0150700022 Hrvatska bratovstina BOK LJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb Rectu CLT I CIH I ITH lvo Skanata President Le 1 1 DEC. 2018 24 November 2018 N0 ...........................t!?r.~~-- .. Mr. Tim Curtis, Secretary of the 2003 Convention Section of Intangible Cultural Heritage UNESCO 7, place de Fontenoy 75352 Paris 07 France Dear Mr. Curtis, let me say, on behalf of the Croatian Confratemity Boka Navy 809 Zagreb (Hrvatska bratovstina Bokeljska momarica 809 Zagreb), that we expre~s our resolute opposition to the submitted nomination of the Boka Navy for inscription on the UNESCO Representative list of the intangible cultural heritage, especially bearing in mind that this is a cultural good of the Croatian people of Montenegro, regardless of where its members now live. The Boka Navy is a cultural phenomenon, both by lasting for millennia and by the characteristics which made it special in comparisOn to other such occurrences on the Mediterranean coast. In the consciousness of her heirs, the Boka Navy does not exist as an association, to them it is a tradition. Or more precisely, it is an association which became a tradition. Precisely this transition from material to spiritual explains why it is still here after twelve centuries, and why thousands alike have ended their historic walk 200 years ago. In its long history the association has been banned and abolished several times or it would disappear in the ruins of the city forts and the smoke of burnt down buildings during the invasions of Kotor, such as those that happened in the first centuries following its foundation. lt was always restored from the outside, initially through the wishes of the community to continue acquiring material goods and defending the heritage and the community itself, and in the past century and a half to meet the spiritual needs of said community. 10000 Zagreb, llica 48 MB: 3249506 • 018: 03189734311 • tiro rafun: ZABA lBAN HR5323600001101513859 TeJ: 01/ 6050·182 • Mob: 099/6547-407 • e-mail: [email protected] Predsjednlk/Gastald: lvo Skanata Hrvatska bratovstina BOKELJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb Of course, it is the product of the spirit of a relatively small group of people who, despite numerous challenges, managed to preserve their national recognisability, living the destiny of peoples outside their home state. When we say that the Boka Navy needs to have a prominent place in the treasury of world cultural heritage, we do not think that the conditions for that have been fulfilled with the submitted nomination. On the contrary, it has several disputable points, which indicate that in preparing the nomination the binding provisions of international acts, recommendations and standards have not been applied to the necessary extent, nor have the best practices in international protection of cultural heritage been used. In other words, that nomination is not a good recommendation for the Representative List. Our efforts to discuss the controversies first within the family of heirs have unfortunately not yielded any results. Talking to a deaf ear were also the persuasions of our relatives, friends, neighbours, acquaintances, with whom we lived together in Boka not so long ago, about dialogue being the only way leading to the Representative List and that there was no other way. The bearers of the nomination, however, went their own way and without companions, leaving us with no with other option than to present everything we wanted to say to them to the UNESCO body which is to decide on the nomination, with the request to take the remarks of this motion into account. We have decided to take that step, convinced that we were taking it to the benefit of the Boka Navy, a cultural good, and all those concerned by that good, and hoping that the recommendations to eliminate the shortcomings of the nomination, issued by said body, will be accepted by Montenegro. In this motion, which due to our lack of practice in such cases, may be somewhat more extensive than the usual ones, we will argue the following: 1. The nomination process did not enable for participation of all interested communities; 2. The nomination document contains inaccurate data; 3. Montenegro has groundlessly rejected the partner offer of the Republic of Croatia for the two states to nominate the Boka Navy together. Ad 1. The main characteristic of the procedure completed by submitting the nomination to the UNESCO is the lack of dialogue. When we say that, we mean to say that it was not conducted at the working table, where all the prospects of presenting the cultural good to the world were negotiated. In this ambience, from the beginning to the end, it was conducted exclusively between two sides- the Boka Navy, headquartered in Kotor and Montenegro state authorities. We would not, however, be wrong in saying that the state conducted that dialogue in fact with itself, given that the head person of the non­ governmental organization, which is the legal status of the Boka navy, is a high official in the Montenegrin government. The representatives of the Croatian national community in Montenegro were not given the opportunity to give their opinion on the content of the nomination dossier, even though Groats were listed as heirs in its Montenegrin version. This also happened to the representatives of the Catholic Church, the priests of 10000 Zagreb, llica 48 MB: 3249506 • 018: 03189734311 • Ziro racun: ZABA IBAN HR5323600001101513859 Tel: 01/6050-182 • Mob: 099/6547-407 • e-mail: [email protected] Predsjednik/Gastald: lvo ~kanata Hrvatska bratovstina BOKELJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb the Kotor diocese, who are mentioned in the same document as having an important role in religious rituals. The importance of both mentioned communities for the Boka Navy is only discretely mentioned in the document. The real truth in fact is: were it not for the Catholic Church and Groats, there would not be a Boka Navy, and even less a cultural good. The expectations of Boka people living in the Republic of Croatia about the nomination being implemented in good faith implied that they too would be adequately involved in the proceedings. In this sense, the wishes expressed by caretakers of the same tradition from the five Croatian cities was not met well by Montenegro. The answer was a rejection of any discussion on the matter and an even stronger influence by the state on the course of the process. The communities that have given the cultural good to Montenegro for safekeeping thus remained excluded from the nomination process. Even if we had not read Article 15 of the Convention on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, even if we had not familiarised ourselves with the ICH-02 form with clear instructions on how to apply this article in practice, we would have known by feeling, logic, nature of things and justice that the project team should have included representatives of mentioned communities. The project bearers, as may be concluded from the dossier, have however, utterly misinterpreted said provision about the need to actively engage the "widest possible circle" of interested communities, groups and individuals in the process. In the filled-in section 4.a of a form in the dossier, the 500 words quota does not include the names of any other community, group or individual except for the Boka Navy, headquartered in Kotor. Considering the Boka Navy a proof of their millennia! presence in the area of Boka Kotorska, Groats in Montenegro have requested for national identity of the cultural good to be highlighted in the nomination dossier. Given that this issue is also touching upon the area of national minority rights, they presented it at the session of the Croatian-Montenegrin Mixed Intergovernmental Committee for minorities held in May 2017. The Montenegrin side has committed to devote attention to it, as well as to the possibility of a joint nomination with the Republic of Croatia. The president of the Croatian national community in Montenegro is still waiting for a meeting with the minister of culture, requested in spring of 2017, to discuss this topic, while Croatia concluded only from the proceedings of Montenegro that there would be no joint nomination. The question of national identification of cultural goods in a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state such as Montenegro, in which the native people is only a relative majority, may be a sensitive political issue, but is also crucial to the survival of peoples living in it. Particularly sensitive to this is the less numerous autochthonous Croatian community (0.9% of Montenegrin population), which as such has no strength to resist assimilation processes. Demographic forecasts warn about such alarming situation, saying that if current trends were to continue, in 50 years there will be no Groats in Montenegro. This means that every ten days or so, two to three Groats either change their national identity or conceal it, or dye or move out of Montenegro. In preventing this grim scenario, the Croatian community needs the help of the state in which it lives and of the home state of the people it belongs to. 10000 Zagreb, llica 48 MB: 3249506 • 018: 03189734311• Ziro racun: ZABA IBAN HR5323600001101513859 Tel: 01/ 6050-182 • Mob: 099/6547-407 • e-mail: [email protected] Predsjednik/Gastald: lvo Skanata Hrvatska bratovstina BOKELJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb A clear request by the Croatian minority community, was replied to by the highest level of Montenegro state authority, the prime minister: "Montenegro, as a country that inherits multiculturalism as a core value, treats its entire heritage as integral and complete, without dividing it according to national affiliation, because those are cultural values belonging to the citizens and the entire society, with which everyone has the right to identify'*.