Loading player
Despite only starring in five films and one television series, martial arts master Bruce Lee has been one of the most recognizable figures of the twentieth century and a cult “pop” phenomenon for over fifty years. There are three very famous statues of the actor in the world (plus many other “minor” ones): two are in places that marked his life and his cinematic fortune, Hong Kong and Los Angeles, the third in a place that has not direct ties to Lee: Mostar, Herzegovina (the southernmost region of Bosnia and Herzegovina). In reality, the statue of Bruce Lee in Zrinjski park in Mostar, the first to be erected, has been missing for a couple of months: a man had stolen it and torn it to pieces, and at the moment it is not known when it will return in its place.
Bruce Lee was chosen in 2005 as a symbol of unity in a city that struggled to find others to share, but the history of his statue was nevertheless complex, even before the latest theft. After the first inauguration it remained in place for only a day and a night, before being vandalized, while discussions lasted for a long time on which part of the city the bronze Bruce should look at, before finding a compromise solution.
Mostar was one of the symbolic cities of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which began in 1992 after the dissolution of Yugoslavia. When the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its secession, the Bosnian territory was inhabited by three main ethnic and religious groups: Bosnian Muslims, Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs. Mostar was besieged and bombed by the Serbs in 1992: initially the Croats and Bosnians fought together and managed to drive away the common Serbian enemy.
Since 1993, Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims (also called Bosniaks) entered into conflict: in Mostar the former occupied the western part of the city, the latter the eastern part. The two halves of the city, divided by the Neretva river, had been united since 1557 by the Stari Mostil old Bridge built with 456 blocks of white stone by the Ottoman architect Hajrudin Mimar: its destruction became one of the symbols of the horrors of war in the former Yugoslavia.
The Old Bridge in Mostar after reconstruction (AP Photo/Amel Emric)
Today the bridge has been rebuilt and the central area of Mostar has become a very touristy place, full of souvenir stalls. From the bridge, aspiring divers wait to collect enough money from tourists before taking the plunge. The city, however, remains very divided from an ethnic and religious point of view and has been so since the end of the war, thirty years ago.
At the beginning of the 2000s it was decided to build a monument in the central square of Zrinjski, which would give a signal of unity in view of a different future, far from war divisions. In the city, monuments, buildings and street names had been (and in part still are) the subject of nationalist or ethnic tensions and claims, which also led to acts of vandalism. Not finding a historical figure who united the various components of the population, the Mostar Urban Movement, a non-profit youth organization, proposed Bruce Lee.
(Damir Sagolj/Reuters)
Lee had had no ties to Serbs, Croats or Muslims and was seen as a “universal symbol of the fight against injustice”, but also of “loyalty, skill, friendship and justice”. Nino Raspudić and Veselin Gatalo, the two promoters of the initiative, said: «It represents the good that wins. We will always be Bosniaks, Serbs or Croats: but one thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee.” Lee had been very popular in the 1980s and 1990s in Yugoslavia, and martial arts were enjoying a moment of great popularity in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.
The Mostar Urban Movement collected almost 5,000 euros in donations, including from the German government and the Chinese embassy, and had the statue created by Croatian sculptor Ivan Fijolić. The first problem was deciding its orientation: Lee’s menacing, combat-ready pose was considered a possible “provocation” by Muslims and Croats. No one wanted him to look belligerently towards his own part of the city, thus being interpreted as a defender of the other. Raspudić and Gatalo finally decided that it would be oriented towards the north and would therefore look towards a neutral zone.
It was inaugurated on November 26, 2005, one day before what would have been Lee’s 65th birthday (he died at the age of 32) and above all one day before another inauguration, that of the statue with the same subject in Hong Kong. Representatives of the German government and the Chinese embassy and many local kung-fu enthusiasts were present at the opening. The party didn’t last long: after just one day the statue was vandalised, removed for restoration and returned to its place only 8 years later, in 2013.
Apart from a few minor incidents, it has since experienced years of “peace”, becoming a popular attraction for a growing number of tourists, mostly surprised to find in Mostar a tribute to a character who seemed so out of context. In 2007 in Zitiste, Serbia, it had also inspired a similar operation, a monument to Rockycharacter from Sylvester Stallone’s film series.
However, on March 3 this year the statue she’s missing, taken away during the night: the park area is under video surveillance, like many other areas considered sensitive in Mostar. Furthermore, it was necessary to use a van to take her away: she is 168 centimeters tall, four less than Bruce Lee’s actual height. Within a few days the police identified the perpetrator of the theft and arrested him, also finding the statue torn to pieces in his home. He is a 46-year-old resident of Mostar: the police believe that the objective was to melt the bronze of the monument to resell it.
The base of the statue remains in the park, used by some tourists to take photos posing “Bruce Lee style”. Local authorities have not speculated on the timing of a possible return of the monument. Interviewed by Radio Free Europe, Catallo, one of the promoters of the construction said: «It’s not a drama, the statue was just an object. What matters is the idea.”
– Read also: The most influential martial arts expert in modern history