Emir Durmišević, a concept artist, illustrator and animator, has translated his knowledge of the rulers of the Bosnian Kingdom, along with his artistic and creative abilities, into an illustrated book. On the pages of this book, readers – especially younger ones, but also all others who want to learn about the famous rulers of Bosnia in an interesting way – will have the opportunity to learn about the history of this country and its rulers through the lives of the kings and queens of Bosnia.
"The past of the Bosnian Kingdom is an extremely stimulating and very suitable topic for historical, literary and artistic treatment. Therefore, it is understandable that numerous local historians, writers and artists found inspiration for their author's works in it. Emir Durmišević's work stands out from the multitude of valuable approaches with its original and creative interpretation, which demands as much from us as it offers us. In the book 'Offered and Queens of Bosnia', the author's views of some of the main characters of the medieval Bosnian past, based on an exaggerated or exaggerated representation of their features, whereby such a perspective does not give a completely distorted picture of reality. Namely, in shaping his characters, the artist tried to identify and present certain recognizable characteristics of the ruling couples of the Bosnian Kingdom on the basis of known and available information about them from contemporary written or pictorial sources. appearance of Bosnian kings and queens, but the author skilfully overcame this difficulty with the effort invested to present their identity as authentically as possible through small details and allusions to well-known episodes from their lives, through carefully drawn costumes, weapons, objects and cities where they lived and stayed, through contemporary artistic styles, etc. In this way, he produced a relatively reliable interpretation, adapted and simplified in an accessible format for easy understanding, entertainment and education. What the work asks of us is to develop a common-sense and unencumbered understanding of the past through it, to question our relationship to the medieval heritage that we should build without uncritically glorifying distant rulers, but also not to diminish their importance or devalue their political role in the overall historical development of the Bosnian state and society. The book will be of particular importance to those who are encountering the topics of the medieval Bosnian past for the first time because it will open the door to a long-lost world full of intriguing characters and stories, thus providing them with an inexhaustible source of entertainment, "interests and lessons."
Emir O. Filipović, Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo