Nearly two decades after a brutal war that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, displaced two million from their homes, and destroyed museums and libraries, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s top cultural institutions are again in imminent danger — this time because of political conflict and neglect.

The Associated Press reported earlier this month that long-standing political disputes and dwindling state funding have forced seven of Bosnia’s oldest and most prestigious cultural institutions to begin shutting down.  Already, the National Gallery, Historical Museum, and National Library have closed their doors, while the 125-year-old National Museum (whose collection includes the famed 600-year-old Sarajevo Haggadah, considered one of the most beautiful and valuable Jewish manuscripts in the world) expects to close piece-by-piece in the coming weeks.

“By no will of our own, we have found ourselves in the middle of a political battle and have become a political problem,” National Museum director Adnan Busuladzic told The AP, referring to the failure by political leaders of the country’s Serb, Croat and Bosniak peoples to agree on what to do with Bosnia’s shared historical and cultural heritage, and whether to even preserve it.

At the end of Bosnia’s 1992-1995 inter-ethnic war, the country was split along ethnic lines into two parts linked by a weak central government with no ministry of culture and no obligation to provide permanent funding for heritage sites.  Bosnian Serbs largely oppose giving the central government control over cultural sites, arguing that each of the country’s ethnic groups should care for its own heritage.  Bosniaks, meanwhile, insist that safeguarding the shared history of the Bosnian people is one way to keep the country unified.

With no solution from the central government, the seven institutions received virtually no funding from authorities in 2011, meaning they can no longer pay their employees or even cover their utility bills.  The remaining institutions facing closure are the Museum of Literacy and Theatre Art, National Film Archive, and Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired.