Die Zweigstelle Halle und das Seminar für Slavistik laden herzlich ein zu folgendem Vortrag
Remaking Museums in the Former Yugoslavia: Memory, Controversy, and Political Conflict

The talk analyses the role of post-Yugoslav museums as active agents in the construction of collective memory and national identity in the wake of the conflicts of the 1990s. Contrary to the notion of neutral repositories, museums are interpreted as dynamic arenas of power, where the narrative of the past is selected and negotiated to meet the political and social needs of the present.

The study focuses on the materiality of the exhibited objects  and the scenographic architecture of museums, which undergo a semiotic transformation, becoming powerful instruments of testimony and identity construction. The work explores the tension between the 'de-Yugoslavisation' of cultural institutions and the emergence of competing narratives (local, national and global), classifying sites of memory according to their function of preserving, reconstructing or reconceptualising trauma.

Martina Ricci is a PhD candidate in Global History and Governance at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale (SSM) in Naples. Her research focuses on museology from a historical perspective, with a particular emphasis  on war museums and memorial sites in the former Yugoslavia. She is collaborating with the MEMPOP project, University of Ljubljana, to explore how folk and popular culture have been incorporated into museum installations to shape national identities in the post-Yugoslav landscape.