T

wenty-four years ago, Yugoslavia dissolved into its constituent nations before slipping into the deadliest conflict in Europe since the end of World War II.

Approximately 130,000 people lost their lives and in the Bosnian war alone, about 2.2 million were forced to flee their homes to avoid what was later officially dubbed one of the worst genocides in modern history.

But the war ended with peace accords more than a decade ago, and the erstwhile rivals are moving to restore what was once a war-torn region by making an unprecedented bid to gain international acknowledgement of their shared culture and history.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro are nominating thousands of medieval tombstones that are part of their shared heritage into the UNESCO World Heritage List. The nomination for the monuments — known as stecci or stećak in singular form — was firstly made in 2011 after five years of joint work between the states and underwent preliminary screening at the UN. It marks the countries’ first joint bid after going their separate ways.
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“War is terrible. This nomination is a very positive move toward reconciliation.”

With the nomination to take place in less than a month, the Balkan countries harbor high hopes for the nomination, describing it as a positive development in post-war reconciliation, according to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ambassador to Indonesia, Muhammad Cengik.

Indonesia’s role in the nomination — scheduled for mid-July — will be important, as the country is among 21 countries that have been appointed to determine which nominees should be included in the list, Cengik says.

And 10,000 kilometers from Sarajevo, Cengik says that he has a proposal ready for Indonesia to support the joint nomination, for the positive value it bears, he told The Jakarta Post.

“War is terrible,” the ambassador said in a recent interview, adding that the recovery process in the region had been moving very slowly.

“But this nomination is a very positive move toward reconciliation.”

Inclusion on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites allows a site certain protection and funds under the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World’s Cultural and Natural Heritage.

Stecci are the monolithic tombstone monuments that lie scattered across Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia — some decorated with carved, engraved drawings of secular and religious symbols or other ornaments. The artifacts are engraved with an extinct Bosnian typography.

Of 70,000 recorded tombstones from about 3,300 sites, some 60,000 are in Bosnia and Herzegovina, about 4,400 in Croatia, about 3,500 in Montenegro and some 4,100 in Serbia.

The available sources suggest that the monuments began to appear in the second half of the 12th century and started to be intensively made and decorated in the 14th and 15th centuries, before completely ceasing in the 16th century.

The medieval tombstones are usually found in clusters — in cemeteries belonging to families, containing only a few stones, then in cemeteries for whole clans, with about 30 to 50 stones, and in village cemeteries, sometimes with several hundred stones, according to the UNESCO web portal.