Heritage Without Heirs: The German Legacy in Serbia. The Case of the Museum of Danube Swabians

Abstract

This article focuses on the first historical museum in Serbia, established in Sombor in 2019 (the Museum of the Danube Swabians), with an exhibition devoted to the presence of Germans in Vojvodina. The artefacts presented at the exhibition, left behind by the Germans who used to live in Vojvodina, have been recognised as part of Serbia’s difficult heritage (the term coined by Sharon Macdonald). The article analyses the permanent exhibition and the museum’s efforts to involve the local residents in creating said exhibition. The article also asks whether the museum in Sombor can shape the collective identity of Serbs and undermine its ethno-nationalist character.The research presented in this article was supported by the Priority Research Area (Heritage) under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at Jagiellonian University, ‘Memory Rivalry in a Multi-Ethnic Society. The Case of Serbia’, grant no. U1U/P01/NO/02.64