Božo Biškupić, Minister of Culture
Five Stars Croatia Issue 2 — April 01, 2007.

The continuing tradition of building heritage protection in Croatia goes well into the 13th century when the town preservation methods were first established/decreed by the town statutes (of Korčula, Dubrovnik, Split etc.).

Organised care of the cultural heritage protection through the state conservation service can be traced back to the year 1854 when the Court Chamber and Military Council in Vienna appointed Vicko Andrić the first conservator for Dalmatia.

Throughout history the conservation service faced numerous obstacles in the cultural heritage preservation on the territory of today's Croatia, but the major challenge was facing the destruction and damages of cultural heritage originating in the period of military aggression against Croatia from 1991 to 1996. The war has destroyed or induced damage to more than 2500 buildings under protection amongst which sacral buildings suffered most, whereas the military aggression led to plundering of thousands of tangible cultural goods.

Such vast conservation experience acquired throughout centuries, as well as the wartime experience, prompted the ideas regarding the strategy and policy of cultural heritage preservation in independent Croatia. The commitment to a complete reconstruction and restoration of war-damaged heritage, as well cultural heritage that was neglected during the socialist regime, required new arrangements in the setup of the cultural heritage preservation system. Funds coming from state, county and city budgets were insufficient for covering even humanitarian needs, but funds have nevertheless been provided for the preservation and post-war cultural heritage reconstruction and restoration as well.

In 1999 the Republic of Croatia passed the Law on the Protection and Preservation of Cultural Goods[1] that has brought complete changes into the existing policy of the protection of cultural heritage. Most important, it provides a setting for the protection of intangible goods, as well as of the areas recognized as cultivated landscape.

The owners of protected cultural goods, together with the conservation authorities, become a key figure in protecting and taking the protective measures. The Conservation Department is a unit of the Ministry of Culture responsible for setting up protection of goods, informing the public and giving grounds for the protection and measures providing for preservation, thereby assigning the task of cultural heritage protection not to services but to the citizens as well, to the state government as well as the local government. By marking the cultural goods and publishing the Registry of cultural heritage of the Republic of Croatia together with all the undertaken researches of the cultural goods, the Croatian citizens have been continually educated about the importance of heritage for the cultural identity of Croatia.

The system of protection established by the 1999 Law clearly regulates the protection measures that conservation departments can use, differentiating measures that can be carried out without the permission of the owner, as well as the ones that can be carried out in cooperation of the owner and the conservation department. However, beside the owner, the protected goods, especially the building goods, can be used by numerous other persons. This is why the provision that obligates them to participate in the preservation of the cultural heritage they use was added to the Law. This is how the monument annuity, as a price paid for the use of heritage, becomes the key factor in establishing the system of heritage management with the means of protecting it.

Collecting the monument annuity in the period from 2003 until 2006, the means invested in the protected cultural heritage were doubled, and by the end of 2007 it is estimated that it would be tripled in comparison to 2003 when 100 million HRK was invested from the National Budget. The continuous increase of the investments in the heritage has started programmatic activities in the cities such as Split, Dubrovnik, Osijek, Zagreb and many others where the goal is not only to preserve the protected heritage but to present it to citizens as well as to increasing number of tourists.

The construction of great infrastructural systems, such as highways across Croatia, has resulted in the greatest amount of archaeological excavations until now, both in number and in importance, all of which are being carried out as a part of investment programmes. Even in this segment the Law has established the framework that has become the rule accepted by every investor.

The system of heritage management with the means to preserve it is unthinkable without the continuous investments in knowledge. As a consequence, the Law has regulated licensing of all the workers who participate in protection and preservation of cultural goods. Today in Croatia numerous entrepreneurs and artisans (contractors, architects, restorers etc) are specialised in works for the preservation of the cultural heritage, that in cooperation with conservation authorities make its protection sustainable.

In 1997 the Croatian Government decided to merge two separate restoration facilities into one - the Croatian Restoration Institute - forming the backbone of restoration activities in the Republic of Croatia. In ten years the Croatian Restoration Institute, in addition to eight specialized workshops in Zagreb, established workshops in the towns of Ludbreg, Osijek, Dubrovnik, Split, Juršići and Vodnjan in the Region of Istria, with a workshop in Šibenik and the Centre for Underwater Archaeology in Zadar soon planning to be open. The Croatian Restoration Institute comprises more than 250 restorers conducting activities related to preserving of Croatia's major cultural goods.

The policy of sustainable preservation of cultural heritage, launched by the Law on Protection and Preservation of Cultural Goods in 1999, has created close ties between conservation authorities, owners and cultural goods beneficiaries, as well as providers of all kinds of activities related to the protection of cultural goods, thus creating synergy effects. This can be observed today through improved conditions of cultural heritage. In 2004 the Ministry of Culture, as a  founding and developing element of such strategy and policy, commissioned studies of development projects which associate the investments in cultural heritage preservation and the development in entrepreneurship and employment incentives, that is to say the development of the Croatian economy. The first such project was launched in 2005 for the Vukovar - Vučedol - Ilok area. The project expects to encourage economic development in the Vukovar - Vučedol - Ilok area. Within four years the amount of 267 million HRK are going to be invested in the reconstruction and restoration of cultural heritage in the towns of Ilok and Vukovar, which were damaged during the Homeland War, as well as in the excavations at the renowned Vučedol archaeological site.

From 2004 the Ministry of Culture has embarked on enhancing the investment policy and initiated investments into the setting up of new museums, in particular: the Archaeological Museum Osijek, the Archaeological Museum Narona in Vid near Metković, the Museum of the Early Man in Krapina, the Museum of Antique Glass in Zadar, The Sacral Art Museums in Split and Trogir, the Marko Polo Museum on the island of Korčula, the Emigration Museum in Zagreb, the Homeland War Museum. Together with these, there is a joint project of the Ministry of Culture and the City of Zagreb of building a new facility of the Contemporary Art Museum, in addition to the already existing one, and the restoration of the Rikard Benčić Palace for the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka.

Increased international cultural co-operation established through the Ministry of Culture with the Council of Europe and UNESCO resulted in the ratification of all the international agreements in the field of cultural heritage protection (building heritage, archaeological, submarine heritage, non-material heritage etc.) It is very important to emphasise that the Republic of Croatia was the first country in Europe to ratify the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

Many citizens and city mayors have already recognized, and numerous factors have contributed to the strategy of the Ministry of Culture by initiating activities related to the protection of cultural heritage in the cities, thus contributing to its success. In line with this, the Split City Administration has launched the removal of all advertisement signs from the building facades inside the Diocletian Palace. The ten-day activities were conducted with the approval from the citizens of Split, and to the great satisfaction of all cultural heritage devotees. This example has well prompted other cities into action, which are now planning to engage in similar activities, and has asserted a strategic formula: Cultural heritage is way too important to be left to the care of conservators alone.