Book Chapter on Cultural Heritage and Conflict
The open-access book chapter entitled “Archives in Mnemonic Practices in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina” by the Archivum’s Interim Manager and Chief Archivist Csaba Szilágyi was published recently. It is part of The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict, edited by Ihab Saloul and Britt Baillie.
Archives of violent past(s) are attributed to multiple roles in transitional justice, from establishing truth, providing evidence in justice-making, and informing restitution to memory work and healing. Documenting human rights abuses, war crimes, and genocide, atrocity records carry difficult content and aesthetics. Activating them for memory work by affected individuals and communities can be most effective in archival environments that accommodate trust, empathy, and imagination, are hospitable to diverse voices and sensitivities, and prevent revictimization. Archives thus emerge in this specific postwar context as spaces of contestation, debate, and struggle for visibility and representation, but also as sources of inspiration for creative, dialogic memory practices.
Scrutinizing documentation and practice of select Bosnian non-governmental and state-run archival initiatives and institutions, as well as of international human rights archives in the context of the 1992–1995 wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Szilágyi elaborates on archives’ place in, as well as archives as a place of, knowledge creation and memory production.
The chapter also reflects on the limitations of memorializing mass atrocities in the archival space, and examines ways of recontextualizing and reusing archival records in artistic performances and cultural production—promising more fluid and transformative mnemonic practices.
Findings are based on participant observation and research in archival collections, public exhibitions and memorial spaces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, extensive years of critical archiving practice at the Blinken OSA Archivum, and examination of international artistic projects.
Szilágyi, Csaba, “Archives in Mnemonic Practices in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina,” in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict, eds. Ihab Saloul, Britt Baillie (Palgrave Macmillan Cham, 2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61493-5_170-1
