Selakovic: Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo-Metohija under continuous attacks

BARCELONA - Continuous attacks on Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo-Metohija as well as attempts to rename it and forge history have become everyday occurrences, Serbian Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic said in Barcelona on Wednesday, noting that Serbia continued to work tirelessly to preserve and protect the endangered cultural heritage.

At the MONDIACULT 2025 conference on cultural policies and sustainable development, Selakovic said next year would mark 20 years since the inscription of four Serbian cultural heritage monuments in Kosovo-Metohija on the UNESCO endangered world heritage list.

"Since 1999, more than 10,000 icons, church artefacts and liturgical items have been destroyed or stolen and 150 churches and monasteries damaged or burned to the ground, with some of them dating back from the 13th or 14th century, and the same is the case with 122 graveyards. In March 2004 alone, over the course of two days of organised attacks, 34 churches and monasteries were destroyed," Selakovic said at a panel titled Culture and Climate Action - Culture, Heritage and Crises.

The attacks in Kosovo-Metohija keep happening on a daily basis, Selakovic said, noting that this was a model of culturicide.

"There are three steps. The first step is destruction of culture. That is physical destruction, bans and similar things, which is only a prelude to genocide and ethnic cleansing. Therefore, the first step is destruction of culture. The second step is historical forgery, erasure of history. The result of that is cultural cleansing. The third step is theft of culture from the victim. That is historical cleansing. After all these three steps, what do we have? A perfect crime," Selakovic said.

To the Serbian cultural heritage, this happened three times in the 20th century - during WWII, in the Independent State of Croatia and in the 1990s, during the breakup and the destruction of the former Yugoslavia, Selakovic said.