Remembering the Destruction of the Old Bridge at Mostar 30 Years On

This symposium marks the 30th anniversary of the destruction of the Old Bridge (Stari Most) in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina on 9 November 1993, an emblematic event in the history of deliberate attacks on cultural heritage during conflict. On that day what had been one of the world’s most beautiful and renowned bridges crumpled into the River Neretva under the impact of Bosnian Croat shelling during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War. Built in 1566 on the order of Suleiman the Magnificent at the zenith of Ottoman power and splendour, the Stari Most was one of a group of architecturally significant sixteenth-century structures in Bosnia-Herzegovina that did not survive intentional destruction during the war of the 1990s. The destruction of the bridge was to feature in one of the major war crimes trials of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), while its reconstruction focused global attention on the structure once again.