Today, the Museum of Sarajevo assessed as extremely inappropriate and unfounded the claims made in the statement of the City Council of the City of Sarajevo, which was reported in the media, that there are monuments dedicated to the assassin in Sarajevo, while at the same time there is no authentic and dignified monument for the victims. The announcement is based on the initiative to re-erect the monument to the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia on the area of the Latin Bridge.
In the press release of the Museum of Sarajevo signed by the director Indira Kučuk-Sorguč, it is stated that such wording indirectly labels the Museum of Sarajevo as an institution that promotes crime or a criminal, which is incorrect, offensive and deeply unfair to the museum historians, curators and authors of the permanent exhibition of the Sarajevo Museum 1878-1918.
It is emphasized that, on the contrary, the Museum was the bearer and implementer of a comprehensive conceptual project of the revitalization of the memorial culture of the Sarajevo assassination, a historical event that was the reason for the outbreak of the First World War. The project was realized in several stages and in accordance with the standards of historical science and the museological profession.
It is emphasized that the marking of the route taken by the archduke’s vehicle, as well as the locations of both assassinations, is included; the assassin’s footprints were returned, made according to a cast by the prominent artist Voja Dimitrijević, then the place where the car containing Franz and Sofija stopped was marked, thereby marking the authentic location of the event, and the presentation phase of the remaining parts of the former Memorial to Murder (medallion, crowns, pieta) was realized. These fragments, in partnership with the Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the competent Institute for the Protection of Monuments of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, were presented in the interior of the Museum, in a visually decent and interpretatively clear and unambiguous way, with a simulation of the original architectural elements, so that the whole looks faithful to the original.
The announcement adds that in this way the Museum has rounded off the historical, museological, cultural and touristic interpretation of the event, which, in contrast to 1953 to 1992, has now been completely deideologized and depoliticized, and is based on objective verifiable facts.
“The display does not glorify the assassin or devictimize the victim, but interprets the entire event in accordance with professional standards and ethical principles of museum activity. We consider the accusations that it is “shameful and unacceptable” to have marks for assassins, along with the alleged absence of marks for victims, as malicious, populist and based on ignorance of the facts. It is enough to visit the Museum, review the publicly available documentation and media announcements about the restoration of the installation, in order to determine that the interpretation is historiographically based, complete and professionally realized,” it is underlined in the statement of the Museum of Sarajevo.
It is concluded that thanks to the efforts of the Museum, today the site of the Sarajevo assassination is clearly and dignified, which is visited by many tourists from all over the world every day.
“We perceive such slanders by individual city councilors as an insult to professional work and institutional integrity, and we believe that the public deserves accurate information, and the Museum – a public apology. We at the Museum of Sarajevo protect the interests of the truth and no one and nothing else ,” concludes the statement of the museum institution.
