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The exhibition "Three lives of the Sarajevo Haggadah"
On the occasion of the 131st anniversary of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and with the support of the UNESCO and the Embassy of the United States in B&H, we present the exhibition Three lives of the Sarajevo Haggadah.
The exhibition sheds light on and follows the journey of the Sarajevo Haggadah from the medieval Aragon Kingdom, via Italy, to Sarajevo, where the National Museum bought the manuscript at the end of the 19th century.
Selected pages from the Sarajevo Haggadah, as well as comparative material – archival documents, pages from other medieval manuscripts, objects from archaeological and herbarium collections, give the insight in circumstances and reasons for this enigmatic Hebrew manuscript creation. The exhibition is completed with minerals, which in the medieval times were the base for dyes used in manuscripts, and the documents on the Haggadah’s journey to Vienna, where for the first time it was a subject to expertise.
The exhibition underlines not only artistic and aesthetic uniqueness of the Sarajevo Haggadah, its specificities that single it out of the other, very few, medieval Sephardic haggadot, but, in a wider sense, its cultural and historical importance and role of book in spiritual life of Jews in general.
A part of the exhibition make facsimile editions of the Sarajevo Haggadah published so far, including the first one from 1898, and the latest, published in 2018 by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the sole publisher for the first time.
Authors of the exhibition Three lives of the Sarajevo Haggadah are Dr Aleksandra Bunčić and Dr Mirsad Sijarić.
The exhibition will be opened for public in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 1 February 2019 at 15:00. The new edition of the Sarajevo Haggadah will be launched the same day at 19:00.
