The Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2025. Throughout the year, through various events and formats, the public has the opportunity to peek into the past and key moments from the museum’s rich history.
In the past eight decades, the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina has endured a lot. Founded just after the end of World War II as the Museum of the Revolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it has outlived both the state and the system that founded it, and then life on the front lines during the siege, wounded and damaged, but with its collections preserved. And today with completely new and different challenges.
In celebration of the 80th anniversary, publishing activities are of particular importance, with the focus on a book dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as an exhibition dedicated to the 80th anniversary of BHRT, sister and peer institutions, and a project they embarked on last year.
“Whoever looks into the archives of the BiH Television or BHRT, somehow admires the artifacts on the one hand, but with a certain sadness, almost sadness, and looks at those old objects and sees them from the context of today. We museum professionals, we historians, see them as valuable artifacts, valuable works that will only gain their full glory in the museum,” emphasizes the director of the Historical Museum of BiH, Elma Hašimbegović.
What stories are hidden behind the museum building, is the museum just a physical space or is it something outside of it, how do museum collections function, what is the inner life of a museum? These are some of the questions that the museum’s collective tries to answer to the public throughout the year through an online campaign, but also through numerous other forms and events that the museum has within
“So far, the History Museum has been written about, but the museum’s stories have not been so accessible to the general public. I think it is important to show how dynamic an institution the museum is, what functions the museum has performed over the past 80 years, how these functions have changed over time, and ultimately, how the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina has grown into what it is today,” says senior curator Elma Hodžić.
For some time now, work has been underway on the conservation of one of the most monumental paintings from the Collection of Works of Art – the painting “Juriš” by Ismet Mujezinović – in cooperation with professors and students of the interdisciplinary study of conservation and restoration at the University of Sarajevo, which otherwise adorns the museum’s lobby.
