SERDŽADA OF BANJA LUKA

It seems strange that an extremely valuable item of the artistic heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina such as the serdžada (prayer rug) of Banja Luka has been almost forgotten for decades, even to an extent that its very appearance is not reliably known. All the other parts of Bosnian art with a “pedigree” (such as Bosnian rug, anterija /overdress/, demirlija /copper tray/ or ibrik /pitcher/) have had a tinge of peculiarity and traditional value woven into the collective memory.

However, the serdžada of Banja Luka has a tradition longer than all those listed above, since very few items of Islamic art in Bosnia were thoroughly documented before the 17th century while the serdžada of Banja Luka dates back at least to that time. Its absence from history may be related to the elite character of production and treatment, which stopped suddenly in the mid-19th century. Thereupon, the memory of the serdžada entirely disappeared since very few samples remained in Bosnia. Thus, it is a luxury item which was far more expensive than any other kind of serdžada. It often had a special treatment, and was used for the prayer only on exceptional occasions while it was typically used as decoration on the walls.

The reason why we know so little about the serdžada of Banja Luka is the fact that not a single specimen has been found in Bosnia and Herzegovina. How is it possible?! The answer may be found in a limited production, historically speaking, since these serdžadas were only custom made. The second reason is the orientation toward exports, or perhaps they ended up out of Bosnia due to some unfortunate circumstances. The former claim is supported by the fact that both public and private collections in the world have preserved only few specimens.

As the author of this text, I have been searching for serdžadas of Banja Luka for years, and so far I have found only about thirty specimens, in museums. Their scarcity is confirmed by the data that unlike hundreds of Persian and Turkish rugs on the global market, only one or two serdžadas of Banja Luka appear in a year. Today, though only since recently, we have a total of three serdžadas of Banja Luka which are donations of foreign citizens.

The earliest date when the serdžada of Banja Luka was mentioned is the late 17th century, when it was part of the list of legacy of Anatolia beglerbey and Bosniak hadži Ahmed-pasha. The list of items which he bequeathed was made in late 1690, and it included four serdžadas made in Banja Luka, and particularly one finished and one unfinished serdžada. We can therefore conclude that its production dates back far to the 17th century, or even earlier. From various historical sources we know that these serdžadas were highly admired, which is obvious from the data about their owners, and from their price, which was many times higher than that of other similar products. However, the biggest problem is that it is difficult to track the history of the serdžada of Banja Luka due to a very small number of preserved specimens, and particularly because we cannot know how it looked like in its earliest days. On the other hand, we are convinced that they have not been made after 1850.

Serdžadas of Banja Luka have the central mihrab motif with a vase and flowers. It is their leitmotif which recurs and by which they are recognizable. The vases are stylized and the flowers are local (carnations and roses). On the margins (surroundings) we also see vases with flowers, or only flowers, and in few cases the house architecture as well. Still, in a technical, and perhaps aesthetical sense, the beginnings of the serdžada of Banja Luka can be discerned in making decorated Ottoman military awnings. Since Bosnia was a military borderland for centuries, it makes sense to assume that manufacture of military tents was at least partly based in Bosnia, due to practical transport, and not accidentally in Bosanska Krajina and the city of Banja Luka as part of it. Military tents of Ottoman sultans were ornamented with applications. Some decorative samples on these tents are very similar to what we can see on serdžadas of Banja Luka, which is obvious on a tent which is now held in the Military Museum in Stockholm and which draws origin from the siege of Vienna in 1689. Although floral motifs on this specimen are very big and adjusted to the decoration of large surfaces, compositional grouping and highlighting of flower bouquets inevitable reminds of the aesthetics of serdžadas of Banja Luka and, even more importantly, indicates how these serdžadas may have looked like at the time.

Thus, the way or application on serdžadas of Banja Luka was similar to that on tents. It is even more evident on some other awnings, probably made in the second half of the 18th century, which are identical to the looks of serdžadas of Banja Luka of the time. The style of development of Ottoman military awnings was unusually though authentically reflected on the style of serdžadas of Banja Luka, although these influences could have been mutual at some moment.