Motovun was placed on the tentative list of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites a bit more than a year ago. The Croatian Ministry of Culture was behind this felicitous move. The World Heritage Center immediately put Motovun on its website (whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5104/). Given the importance of UNESCO’s protection, this was wonderful news. It offered some hope against crazy development around the magical hilltown.

I skimmed the anodyne description of our town on the website, but did not pay it too much attention. Until a couple of months ago, that is. In the second paragraph I suddenly noticed a glaring error. According to the text, Motovun was continuously under Venetian rule between 1278 and 1779. In fact, it was under Venetian rule till the very last day of the Serenissima in 1797. And so I informed the World Heritage Center of the error. As no-one replied for a few days, I wrote to the center’s director, Francesco Bandarin. He replied quite quickly, and he mentioned his Venetian origins, which we share, but the gist of his reply was that the error could be fixed only by the ministry that supplied the original text. Without any delay, I wrote to Jasen Mesić, the deputy minister of culture responsible for Croatian cultural heritage. He chose not to reply. I wrote to him again about a month ago, but without any success.

To this day, Motovun’s page on the World Heritage website bears the wrong year, 1779. Although it is quite obvious that this glaring error is nothing but a slip of the proverbial pen, where the last two numbers exchanged places in haste, it annoys me no end. It exasperates me. To be a bit more forthright, it drives me nuts. For crying out loud, it shortens the life of the Venetian Republic by no less than eighteen years!

Addendum I (August 22, 2008)

Exactly six months later, the same glaring error is still evident on UNESCO’s World Heritage site. I must have written to all the assorted authorities in Croatia at least a dozen times, but to no avail. The years of the Venetian rule of Motovun are still the same, ending in 1779. What does this tell you about Croatia? Or Jasen Mesić, the deputy minister responsible for Croatian cultural heritage? This is but a banana republic, if banana, a first-rate fruit, deserves such a miserable destiny. Those eighteen years chopped off the life of the Serenissima are apparently there to stay. Indefinitely.

Addendum II (September 2, 2008)

Today I checked the Motovun page on the World Heritage site and was pleasantly surprised: the last year of Venetian rule has been fixed. Alleluia! It has taken almost a year, but it has been done. It is entirely possible that my relentless prodding helped a bit. By the way, I sent this piece and the first addendum to all concerned a few minutes after posting them on the World Wide Web. There is a glimmer of hope for Croatian cultural heritage still!