Pregledni rad
https://doi.org/10.17018/portal.2014.13
Wartime Evacuation and an Overview of Protective Treatments on the Movable Furnishings from the Parish Church of St. Ladislaus in Pokupsko
Anđelko Pedišić
orcid.org/0000-0001-6884-9260
; Hrvatski restauratorski zavod, Odjel za drvenu polikromiranu skulpturu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The total count of casualties from the war-stricken areas in the Republic of Croatia during the 1990s should include the vast injuries to cultural heritage. According to records of the former Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the Ministry of Culture Education and Sports, by the end of 1991 as many as 507 historical buildings had been damaged. The parish church of St. Ladislaus in Pokupsko suffered severe wartime devastation during the October and November of 1991. Apart from the large injuries to the roof, low temperatures and heavy rainfall caused further damage to the movable furnishings. In mid-November 1991, a team made up of employees of the former Zagreb City Institute for the Protection and Restoration of Cultural and Natural Monuments, the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the Ministry of Culture, Education and Sports, the Institute for Restoration of Works of Art from Zagreb, the Turopolje Museum and the editor-in-chief of the Glasnik Turopolja monthly from Velika Gorica dismantled, and with the help of the Croatian Army evacuated the large part of movable furnishings from the damaged church.
The evacuated objects were first taken to the Turopolje Museum in Velika Gorica, but had to be redistributed, due to the lack of storing facilities, to various locations where they were kept in different microclimate conditions, causing most damage to those pieces which were exposed to dry air and heath. The evacuated pieces were sorted into thirteen ensembles; five altars, a pulpit, and seven assorted artefacts.
Conservation work on the statues and a portion of the decorative sculpture from the main and the side altars located next to the triumphal arch was carried out from 1995 to 2000, as part of the regular programme of the Institute for Restoration of Works of Art, the Croatian Conservation Institute since 1997. Conservation work on the architecture of the main altar has been underway since 2008, when preliminary investigations were performed on the portions that were dismantled and stored during the War of Independence.
The devastation of the parish church in Pokupsko is yet another example of the targeted destruction of cultural heritage, whereby a monument was identified not only with the universal context which it is a part of, but also with a particular symbolic value, which caused the conquerors agitation, so they wished to annihilate it. The wartime evacuation of furnishings from the parish church in Pokupsko is reconstructed in the article, based on archival materials and the participants’ testimonials. It was a typical example of a self-organized rescue mission of cultural heritage from the war zone, in which local population took part, alongside the Croatian Army, local museums’ staffs, the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and the conservation service. The paper combines and systematizes archival records of the furnishings evacuated during the war, and specifically
exemplifies the concept of wartime damage which is taken to encompass not only the injuries resulting directly from combat operations, but also the damage that incurs in the course of dismantlement, evacuation, transport and keeping of artefacts in makeshift storage facilities, with some objects going missing in the process. Through a timeline of conservation procedures put forward in the article, an insight can be gained into the issues arising from the conservation of cultural heritage that was destroyed or damaged in the war. A conclusion is to be made that it is a long and complex process which depends on a number of factors, and one that is taken with an aim of restoring a portion of the lost historical identity to people who wish to reassume their former way of life.
Ključne riječi
Pokupsko; parish church of St. Ladislaus; parish church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Croatian War of Independence; cultural heritage; wartime damage; conservation; wooden polychrome sculpture
Hrčak ID:
133056
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.12.2014.
Posjeta: 1.771 *