Cultural heritage is the spiritual and moral backbone of a nation, and preservation of cultural heritage is a question of identity, especially of the Serbian people, said the Minister of Education and Culture of the Republic of Srpska, Natalija Trivić.

– The historical framework in which we live imposes a special responsibility on us, so as not to break this vertical connecting the ancestors with new generations – said Trivić in her address at the opening of the scientific conference Heritage and Identity/ies in Banja Luka.

She noted that active involvement of the public in the process of preserving the heritage played a great role in raising citizens’ awareness of the importance of cultural heritage, through appropriate education and information about cultural heritage and its importance for the affirmation of cultural identity.

– We must preserve, protect and leave the cultural heritage to future generations, as our ancestors had left it to us. If we know who we are, in which direction we are moving, and exactly what we have, then we can define the culture of our society. By building a cultural identity, a society defines the culture – said Trivić.

Ranko Popović, a full professor at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Banja Luka, said that heritage and identity of a people were the largest and broadest topic potentially concerning the humanities, such as ethnology, ethnography, anthropogeography, national anthropology, national historiography and many others.

– It is an endless sea of knowledge, which is in principle very difficult to demarcate. Therefore, this gathering is an opportunity for interweaving of those areas of very related knowledge – said Popović.

Slobodan Vladušić, an author and full professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Novi Sad, said that it was a great challenge to preserve the cultural and historical heritage of the Serbian people at the present time.

– A well-designed cultural and educational policy is required on the one hand, and to enable each individual to fight for their own cultural heritage as if it were their personal, rather than national – said Vladušić.

Source: RTRS

Photo: SRNA