Exhibiting Memories of a Besieged City. The (Uncertain) Role of Museums in Constructing Public Memory of the 1992-1995 Siege of Sarajevo

The author examines museums in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and their exhibitions dealing with the city’s most traumatic event in recent history—the 1992-1995 siege. She analyses how the interpretations and re-interpretations of history in these museums have been affected by social, political, cultural, and institutional contexts, and how various ‘memory entrepreneurs’ have played a role in building the public memory of the city’s siege. The analysis focuses on, but is not limited to, three museums: the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Tunnel Museum, and the War Childhood Museum. This discussion is supplemented by an analysis of other museums in Sarajevo that also demonstrate how the political deadlock in the country has affected the cultural sector. The author argues that the various museums to have opened in Sarajevo in recent years indeed have the potential to become crucial public spaces where authoritative notions of history, memory, and identity can be critically examined, negotiated, and contested.