Valuable archival material from the period of the Republic of Dubrovnik (1022 – 1808) was presented at the exhibition. At the end of 2023, the material was included in the UNESCO list of 'Memory of the World', as well as items from the holdings of the Dubrovnik Museums.
Dubrovnik, our wall-girt city, was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List in October 1979, at the third session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Egypt. It was placed on the representative list of the world’s cultural heritage as a medieval planned city that as early as the 13th century had become an important sea power and, notwithstanding the destructive earthquake of 1667, managed to preserve its architecture – Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque. In December 1994, the zone enjoying UNESCO protection was expanded so as to cover the Pile and Brsalj plateau in the west, the moat along the outer edge of the defensive walls in the south, Lazareti in the east and Lokrum Island in the south. In 2018 the contact zone around the Dubrovnik historical nucleus was significantly enlarged.
In December 1991, after devastating attacks from air, sea and land, Dubrovnik was put on UNESCO’s World Heritage in Danger List and was only taken off this list in 1998, at the express request of the Republic of Croatia. Part of the UNESCO world heritage, Dubrovnik had not expected war in the area, and when at the end of summer 1991 war was already heating up in the east Slavonia theatre of war, Dubrovnik invited Slavonian refugees to take shelter under its wing. It did not expect war with its attacks and destruction, particularly not highly destructive attacks of the kind that took place on December 6, 1991. At the end of October 1991, UNESCO joined in the promotion of peace in the Yugoslavia of that time and the preservation of its cultural and natural heritage, when Director General, Federico Mayor, sent representatives to Belgrade and Zagreb to determine the extent of the damage and to propose measures for the effective protection of UNESCO sites. At the end of November, the special envoys of the Director General travelled to Dubrovnik, the fist time ever UNESCO officials had been dispatched on a mission to an area in the grip of war. As they arrived in Dubrovnik at the time of the fiercest destruction of the city on December 6, 1991, they sent a preliminary report to the Director General, quickly followed up by a detailed review. Pursuant to these reports, on December 12, 1991, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee put Dubrovnik on the World Heritage in Danger List. UNESCO remained actively involved in registering the damage to the Dubrovnik monumental heritage, in the implementation of protective measures and in its renovation until 1998, when at the request of the Republic of Croatia, in its 22nd session, held in December 1998, in Kyoto, it “decided with great satisfaction to delete the Old City of Dubrovnik from the List of World Heritage in Danger”. As a result of the collaboration of UNESCO experts, local and state institutions charged with the protection and renovation of the monumental heritage, the Dubrovnik Restoration Institute and the Institute for the Protection of Monuments of Culture and Nature of Dubrovnik in 1992 a project was begun to draw up a Plan of Action, aimed at presenting the monumental values of Dubrovnik, initiating systematic protection, the determination of the methodology for the renovation the monuments as well as for the training of personnel for the renovation. It was also a plan for the protection of the Dubrovnik monumental heritage damaged in the war of 1991 and 1992 and a call to the international community to become engaged in the renovation.
UNESCO General Director Federico Mayor arrived in Dubrovnik in person on December 22, 1991, in order to initiate the action for the renovation of the city itself, and reacted sharply in September 1995, after the shelling of the general Dubrovnik area by Serbian forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, warning that any attack there might be on Dubrovnik would be considered a war crime. Alongside the Conservation Department in Dubrovnik and the Dubrovnik Restoration Institute, UNESCO took an active part in the whole process of the renovation of Dubrovnik as well as in the promotional and educational activities that accompanied it. In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted four members of the Yugoslav People’s Army for crimes committed during the occupation of the Dubrovnik area and the siege of Dubrovnik in 1991. Although the indictments and the trials included crimes against the civilian population, it was the deliberate devastation of the Old City of Dubrovnik, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, upon which both the trials and public opinion were focused. This was the first time that crimes against the cultural heritage had been at the centre of any international criminal procedure, one in which sentences totalling fourteen and a half years of imprisonment were handed down.Exhibition
Organizer: Dubrovnik Museums, State Archives in Dubrovnik
Exhibition project concept: Ivona Michl
Objects selection for Dubrovnik Museums: Marina Filipović, Ana Kaznačić Skurić, Ivica Kipre, Mario Thon, Lucija Vuković
Objects selection for State Archives in Dubrovnik: Zoran Perović
Archival research: Vesna Miović, Ana Prohaska Vlahinić, Paula Zglav
Language Editing: Katica Vidojević
Translation: Graham McMaster
Visual Set Up: Željko Ćatić, Ivona Michl
Graphic Design: Studio m&m
Restauration and preparation treatment: Željko Ćatić, Katija Maškarić, Ivan Mladošić, Josipa Marić, Sanja Pujo, Marija Vraničić
Installation Team: Pasko Burin, Željko Ćatić, Mišo Kukuruzović, Ivan Mladošić
Multimedia: Studio Beluga, Pixel design & Vizir
Music selection: Marin Kaporelo
Lenders: Grad Dubrovnik, Zborna crkva sv. Vlaha, Prirodoslovni muzej Dubrovnik, Teo Grbić, Krešimir Magdić, Matko Vierda
The exhibition was produced with financial support from the City of Dubrovnik.