum in Sarajevo addressed a statement to the public protesting against this act of the Government and announcing his resignation to the post of Director of this important cultural institution! What is all this about?

The Sarajevo Haggada, as the cultural public knows, is an exhibit about 700 years old. It is one of the most valuable and hence one of the most expensive museum exhibits in Europe. It has been in Sarajevo for a full 400 years, and in the National Museum of B&H for 100 years. Its museum value is accordingly enormous and its material one priceless. It is therefore no wonder that as such it was used for propaganda lies of the Serbian lobby in America that the Haggada had been sold for weapons. The manner in which the B&H government denied such a lie, i.e. by bringing the Haggada to the celebration proved to be excpetionally bad. Or to be more precise, political omnipotence was pitted against ethics and professional dignity. For, the Ministry of Culture decided to take that step on its own, using its political immunity and powers, without consulting, i.e. what is even worse, by ignoring the opinions of authorities on the subject and of the institutions opposing such an act.

In his protest Prof.Dr.Imamovic states: "To use an object 700 years old for a public manifestation, and on top of it in war-time when the city is shelled and a whole network of international agents is conspiring how to snatch that unique book, has deeply surprised and worried all those who regard monuments of the past with piety. This especially hurt all museum and cultural circles." Professor Imamovic further adds that the National Museum "was not even informed of the intention to take away the exhibit and lend it to other persons for public use. We learned about this from the media. When we heard this, an open-ended meeting was convened of the Governing Board of the Museum, attended by our most eminent museologists, archaeologists, ethnologists, art historians, restorers, conservators, a legal expert for cultural heritage - all in all 30 persons. The common stance was reached not to allow the Haggada to be taken from the vault, the same stance was taken by the Republican Institute for the Protection of Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage, and submitted to the concerned party in writing. The B&H Government turned a deaf ear to all this and persevered in carrying out its decision. In doing so, it trampled on the authority of not only our most competent experts, but also of institutions of the class of the National Museum and of the Republican Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments".

Why did the Government disregard the competent experts and expose itself to the risk of being publicly condemned for its act? This all the more so, as the authority and role of Professor Imamovic in saving and protecting the Haggada in the first days of the war in Sarajevo are not unknown to the Ministers. At the time, he personally, as a citizen and not as the Director of the Museum, with the help of three members of the Security Service and a museum worker ran on June 6, 1992 through a shower of bullets on the first front line and risking his own life took the Haggada out of the Museum (across the "Marsal Tito" barracks still housing the then YPA) and put it in a vault in the National Bank. Further, Professor Imamovic is probably not an opponent of the current authorities. On the contrary, without in any way questioning his professionalism, we could say that his election to the post of Director of this cultural institution had to get the "green light" of the ruling political set. Why then this disagreement?

It seems that the answer signed on behalf of the Ministry of Culture by Minister Enes Karic, cannot (or perhaps actually can) provide the real reasons. It mentions the motivation of the Ministry to lend the Haggada, namely it speaks about "a denial of claims of alleged falsifying or substitution of the Haggada", but does not answer why the warning of experts was not heeded. Prof.Dr.Imamovic's protest nowhere mentions the falsifying or sale of the Haggada, while Minister Karic persistently answers a question he was not asked. Except that he has no answer to the real question, there is no other argument for the Minister's answer such as it is.

After everything, Prof.Imamovic offers to resign from the post of Director of the National Museum "with pain in my soul, because I know best the condition of the Museum and its entire wealth. The Haggada occupied a special place in it, but despite its value, importance and age it was seen that certain power holders can lay their hands on it at any time and without anyone's knowledge break the seals, take it away and do what they will with it, disregarding the fact that it is a 700-year old exhibit, to be treated according to museological criteria as a baby in an incubator". Finally, at the end of his protest, Prof.Imamovic says: "After this piece of news reaches the world, a consequence of such an irresponsible act towards a monument which has long ago been put on the list of world uniques, may be a series of requests from international institutions to surrender this valuable monument, after its four hundred-year stay in our country and deliver for it for safekeeping to a foreign museum. Wherever it may find itself, it is certain that it could not experience what happened to it here on April 15, 1995 due to the carelessness of incompetent individuals who were able to do that thanks to their political immunity".

Whatever the end of the "Haggada affair", traces will remain of an act of which there are few in our political practice - for the protection of professionalism and against political voluntarism. Prof.Dr.Imamovic resorted to the institute of resignation. Such an idea, regrettably, still never crosses the minds of members of the Government and some other political power holders, who would frequently have reason to revert to this civilisational gesture.

STRAJO KRSMANOVIC