Pavlicic Saric: The abuse of heritage stems from the desire to target the community that created It

Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts, University of Pristina (temporarily based in Kosovska Mitrovica), Jelena Pavlicic Saric, points out that in recent decades we have witnessed a specific attitude toward heritage in Kosovo, particularly toward that created by the Serbian nation over time—heritage that has been partially or entirely destroyed, misinterpreted, appropriated, and whose history has been falsified.

As Pavlicic Saric told Kosovo Online, all of this constitutes a complex set of problems and threats to heritage and its survival—since survival is not characterized only by physical endurance, but also by the endurance of its natural heirs, those who use these cultural assets, perceive them as their own, recognize their value and identity, and wish to transmit them to future generations.

“That is the very essence of heritage—to recognize its value in the contemporary age and pass it on to future generations. It is precisely this recognized value that motivates us to preserve heritage and create protection mechanisms. On the other hand, that same value also inspires certain groups to endanger it. Why? Because that value is also a symbol of those who created it. When you attack that value, you are in fact attacking the symbol of a people or a community—and in doing so, you are trying to target that community itself,” the professor emphasizes.

Regarding the recent example of Serbian religious sites in Kosovo being labeled as Albanian on Google Maps in the Albanian language—which prompted Serbia’s Minister of Culture, Nikola Selakovic, to address UNESCO—Pavlicic Saric notes that the incident went almost unnoticed by the broader public “because we have somehow become accustomed to such things happening.”

“This habituation is a specific problem. It partly makes us complacent and leads us to a certain outcome. That is a question we must ask ourselves: have we reacted over all these years, and what next?” Pavlicic Saric points out.

However, as she herself observes, if there were a well-coordinated mechanism and a clear and solidly framed legal response to the abuses targeting Serbian cultural heritage, this problem would likely not exist.

According to her, the mechanisms of protection available to Serbia must proceed through legal channels—that is, through institutions of heritage protection—and in that context she mentions the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and regional institutes. She adds that UNESCO sends its experts, monitors what is happening, and reviews reports from domestic professionals annually regarding the condition of these monuments.

“But on the other hand, we can see that this is not only about physical endangerment—it also occurs at the semantic level, at the level of meaning—which warns us that we need a holistic approach. Perhaps we should form new expert teams to address these other levels of threat, or invite experts who can deal with the manipulations taking place on the internet,” Pavlicic Saric suggests.

One of the ways of protecting at least a part of the overall heritage in Kosovo and Metohija, she notes, is that it has been recognized and protected by UNESCO and the international community as World Heritage in Danger. She recalls that in 2004, the Decani Monastery was placed on this list, followed in 2006 by the Patriarchate of Pec, Gracanica Monastery, and the Church of the Holy Virgin of Ljevisa in Prizren.

“I deliberately mention these years because these sites have been on that list for practically two decades—and that status has not changed,” our interlocutor stresses.

At the same time, she points out that the issue of protecting cultural heritage is widespread across the world, especially in conflict zones.
“These problems arise where heritage was created by a community that is the natural heir of that heritage, but it remains on a territory now inhabited by another people who do not perceive it as their own, but as the heritage of others, or as disputed—or as what is today called ‘dissonant heritage’. Essentially, it is residual heritage that remains in a territory where its natural heirs no longer exist, and this poses a major challenge for researchers worldwide,” she explains, adding that she and her colleagues from the international academic community will work on studying this issue in the coming years.

In her view, this question should not be addressed only by scholars, historians, art historians, political scientists, or cultural theorists—it involves a complex network of interest groups and individuals and depends heavily on political decisions, including in the case of Kosovo and Metohija.

She reiterates that this problem occurs worldwide and, in that sense, other case studies must be monitored and examined to find a common solution that will be legally formulated and then effectively implemented.