Syncretisms of Heritage Institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Contribution to Scientific Valorisation of Their Historical and Current Relationships

Abstract

  Tradition but also the current practice of heritage institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina show, as their continuous characteristics, similar developmental patterns, but also complement current practices between the most prominent representatives of heritage institutions of today – archives, libraries and museums. Converged practices of heritage institutions are found throughout their whole history, both at the general, global level, but also at the Bosnian-Herzegovinian, particular level. Despite the obvious parallelisms, but also specifics in tradition and activities of heritage institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Bosnian-Herzegovinian science-publishing there is an obvious gap in comparative studies related to interrelations between the most developed heritage institutions of this area, in their diachronic but also synchronic perspectives. Despite the fact that unique historical origin but also later reliance and convergence between these institutions are obvious in the case of the past of Bosnian-Herzegovinian libraries, archives and museums, actual institutions’ syncretism is even more obvious today – often encouraged by changes in wider information and communication environment, but also by changed users expectations. An interdisciplinary notion of syncretism in this paper is used in its metaphorical sense, describing processes of the development of heritage institutions from their common origins, but also their later convergence trough processes such as: replacement role of one heritage institution until the establishment of the other one, joint storing of heritage materials without institutional division, integrated activity of archives, libraries and museums “under one roof”, all the way to the joint digitization projects, gathering heritage profession under joint professional organizations, as well as, at the and, the joint academic degree programmes, which, under the generic term of information sciences, are integrating these three prominent heritage disciplines within this framework. Therefore, the paper aims to contribute to the scientific valorisation of interrelations between Bosnian-Herzegovinian heritage institutions, both in the past and present time.