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Life’s work secured: 300 running meters of unique documents and 70,000 pictures document a once open culture.
The University of Basel has received a gift that is as valuable as it is rare: the entire holdings of the Bibliotheca Afghanica Foundation. This worldwide unique collection of contemporary testimonies of Afghan culture will be transferred from the Basel area of Bubendorf to the holdings of the University Library (UB) in Basel over the next six to eight years.
Legend:
Collection founder Paul Bucherer in 2007 with exhibits from the temporary Afghanistan Museum in Bubendörfer Exile after their return to Kabul
Keystone/AP/Musadeq Sadeq
Paul and Veronika Bucherer-Dietschi once founded their private collection in Basel and opened it to the public in 1975. It has been formally a foundation since 1983 and is under federal supervision. Their stock is very extensive and means for the UB “several man-years” of work for the integration and inclusion in their catalogues, Bucherer explains to SRF.
Travel to Afghanistan starting in 1971 aroused the Bucherers’ curiosity and enthusiasm for the rich culture of the country on the Silk Road, which was hardly known in this country. Initially specialized in nature, culture and history, in the years after the Soviet Union invaded in 1979, the two collected information about the war, the occupation and the resistance of the population.
«Collection unique in the world»
According to the university library, an important phase was documented in this way: The publications of the resistance also show the change from an open Islam shaped by Sufism to the jihadism of the mujahideen and the Taliban. Thousands of prints from the resistance are in the collection, which, according to UB, show the change to extremism. It is a “worldwide unique collection”.
Legend:
Two of the showcases of the temporary Afghanistan Museum in Bubendorf before it was returned to Kabul (archive photo 2006)
Keystone / Friedel Ammann
Bucherer’s commitment received the accolade when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Unesco took over the patronage for the repatriation of the “Afghanistan Museum in Exile” from Bubendorf to Kabul in 2007. In particular, this museum housed exhibits from the National Museum in Kabul, which were intended to be protected from civil war and looting. This happened at the suggestion of the Taliban and with the blessing of conflicting parties.
The Bucherers ran this temporary museum with historical objects from Afghanistan from 1999 to 2006. It was a temporary addition to the collection’s writings and visuals. Unlike the museum goods, the collection items were always owned by the Swiss foundation.
Incidentally, trusting contacts with leading heads of conflicting parties meant that Paul Bucherer also acted as a mediator. He also created a touring exhibition entitled “Towers of Knowledge” that was commissioned by the Afghan Ministry of Education and is still circulating in Afghanistan today and, according to the University of Basel, gives the war-ravaged country a piece of national identity.
I turned 81 last year – and nobody lives forever.
Bucherer now explains the timing of the donation with his age: “I turned 81 last year – and nobody lives forever.” The board of trustees pushed for a long-term solution.
Legend:
In 2001, the Afghan Zemaray Hakimi, who lives in Switzerland, and Paul Bucherer explain the background to developments in Afghanistan at the Afghanistan Institute in Bubendorf.
Keystone / Markus Stuecklin
The donation to the University of Basel was planned decades ago, says Bucherer. This maintains a Bibliotheca Indica in the UB, to which the Afghanistan library fits perfectly.
A part of the collection, namely images, will remain in Bubendorf for the time being because the UB does not have an air-conditioned image archive for it. In Bubendorf, on the other hand, he has such rooms with a constant temperature of 18 degrees and humidity of 30 percent.