Sonja Dujmović
Urban Culture and Collective Memory. Monument in Sarajevo to King Peter the Great Liberator
Abstract: The paper is an attempt to understand the reasons for the two-decade long project of the building the monument to King Peter I Karađorđević in Sarajevo.
Key words: Monument, King Peter I Karađorđević, Sarajevo, Urban Culture, Collective Memory, Urban Elite, Consensus, Compromise
Perhaps the two decade-long campaign by the Committee for Building the monument to King Peter I Karađorđević, the Liberator, in Sarajevo may seem strange, even surprising, considering the large number of similar monuments to King Peter that had been built in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the interwar period. But this campaign speaks about Sarajevo, embodied in the Committee, which represented a true “spiritus urbanitatis” of a traditional urban settlement that did not allow conflict to break up the everyday course of life, where the right to a different political choice and moral autonomy was respected, and where a “special discipline of tacitness and implicity” existed.
The consensus of the Sarajevo elite, in whose domain was the collective memory, was that King Peter Karađorđević was not a part of their collective memory and that it was not necessary to build a monument to him in the city's public space as a common good, a common recognizable value for all citizens. King Peter was not accepted as a part of their collective urban identity.
Their loyalty was thereby shown in a number of operative actions and gradual activities, by the inclusion of all religious and national elites in the forming of the Committee, in the search of a suitable place for the monument, in the publishing of a competition, etc. However, the emotional and rational refusal to support the political system, which proved to be unstable, in which changes in structure and dynamics of political power were directed and which brought the political ideals from the end of the war crushing down, made them cautious, their action long lasting and economically viable for them.
The common good that the Committee recognized could be expressed by the slogan "make haste slowly" (festina lente), whereby the urban elite as the symbol of the city, as the winner of life in this case, and the keeper of traditionally harmonious relations, knew when to speed up, and when to slow down.