Archaeological monuments and sites in Serbia. Edited by Giordje [Georgi] Bosković. Belgrade: 1953-1956

Archaeological monuments and sites in Serbia. I: Western Serbia. Editor “urђe Boškoviћ. Serbian Academy of Sciences, "Graђa", book IX. Archaeological Institute, book 2. Belgrade: 1953 // 219 p.

Archaeological monuments and sites in Serbia. II: Central Serbia. Editor “urђe Boškoviћ. Serbian Academy of Science, "Graђa", book X. Archaeological Institute, book 3. Belgrade: 1956 // 293 p.
-
Archaeological monuments and sites in Serbia. I: Western Serbia. Edited by Giordje [Georgi] Bosković. Serbian Academy of Sciences, Materials, Book IX. Archaeological Institute, book 2. Belgrade: 1953 // 219 p.

Archaeological monuments and sites in Serbia. II: Central Serbia. Edited by Giordje [Georgi] Bosković. Serbian Academy of Sciences, Materials, Book X. Archaeological Institute, Book 3. Belgrade: 1956 // 293 p.

A two-volume set of materials for the archaeological map of Serbia, including archaeological sites and monuments in Western and Central Serbia from the Paleolithic to the XNUMXth century; The editorial board under the chairmanship of Georgi Boshkovic also includes Milutin Garashanin, Miodrag Garbich, Alexander Deroko and Mirjana Todorovic-Lyubinkovic; Thanks to the several years of efforts of this group of scientists, quite young at the time, an enviable completeness of the presentation of the archaeological monuments and objects was achieved for this time of post-war scarcity; Excellent preservation of both volumes; The publication is equipped with a huge amount of high-quality drawings and blueprints - entire buildings, facades, sections, architectural details. Excellent print and black-and-white image quality.

The publication covers the lands of Western and Central Serbia. It seems that a third volume for Eastern Serbia and the area of ​​Kosovo and Metohija - for the lands east of the line Požarevac-Kruševac - should have been planned, but it did not appear for reasons unknown to us, at least not in the "Materials" series of the Serbian Academy of the sciences. The only reason for this not happening can only be political - the lands of Eastern Serbia include Bulgarian medieval and Renaissance cities such as Nis, Pirot, Zaichar, as well as the lands of the Western Bulgarian outskirts along the right bank of the Timok River and around the cities of Dimitrovgrad and Bosilegrad ( in Serbia after the Treaty of Neuilly of 1919). Fortresses, monasteries and churches from the time of Medieval Bulgaria abound there, and foreign travelogues from the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries describe these lands as inhabited entirely by Bulgarians. Probably overcoming these difficulties was beyond the strength of those who worked on the edition. Stranger is the absence of the sites in Kosovo and Metohija, which was the cradle of the late medieval Serbian state.

In 1954, Prof. Bošković became the director of the Archaeological Institute in Belgrade, practically the most influential person in the whole of Yugoslav archeology and the history of architecture and art. In his later works, he completely continued the Yugoslav tradition from the end of the XNUMXth and the first half of the XNUMXth century, that all medieval monuments from today's Eastern Serbia and North Macedonia be associated with the Byzantine tradition, and if this is impossible, due to their obvious Bulgarian character , to be declared forgeries*; this tradition, with few exceptions, in Serbia and especially in North Macedonia continues to this day.

The two volumes of "Archaeological Monuments and Findings in Serbia" outline another feature of working with large, relatively complete arrays of archaeological data - their publicity and accessibility. In our country, although in a different form**, this publicity and accessibility was also present at the same time. Especially after 1990, however, it became clear that such publications readily provided data on the archaeological sites of the treasure hunters who flooded the country in the early years of the transition. This was the reason why the modern Archaeological map of Bulgaria is only in digital form and only specialists have access to it, which made the looting of archaeological sites much more difficult. According to the old Yugoslav tradition, however, in North Macedonia they continued with the publication of paper*** of all the information about the archaeological wealth of the country. So it turned out that the long-term work of dozens of archaeologists from all the museums in North Macedonia was ready for treasure hunters, and the black market of archaeological values ​​has been flourishing since the 90s.

The books were acquired for the specialized scientific library of the National History Museum in 1980 by purchase. Apparently, they were part of the personal library of one of the most prominent Bulgarian archaeologists.
––––––––––––––––––––––-
* See Asen Chilingirov, Saint German Church next to Lake Prespa. Berlin: 2001, p. 22
** See Bibliography of Bulgarian Archeology (1879-1955), BAS Publishing House, Sofia: 1957 and Bibliography of Bulgarian Archeology (1879-1966), second revised and supplemented edition. BAS Publishing House, Sofia: 1974
*** Archaeological map of the Republic of Macedonia. MANU-MM, Skopje: item 1, 1994; Item 2, 1996 and Item 3, 2002

Text: Ivan Petrinsky