Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15291/sic/2.15.lc.6
O relativiziranju imperijalističkog nasilja: muzealizacija rata u vojnim muzejima u Beču i Istanbulu
Jeremy F. Walton
; University of Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract
In this essay, I examine two premiere national military museums, Vienna Heeresgeschichtliches Museum and Istanbul’s Harbiye Askerî Müzesi, with attention to how each museum renders the legacies of interimperial warfare. In particular, I interrogate the curatorial display of spoils of war and the representation of collective subjects in each museum to argue that they harness and relativize imperial-era violence for the ends of the contemporary nation-state. In the context of the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, I focus on the presentation of the Ottomans as definitive enemies of the Habsburgs on the basis of exhibits depicting interimperial battles, especially the 1683 Siege of Vienna. Secondly, I interpret the uncanny relationship between the Habsburg Empire and the Austrian nation-state through the display dedicated to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. With regard to the Harbiye Museum, I focus on the ideological ethnonationalism that saturates the exhibits and the ambivalence that this ethnonationalist commitment entails in relation to the Ottoman Empire and its military exploits. Finally, I conclude with a more general meditation on the dilemmas that challenge both museums due to contemporary commitments to international peace. What, ultimately, does the musealization of bygone interimperial warfare entail in relation to the international political aspiration of peace today?
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
335098
URI
Publication date:
1.6.2025.
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