Difficult Memories in Contemporary Museological Practice

Remembrance and commemoration of traumatic historical past has become one of the major issues of the international museological practice over the last decades. By means of architectural and exhibition design the contemporary museum poses questions concerning history, memory, identity, alternative perceptions of the past and the present. These questions become crucial not only for the self-consciousness and self-identification of certain groups of people, but of the whole nations, or even of the entire society. The present essay briefly examines a number of these issues in relation to several memorial museums of the last three decades, and poses theoretical questions concerning future museological perspectives on the realm of difficult memories.