Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-qks25 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-22T08:53:23.604Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

No future? Narrating the past in Bosnian history museums

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Joachim von Puttkamer
Joachim von Puttkamer*
Affiliation:
Imre Kertész Kolleg, Jena, Germany
*
∗Email: joachim.puttkamer@uni-jena.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent unrest and the 2014 elections have corroborated the impression of Bosnia as a failing state, one that is constantly being undermined by the three-way impasse between constituent ethnic groups of Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs. Major history museums in Bosnia, however, provide a more complex picture. This paper analyzes museums and exhibitions on twentieth-century history in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and Jajce, with regard to their narrative strategies, their aesthetic appearance, and the commemorative practices in their respective locations. From this perspective, the use of history in building group identity in Bosnia is far from coherent. Although museums are one means to assert firmly entrenched national identities both old and new, they compete at the same time with nostalgic commemorations of socialist Yugoslavia and with equally nostalgic references to the Austrian occupation. Various civic groups struggle to assert their visions of belonging, mostly with rather modest financial means. Based on these findings, this paper will explore not only the underlying assumptions of what history and, in particular, museums are all about, but also how visions of the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina are inscribed in these uses of history – if indeed they are.

Keywords

historyBosniamuseumYugoslavia
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 44 , Issue 5 , September 2016 , pp. 789 - 803
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bajic, Ljuban, Lolić, Milan, Maksimovic, Branka, and Anders, Maja. 2004. Muzej Republike Srpske: Vodič. Serbia: Banja Luka and Art Print.Google Scholar
Baur, Joachim, ed. 2010. Museumsanalyse: Methoden und Konturen eines neuen Forschungsfeldes. Bielefeld: transcript.Google Scholar
Beier-de Haan, Rosmarie. 2005. Erinnerte Geschichte, inszenierte Geschichte. Ausstellungen und Museen in der Zweiten Moderne. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Beier-de Haan, Rosmarie. 2006. “Re-Staging Histories and Identities.” In A Companion to Museum Studies, edited by Macdonald, Sharon, 186–197. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bešlagić, Šefik. 1958. “Spomenici NOB-a u Jajcu i njihova zaštita.” Naše Starine 5: 69–94.Google Scholar
Burić, Fedja. 2010. “Dwelling on the Ruins of Socialist Yugoslavia. Being Bosnian by Remembering Tito.” In Post-Communist Nostalgia, edited by Todorova, Maria and Gille Zsuzsa, Zsuzsa, 227–243. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Duijzings, Ger. 2007. “Commemorating Srebrenica. Histories of Violence and the Politics of Memory in Eastern Bosnia.” In The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Post-War Society, edited by Xavier Bougarel, Elissa Helms, and Duijzings, Ger, 141–166. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Giebelhausen, Michaela. 2006. “Museum Architecture. A Brief History.” In A Companion to Museum Studies, edited by Macdonald, Sharon, 223–244. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
te Heesen, Anke. 2012. Theorien des Museums zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius.Google Scholar
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. 1994. Museums and Their Visitors. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. 2000. Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jurjavčić, Katarina, Kokalj Kočevar, Monika, Martinčić, Vanja, Strlič, Nataša, Šparovec, Jožefa, Štepec, Marko, Vraničar, Ivo, et al. 2013. Slovenians in the 20th Century. Permanent Exhibition Guide. Ljubljana: National Museum of Contemporary History.Google Scholar
Knežević, Neda, and Panić, Ana, eds. 2013. Yugoslavija. Od početka do kraja [Yugoslavia. From the Begining to the End]. Beograd: Muzej Istorije Yugoslavije.Google Scholar
Korff, Gottfried, and Roth, Martin, eds. 1990. Das historische Museum. Labor, Schaubühne, Identitatsfabrik. Frankfurt: Campus.Google Scholar
Lažetić, Predrag, and Radović, Anđelija. 2013. Vojni muzej Beograd. Beograd: Vojni muzej.Google Scholar
Lübbe, Hermann. 1982. Der Fortschritt und das Museum. Über den Grund unseres Vergnügens an historischen Gegenständen. London: Institute of Germanic Studies.Google Scholar
Milak, Enes. n.d. Muzej II Zasjedanja AVNOJ-a Jajce [museum brochure]. Accessed June 20, 2016. http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=Milak+Muzej+avnoj.Google Scholar
Moll, Nicolas. 2013. “Fragmented Memories in a Fragmented Country: Memory Competition and Political Identity-Building in Today's Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Nationalities Papers 41 (6): 910–935.Google Scholar
Nikolić, Dragan. 2012. Tre städer, två broar och ett museum. Minne politik och världsarv i Bosnien och Hercegovina. Lund: Lunds Universitet. http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=2535209&fileOId=2535224.Google Scholar
Pavlaković, Vjeran. 2013. “Symbols and the Culture of Memory in Republika Srpska Krajina.” Nationalities Papers 41 (6): 893–909.Google Scholar
Petrović-Ziemer, Ljubinka. “Sarajevo und seine (Ge)Schichten von (un)erhörtem Leid.” Unpublished manuscript, to be published at http://www.cultures-of-history.uni-jena.de.Google Scholar
Pomian, Krzysztof. 1988. Der Ursprung des Museums. Vom Sammeln. Berlin: Wagenbach.Google Scholar
Radojić, Milica, and Vračar, Janko. 2014. Veliki Rat 1914. Sprske zemlje I Evropa u prvoj godini rata. Banja Luka: JU Muzej Republike Srpske.Google Scholar
Radonić, Liljana. 2010. Krieg um die Erinnerung. Kroatische Vergangenheitspolitik zwischen Revisionismus und europäischen Standards. Frankfurt am Main: Campus.Google Scholar
Rüsen, Jörn. 2013. Historik. Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft. Weimar: Böhlau.Google Scholar
Sahovic, Dzenan, and Zulumovic, Dino. 2012. “Obsolete Cultural Heritage in Post-conflict Environments. The Case of AVNOJ Museum in Jajce, Bosnia Herzegovina.” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 14 (2): 245–262.Google Scholar
Tevapčević, Nataša. 2014a. “Museum of Image – Nation (Das Museum als Ort der permanenten Konferenz).” Unpublished M. A. thesis Berlin, Hochschule der Künste.Google Scholar
Tevapčević, Nataša. 2014b. “Performing Heritage – The Visitor as Actor – The Museum as Stage.” Paper presented at the conference Interpret Europe 2014. Heritage Interpretation and Tourism, Primošten, Croatia, May 10–13.Google Scholar
Todorovski, Zoran. 2012. Museum of the Macedonian Struggle for Statehood and Independence. Museum of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation; Museum of the Victims of the Communist Regime. Skopje: Muzej na Makedonskata Borba za Državnost i Samostojnost.Google Scholar
Touquet, Heleen. 2011. “'You Have to be Something.’ Alternative Identifications and Postethnic Mobilizations in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Transitions 51 (1-2): 153–169.Google Scholar