[no subject]

[Judy Pinnolis <pinnolis...>]

If anyone has information please inform the parties below. Please
disseminate this message to any colleagues who may need to know.
Thanks,
Judy
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Delivered-To: pinnolis (at) imap(dot)staff(dot)brandeis(dot)edu
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 17:42 EST
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From: Arthur Kiron <kiron (at) pobox(dot)upenn(dot)edu>
To: hasafran (at) lists(dot)acs(dot)ohio-state(dot)edu
Subject: Burning of the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo (fwd)
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Dear Yossi -- please post this to ha-safran.  Many thanks, Arthur
 
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Subject: Burning of the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo
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{This is a Sephardic House Discussion Group Message}

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to ask you for your assistance for an important project,
which cannot go forward without cooperation from scholars, librarians and
archivists.
 
As many of you know, during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, the libraries and
archives were especially targeted for attacks by nationalist extremists.
Among the greatest losses of primary source materials was the May 1992
burning of the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo, which was bombarded with
phosphorus shells by the Bosnian Serb Army.  The Oriental Institute was
completely burned, its priceless collection of 5263 bound manuscripts and
hundreds of thousands of Ottoman documents turned to ashes.

Details can be found in my article, "Erasing the Past: The Destruction of
Libraries and Archives in Bosnia-Herzegovina," MESA Bulletin 29 i
(July1995): 7-11   <http://w3fp.arizona.edu/mesassoc/Bulletin/bosnia.htm>

The article is also available in Turkish - "Maziyi silmek: Bosna-Hersek'teki
kutuphanelerin ve arsivlerin tahribi," Turk Kutuphaneciligi 9 iii (Eylul
1995): 337-341.

Since then, a group of scholars and librarians has launched a project to
recover this lost knowledge, resurrecting the information contained in the
burned original manuscripts by using the potential of modern technology and
networking.  We have named our initiative the "Bosnian Manuscripts
Ingathering Project".

Our goal is to track down photocopies, microfilms and other facsimiles
(published or unpublished) made before the 1992-95 war from the original
manuscripts and documents that were destroyed in Bosnia.  Once we have
located them, we make copies (on CD-ROM and acid-free paper) of these
precious records which preserve the information from the original material
that has now been lost.  For additional details, please see the website of
The Bosnian Manuscripts Ingathering Project
http://www.kakarigi.net/manu/ingather.htm

The project is ambitious, but not without precedent.  There have been other
successful projects in the 20th century to reconstitute libraries and
archival collections destroyed in war:
http://www.kakarigi.net/manu/preced.htm

In the five years since we launched our Bosnian Manuscripts Ingathering
Project, we have traced and recovered copies of ca. 1000 pages of lost
originals, representing all or part of about 30 original manuscripts and
document collections.  This represents a tiny fragment - less than one
percent - of what was lost when the Institute was burned. Our hope is that
we will locate many more such items and return copies of them to the
Oriental Institute in Sarajevo.

In the years before the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo was destroyed, many
foreign scholars went there to do research. They brought back with them
photocopies and microfilms of materials from the Oriental Institute. We are
seeking assistance from our colleagues in Turkey, the Balkans and wherever
such materials may be located.

We would like to find out what has happened to these scholars and to their
papers.  In cases where these scholars are now deceased or retired, stacks
of old photocopies or a few reels of microfilms from Sarajevo may still be
sitting in someone's office or donated to some university's archive, where
their importance as _unique_ records of lost originals may not be realized.
Please help us find them and to return (copies of) them to the Oriental
Institute in Sarajevo.

According to information received from colleagues at the Oriental
Institute, some names among the many students and scholars who went to
Sarajevo to do research and had copies made at the Oriental Institute
 before the war include:
 * the late Prof Mehmed Cavusoglu (Istanbul Universitesi & Marmara Univ.),
 * Prof. Hasan Kolcu (literature scholar, member of TDK)
 * Prof. Hamdi Hasan (University of Skopje/Uskup)
* the late Prof. Vanco Boskov (Skopje, Macedonia)
 
Any information about the location of their papers would be greatly
 appreciated.

 We also know that, during the years before the 1992-95 war, foreign
libraries and research institutes (such as the TTK and TDK) received
microfilms from the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo as part of exchanges.

A search of the microfilm archives of these institutions could identify the
microfilms from Sarajevo.  We could then make copies of these copies and
send them to the Sarajevo Oriental Institute to replace their lost
originals.

There are many more possibilities, but any information that can help us
locate scholars who once did research in Sarajevo, and their papers, would
be a great service to the preservation of knowledge.

The situation is urgent, since many of the scholars who did research in
Sarajevo 20 to 30 years ago are now close to or already in retirement. Some
of them are already deceased. Their families and colleagues may not realize
the importance of the photocopies (originally from Sarajevo) that now lie
unused in desk drawers or on office shelves.  If prompt action is not
taken, this material may soon be discarded, the knowledge lost forever.
 
 Thank you for any assistance or information you can provide.
 
 Andras Riedlmayer
 <riedlmay (at) fas(dot)harvard(dot)edu>
  
  The Bosnian Manuscripts Ingathering Project
  http://www.kakarigi.net/manu/ingather.htm
 * Amila Buturovic (York University)
  * Andras Riedlmayer (Harvard University)
 * Irvin Cemil Schick (Harvard University & MIT)
  
 Please address correspondence regarding the project to:
 
 Andras Riedlmayer
  Fine Arts Library
  Harvard University
  32 Quincy Street
  Cambridge MA 02138 U.S.A.
  tel. +1-617-495-3372, fax +1-617-496-4889
 e-mail <riedlmay (at) fas(dot)harvard(dot)edu>
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>Arthur Kiron
>Curator of Judaica Collections
>University of Pennsylvania Library
>3420 Walnut Street
>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6206
>Tel: (215) 573-7431
>Fax: (215) 898-0559


Judith S. Pinnolis
Reference Librarian
Coordinator for Publications and Training
Brandeis University Libraries
Goldfarb Library MS045
P.O Box 549110 
Waltham, MA 02454-9110
phone:781-736-4705
fax: 781-736-4719
email: pinnolis (at) brandeis(dot)edu

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