Looking at three museums: in Zagreb – Croatian History Museum –, and in Belgrade – Historical Museum of Serbia and Museum of Yugoslavia –, we analyze institutional narrative shifts during the dissolution of the country and the Yugoslav wars, and since 2010 till today. Using critical discourse analysis, embedded in memory studies, we ana¬lyze museums’ websites, and catalogues, complemented with ethnographic visits. While in the socialist Yugoslavia national historical museums had limited impact, during the 1990s they became actors of conflict narratives in the war-affected States, focusing on exhibitions reinforcing ethno-nationalist discourses, preserving the same narrative to the present. On the contrary, the Museum of Yugoslavia serves as an example of ambivalent politics towards socialist heritage, placing itself as a paradoxical hegemonic counter-memory actor.
