Mostar Revisited

Explaining the old legend, which says that it was God's angels who taught the people to build bridges, one of the characters of Ivo Andric, Yugoslav author and Nobel Prize Winner, concluded that "the greatest pleasure that comes next to the one derived from building a fountain is to build a bridge and the biggest sin is to touch it." Croatian General Slobodan Praljak obviously never read Andric or failed to take the above mentioned warning seriously, so that his artillery pronounced a final sentence to the Old Bridge in Mostar at the beginning of November this year. Experts at Zagreb University responded immediately and asserted that it is possible to replace the old bridge. As if they wanted to expiate national sin. A committee of experts with Josip Sikic at the head was formed. He said that each stone would be returned to its original place and that only 10 per cent of the material will be replaced by new blocks.

Milan Gojkovic, the professor at the Civil Engineering Faculty in Belgrade, supervised the repairs on the Mostar bridge in 1963. He is also one of the two living members of the expert commission which was then founded by the Herzegovinian Office for protection of cultural monuments. He has saved a large documentation: photographs of each stone built into the arch (the total of 456 dressed blocks), their dimensions and much more. He emphasized that the reconstruction of the Old Bridge was possible and that such undertaking would mark the beginning of civilization returning to this region, but he also said that would by no means be the same edifice. "The outer wall took mortar fire, which made it easier to finish off the bridge later on. That's why I'm afraid that stone in the outer wall has been blown into pieces and that therefore nothing has been left of it. Some original material can certainly be found on the bed of the Neretva River. However, I doubt that the assessed 90 per cent can be found there, since much of it must have been carried by the current as far as Capljina. The problem is that a potential reconstruction would cost 3 or 4 times more that the construction for a modern bridge. On the other hand, it is certain that whichever state that is created on the territory where the bridge is located will be in a difficult economic situation. I suspect that some kind of a suspension bridge will be put together after the cease-fire comes into effect, so that there's a danger that the citizens of Mostar (majority of whom have only recently arrived in the town) might adapt to the new situation and neglect the reconstruction of the Old Bridge altogether, especially if they have to fight of bare survival."

Therefore, a return into the Middle Ages is what lies ahead. Then there was a wooden bridge with chain suspensions there, and Hadzi Kalfa, the Turkish chronicler, recorded that "it shook so much that one always feared for life when crossing it." It was around that time that Sultan Sulejman (whom the Turks called "The Law-maker" and the Westerner "The Majestic") grew tired of receiving complaints from the Herzegovinians so he ordered them to collect the money for the construction of a stone bridge. The project was entrusted to famous architect Kodza Mimar Sinan, "the Michaelangelo of the Islamic world." He could not go to Herzegovina, so he sent his student Hajrudin. The preparations lasted several years, the construction was supervised by Mostar Cadi Laim Mehmet and the cost exceeded the original assessment of 300,000 akchi ( about 300 kilos of silver). The construction was finished in a year's time in 1566, which is the year when Sultan Sulejman was killed in a conquest of Hungary. There's a legend that constructor Hajrudin missed the moment when the scaffold was being undone. He went into hiding in a village at the foot of Mount Velebit fearing that the bridge might collapse together with scaffolding (which was not unusual in the Middle Ages) and, he would subsequently have to pay with his life as was the custom at the time. Fortunately, neither of the two came true. However, there is a different version recorded in the Serbian literature. The tribute for the bridge in Mostar was given to Rade, the Constructor, who had to build it "out of vast necessity in order to save his head from the Turks who had enslaved him." Since the bridge would not hold, as was traditionally the case in epics, they had to resort to a previously tested recipe - building in of living people into the structure. Therefore, Ostoja and Stoja, brother and sister, were built into the Mostar bridge.

The Old Bridge inspired the admiration of chroniclers and travelers. It was spared by armies and repaired by rulers. In the meantime, the Neretva River eroded the rocks under its bases, cracks appeared in the arch and the bridge was repaired in 1963.

"A 15-member expert commission was formed. The members came from Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Split. Professor Mirko Ros even arrived from Zurich," Professor Gojkovic said. "We wanted to carry out the idea of the late Professor Krsmanovic from Sarajevo, who thought out the project. The task was both unusual and complicated. We first had to fix the bases and then the arch, which had a number of large and small cracks that had to be filled with the new material (2-3 percent altogether). We managed to finish the job in one building season."

In mid eighties, after a hydro-electric power plant was built upstream from Mostar, the signs of damage appeared on the Old Bridge. A commission headed by Professor Gojkovic was formed and a draft plan for repairing the ground work was made. However, increased envy among the republics came into way of the project, the war broke out, General Perisic appeared (now Yugoslav Chief-of-Staff), but it was General Slobodan Praljak who eventually had the "honor" to kill a four-hundred year old bridge. River Neretva, which now sticks one as being naked, is the only thing which can be recognized on the photos of what used to be Mostar.

"The Old Bridge can be reconstructed in several ways, depending on the approach," Professor Gojkovic explained. "For example, one can renew only the part which is visible, and use modern material for the part inside in order to save. The other possibility is to do it the same way as the Turks did it. In that case, the remains of the original material would have to be retrieved from the river, stone from the quarry in Mukosa would have to be obtained, stone-dressers would have to be hired. One would also have to use old constructors' tricks... A part of the documentation has been saved in Zagreb, I also hope that we could use some records from Sarajevo (if they weren't burnt), but the documentation here in Belgrade would be good enough to get the job done. Naturally, if it ever comes to the actual reconstruction, a team of experts would have to be engaged. The team would have to be formed respecting the criteria of their expertise, regardless of their citizenship or nationality."

The thoughts about a joint project of the mini states in Balkans, still at war, together with hopes that the money for the reconstruction of the Old Bridge will be found seem incredible at the moment.