Archiving and Musealisation of Generational Memory. “War Childhood” by Jasminko Halilović and War Childhood Museum

Abstract

The work focused on the archiving and musealisation process of the collective memory of the youngest residents of the war in Sarajevo. The paper discusses two projects initiated by Jasminko Halilovic — a collection of memories entitled War Childhood and War Childhood Museum — whose purpose is to commemorate the war destiny of the city and its inhabitants. Referring among others to the theoretical findings made by Paul Ricoeur and research on post-memory, to works by Marianne Hirsch in particular, I show that childhood during the war has become a generational factor. Protection of memory and passing it on to children became a kind of duty for representatives of this generation. Both projects are also used to transform generational memory into post-memory, an inherited memory that will survive even when all witnesses and participants of the war events are gone.