A New Institution for Serbian Memory

Abstract The destruction of the joint Yugoslav state was accompanied by a sharp alteration of the country’s narrative about the country’s experience of the Second World War, which shifted from a focus on the Yugoslav partisans to ethnically-classified civilian victims of war. In 1992, the Republic of Serbia founded the Genocide Victims’ Museum, which was responsible for the preservation of the memory of the victims of the genocide of Serbs, Jews, and Roma; the collection of information on war atrocities; and was also intended to fulfill the country’s obligations under the International Convention on Genocide Prevention and Punishment. This article explores the Genocide Victims’ Museum’s memory strategy in the context of contemporary Serbian history. It also analyzes the transformation of the narrative of victimhood formulated or supported by a state-sponsored institution, interpreting it as exemplary of the “shift from heroization to victimization” in the politics of memory within the European context.