Loss of memory

 Loss of memory

Stećak is derived from the old word stojećak, which is derived from the South Slavic verb stajati (engl. To stand) so It literally means the "standing thing", this is the modern name that the locals in Bosnia use to call those white standing tombstones spread all over the region and beyond, however there are many other names that the common people used, for example hram (shrine), kuća (house), kami/kamen (stone), mramorovi (marble),… The area covered by this tombstones was also called in a very special way like  tursko groblje (Turkish cemetery), Grčko groblje (greeks cemetery), kaursko groblje (infidel cemetery) and my favourite starovirsko groblje (old faith cemetery).

The existence of this tombstones is documented since the early midle ages however scholars have started  reseaching the history and especially the ”mysterious” symbols which are carved on them only in the late 17^th century, of course they came up with all kinds of theories and interpretations often influenced by their nationalistic and religious convictions but strangely they all agreed on one thing that those stones didn’t seem coming from the middle ages in fact they looked more ancient. Today the “official version” of the history tell us that those tombstones were created in the middle ages in a period between the 11^th and 15^th century but beneath them incredibly we can find traces of past burials going back at least to the pre-roman times so even if the stones are not ancient they were reutilized for centuries by the local population.

With the final Christianization and later Islamization of Bosnia and the death of the last keepers of this ancient tradition a real crime and systematical destruction of our heritage happened with those tombstones that were used as building material for churches or because of ignorance were moved from their place of origin, in the centuries that followed a thick fog fell on those standing white stones and they became like mystical ruins without a past or future. Today they are mostly abandoned, the local government have tried to protect the larger sites but because of the still actual “nationalistic” tensions in the political scene of Bosnia a lot of this stones are forgotten and were reclaimed by nature or even worst are used like attraction for tourists or as simple rocks in someone’s garden.

“stećak is for me what it is not for others, things that are on them or in them, others did not inscribe or knew to see. It is stone, but also a word, it is earth, but also sky, it is matter, but also spirit, it is a cry, but also a song, it is death, but also life, it is the past, but also the future.”

~Mak Dizdar

Historical Context

 

Historical Context and legacy

Bosnia for those that didn’t know is a relatively small region in south/east part of Europe that today is called “The Balkans” although this name is not the native name for the region but it is derived from the days of the Ottoman Turkish occupation, in anticity all the way through the middle ages the most common name for this mountainous place was Haemus that according the classical Greek legend it was the name of a Thracian king (it is derived from the Greek root word αίμα-aima that means literally blood).

The Balkan region was always home to many tribes thought out all its history which were considered barbaric by their more civilized neighbors, they were regarded as unpredictable and warlike by both Greeks and Romans, their temperament but also the not favorable environment in which they lived made them stay relatively isolated from that advancing plague that we today call civilization even today some areas are still completely untouched,  for example Bosnia is still today heavily covered by forests ( 53% for a total  25,599km² of forest area).

Because of this natural isolation the new Christian faith spread relatively late in  Bosnia, when the neighboring kingdoms accepted very fast the “gospel”, Bosnia was still a question mark for many so it became quickly a refuge for all kind of “heretics” like cathars, Manichaeism, bogumils, Arianists,…. Who were running away from the persecutions all over Europe.

With the independence of the Bosnian Kingdom in the year 1377 (but it started before that)  from the Hungarian hegemony a religious hierarchy was beginning to form, this new formed religious organization was traditionally called “the Bosnian Church” ( Crkva Bosanska in the local language ), we don’t have many sources about this new formed church but we can suppose that it was an admixture of various Christian “heresies” that was also heavily influenced by our European traditional religion, an example of this influence might be the name of chief priest that was called Djed that means literally grandfather or elder, it was a figure much similar to a pagan druid then a Christian bishop.

We need to take in mind that this religious organization didn’t have any church buildings (most of the ceremonies were celebrated in nature ) or dogmatical influence on the local population so we can say that the majority of the people were still practicing their native European traditions which can be seen on the motifs and symbols depicted on their tombstones (I will explain this in detail in a future post) , the figure of the Djed was only a support figure and only assisted in social events like marriages or funerals.

Eventually also this new formed religious organization will be destroyed and the Bosnian people will fall under more dogmatical religious contexts but even then the local folk will never stop practicing their native traditions but unfortunately they will not succeed in conserving the meaning and mediocre scholars will trough out our history create all kinds of theories and lies about our heritage but I can feel the fog that surround those white stones is slowly disappearing and  the sound of people singing and dancing can be heard in the distance.