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SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
SCHOLARS AND LIBRARIANS here are determined to restore the National and University Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina and rebuild its collections.
Targeted by Bosnian Serb forces early in the siege of Sarajevo, the library was set ablaze and most of its contents destroyed.
The main repository of Bosnia's recorded history and culture, the library occupied a late-19th-century, Moorish-revival building in Sarajevo's historic center. The hexagonal structure was classified a landmark. Its collection contained three million items, including rare books and manuscripts, maps, recordings, and one million volumes in the languages of the various cultures that have influenced Bosnia. The library also was home to Bosnia's national archives and the University of Sarajevo's collections.
'THE LARGEST SINGLE INCIDENT'
Enes Kujundzic, who took over as director of the library in mid-1993, says the collection embodied Bosnia's unique mix of cultures. The Bosnian Serb forces, he says, "knew that if they wanted to destroy this multi-ethnic society, they would have to destroy the library."
Writing in the newsletter of the Middle East Librarians Association, Andras Riedlmayer of the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University called the destruction of the Bosnian library "the largest single incident of book burning in history."
For Mr. Kujundzic, who earned a master's degree in Near East language and civilization at the University of Chicago, the task of rebuilding the library has a special urgency. To fail, he suggests, would be to give those who destroyed the collection their ultimate victory. "First you destroy the documents, then you quickly destroy the memory that they ever existed," he says.
'EVERYONE WAS CRYING'
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