SUTJESKA YUGO TOUR

The massive concrete Tjentište Monument was designed by the notable Yugoslav architect Miodrag Živković to honour the heroic war efforts of the Partisans in the Battle of Sutjeska. The opening between its two 19m tall concrete wings represents the Partisan breakthrough out of Axis encirclement. In the Yugoslav era, this monument was considered the most significant WWII memorial in the country, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors a year

Memorial House next to the Tjentište Monument features an impressive modernist design with pointed roofs of concrete and glass which resemble either mountain tops or shepherd huts from the surrounding area. Its architect was the Montenegrin Ranko Radović and inside we find 13 frescoes by the Croatian artist Krsto Hegedušić, depicting battle scenes among the names of exactly 7,356 fallen Partisan soldiers. Your guide explains the frescoes and translates the inscriptions in the museum.

The exhibition that used to be housed in the basement of the Memorial House has been moved to a separate building after partial destruction in the Bosnian War of the 1990s. Among the survived exhibits we find Partisan and Axis uniforms and weapons along with an explanation of the main events of the Battle of Sutjeska.

In the Yugoslav era, Tjentište was visited by thousands of organized excursions of school classes, youth brigades and the pioneer Yugoslav youth movement. The memorial complex did not only serve as a monument to past sacrifices but also as an outdoor classroom to actively communicate and teach the Yugoslav vision of a new society, free of fascism and ethnic tension, in the spirit of brotherhood and unity. To accommodate pupils the complex was equipped with a campsite, a youth hotel and an enormous outdoor swimming pool.

As a socialist brochure from the 1980s states about the Sutjeska National Park: “here every piece of soil, every stone – is a monument”. And as such the entire Sutjeska area was established as Bosnia-Herzegovina’s oldest national park in 1962, with the Zelengora mountains on the westbank and the Perućica primeval forest and Mount Maglić on the eastbank. Throughout this protected area of wild nature another 79 monuments remind of the Sutjeska Battle and we visit the most significant ones.

On the way back to Sarajevo we make an urban explorer stop at the devastated brutalist style Miljevina Motel. This roadside motel was built on the way from Sarajevo to Tjentište at the outskirts of Miljevina as a later expansion of the hospitality infrastructure for the Sutjeska National Park. During the Bosnian War of the 1990s this building was used as the headquarters of the Miljevina Crisis Committee, which was responsible for war crimes at this location and in the wider area.