„Protecting a library is not an easy task,“ says Mustafa Jahic, „especially during wartime.“
It was 1992, the siege of Sarajevo had begun, and Jahic – then the director of the Gazi Husrev-Beg public library – had in his care a priceless, ancient collection of hand-written books and illuminated manuscripts.
„The Gazi Husrev-Beg library contains the memories of all the generations of the last 1,000 years. More than 100,000 items. Everything from manuscripts to printed books,“ says Osman Lavic, the library’s keeper of manuscripts. …