The war that raged through Croatia with greater or lesser intensity between 1991 and August 1995 left devastation behind it in many of the country's regions. Numerous villages and smaller settlements in the regions in which military operations were waged were destroyed. Historic cities and villages were wrecked, to mention only Dubrovnik, a city entered in the World Heritage List. Historic buildings too were devastated, above all churches and monastic buildings, in regions under long occupation. The appearance of many regions was changed. The natural vegetation went wild, and there was a gradual disappearance of cultivated land when it was not nurtured by human hand for a number of years. Thousands upon thousands of mines were laid, which has hampered the return of the population into some areas. This work of destruction, which has changed the face of the country, which has turned cities into backdrops for horror films and turned historic cities, or parts of them, like Vukovar, Pakrac, Lipik, Kostajnica, Gospi6, Karlovac or Oto6a6, into mounds of ruins, or the fearsome remains of burned down walls, mutilated facades and the shattered inventories of houses and churches, has fundamentally altered the image of the cultural milieu and the civilized framework of life of the people for whom it was home. The cessation of the work of archives, libraries and museums, the evacuation and in many cases decay, destruction or removal of their material, the damage or devastation of their buildings and other premises have all contributed to the loss of collective memory and of those ties with the past that were established as a result of the working of these institutions. Add to that the destruction and disappearance of economic resources, factories and other parts of the infrastructure relating to the economy and the power generation industry, and it is clear that in these areas the war destroyed all possible settings for life, both that which rested upon the past, and that which was building prosperity for the future. This spatial and cultural setting for life, made up of the natural environment and the material world which developed within it during the process of history, irrespective of how much people recognized it and experienced it, has in very large measure disappeared. The conditions for a re-establishment of a proper cultural setting and for the renewed functioning of life have also disappeared, and will be very hard to set up again.

And the people who were the users of the space and the inheritors of the cultural assets and natural resources, who lived in this space, taking advantage of what it had to offer and distinguishing its particularities, experienced enormous troubles and ill-treatment. Thousands of dead and tens of thousands of injured, hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons separated and contracted families made the war in this area doubly destructive. The idea of ethnic cleansing appeared, a new term, which affected whole areas and subjected large groups of people to forced evacuation of their traditional homes. The idea implied people being compelled to move out, rape and terror, and, at the same time, the destruction of traces of them in space, traces like historic buildings, churches, cemeteries and the whole of the religious and national collective memory. Human sufferings, the disappearance of people's native ground, the loss of the will to return, opened up new problems in the reconstruction and development of that part of the country that was subjected to war damage or was under long-term occupation.

The third change that went on at the same time in Croatia was the process of transition from a socialist to a democratic society, from a centrally planned to a market economy, the process through which commonly or publicly owned property became private and the process of establishing a new independent state on the ruins of one-time federal Yugoslavia. This change too had a crucial effect on changes in the way of life, on the development of social classes and the intensification of diversity in the economic basis of life. Although this kind of change can already be felt even in the war torn parts of Croatia, they were much more evident in parts that were not directly devastated.

The process of change of people's identity in the processes of forced evacuation and change of residence, the confrontation with a new natural, cultural and social surrounding, dramatic changes of place of residence (village-city, individual house-flat in a large block, owner occupied-rented, large house-hotel room and so on) brought about considerable changes in people's consciousnesses. The loss of the traditional spatial and mental (social) surrounding and the return to the native ground, which quite often no longer exists (at least, not in the way it exists in the mind and in memory), which most often comes down to a new mass produced house with mass produced furniture or perhaps resettlement in regions where some other people once lived, for return to one's own home is impossible or unreal -all this gives rise to very specific problems in the development of local communities in almost all parts of Croatia. Although they are still not aware of this, for they are busy solving vital matters of their accommodation, utilities and power supply and the creation of the basic conditions for human life, local communities will soon have to deal with the problems that arise later. Once again there will be the problems of cultural identity, collective memory, the spatial identity of the new or reconstructed home-town, which can only be facilitated by the creation of a new sense of community among people and a sense of belonging to a given milieu.

Museums, especially general museums, whether local or regional, which were partially instrumental in the transmission of the cultural identity of local people, will once again have to play a very important role in the processes in which people are reintegrated into the space and in the creation of new identities. What can museums do? Museums are places where people can find and get to know the deep roots of the history and tradition, the nature and art of the place in which they live. In museums, the material world of the past will be able to affect, culturally and ideologically, the new life of people, making them aware of their long existence on that ground. The long established will find their roots there, in a recognizable if sometimes modified forms, and newcomers will be able to get to know the milieu into which they have come. They will gradually adapt their behavior and cultural habits to their new milieu, not neglecting some of the characteristics and habits immanent to them. Thus in this new surrounding they will create a new amalgam, which will result in a feeling of belonging, a new identity even. The new inhabitants will with this start out on a long-term process of adapting to their new natural and cultural surrounding, mutual acquaintance making and adaptation. They are duty bound to learn as much as they can about their hew home, while not neglecting what they have brought with them. They will have to achieve a reciprocal homogenization, forming a small new cultural whole, irrespective of the variety of their origins.

In those process, schools, libraries, cultural and artistic societies and other cultural institutions will have a large role to play, each in its own way. And museums will have a particularly specific task, for their language is different from the language of the teacher, the book or poem, theatre or dance. Their language is to some degree abstract, although it rests upon concrete material. Museums in reality offer a kind of interpreted truth about the region and the milieu they work in. For them to succeed in this, people have to understand the language, speech and meaning of things. And yet it is the things that have been destroyed, cast aside or abandoned in the war. New people bring new things with them. The purpose of museums is to bring about the coexistence of things which have not lost their sense. They are here to respond to new challenges.

What can museums do to play this new historical role? First of all they have to shake off the traditional approach to that part of the work in which they achieve a close integration with the surroundings in which they are at work. This relates on the one hand to the gathering of material, and on the other to its communication. Preserving and studying material are not subject to changes to such an extent. Now, in these Croatian regions, it is necessary in the literal meaning of the word, to begin to collect the material world of the present, which will in some of its segments also contain a part of the world of the past.

Where there are none, where there have never been any, museum collections have to be started to be formed from things that contribute to a sense of human community. Traces of the past should be collected, testimonies to the war, human self-sacrifice and courage, as well as the things that the new people have brought with them to create a link with the area from which they have come. Dead things transmit living messages through the medium of the museum. Museums bring things to life, give them the chance to speak.

Museums that have existed, that have organized collections which they have stored, evacuated or removed to some safer place, are returning to their milieus and beginning to work once again. They cannot continue with their work as if nothing had happened. Registering the new structure of the local community in which they are working, noticing the changes that have taken place in space, they will soon start to gather new material which will bear witness to the changes in the natural, social and cultural ambiance of their milieu. This material will complement that material that constituted the museum fund before the misfortunes of war swept over the region.

An interesting example took place in the Museum of the City of Vukovar. It was not evacuated, but even today lies in that part of Croatia which is not reintegrated into Croatia proper. At the moment the temporary UN administration, UNTAES as it is called, lies there. A good part of the find was taken during the occupation to Serbia (to Belgrade or Novi Sad). But out of the desire for the continuity of the work of the Vukovar Museum not to be interrupted, the Vukovar Museum in Exile was set up in Zagreb during the war. Many artists donated works to the museum as a pledge for the uninterruptedness of the institution. The Vu6edol Dove from a prehistoric site near the town became a permanent symbol of the devastated city. At this time the idea of the museum in Vukovar is the idea of continuity, resistance and reconstruction. And this museum when it opens in Vukovar again will necessarily be different. With its fund (when it is restored, and according to the extent it is restored) it will continue to bear witness to the existence of Vukovar in a historical sense, but with the fund of its time in exile it will also give testimony to the war, the heroism of Vukovar, to the city that became the symbol of the war, of the devastation and of the fates of those who disappeared- it will also, quite certainly, take account of the processes of reconstruction when they begin. It will collect traces of what it will not be possible to restore but what has endured as a material remains. It will cherish the image and character of Vukovar and its inhabitants in these most tragic of its historical changes.

Communication of the messages via the material collected has always been, and will be, one of the most important forms of museum work, and is most evidently manifested in public. The giving of shape to messages and the power of the exhibition communication medium is the strength that the museum has to work in public and thus to give shape to the collective identity of some milieu.

The museums in those parts of Croatia directly hit by the war ought to take this opportunity to show how irreplaceable their own work is. No matter what quality of interpretation and manner of exhibiting are available to them, depending on the premises, equipment and financial resources, museums have to take on their role in the interpretation of the material and the milieus in which they live. Some museum collections and institutions have already begun to exhibit their material and to interpret the historical and cultural settings of the milieus in which they work. Travelling exhibitions from other milieus show people that their area has not been forgotten, and also create the habit of visiting exhibition spaces. The openings of parallel exhibitions of Chinese landscape painters and the war-ravaged landscapes in the paintings of the Croatian artist Nada 2iljak, which I attended in Pakrac as part of European Heritage Day, are a good example. In the old baroque Town Hall of Pakrac, which did not suffer in the war, these exhibitions encouraged people to visit these areas and the town council to found a local museum.

The openings of exhibitions are, among other things, social events in which people are happy to take part. They are also forms of social communication. People like getting together at exhibitions, seeing things that they know or recognize and wish to identify with. Together with some small educative segments, through which a link between past and present can be set up, an exhibition can encourage talk about the similarities and differences of the milieus from which people have come to this new, to them, milieu. The exhibition space can thus become a kind of a focal point for gathering and for the creation of a new identity.

With an increase in the economic base of local communities and perhaps with the help of the international community other ways of communicating the museum message might be developed. Publications about local things of value would expand the horizon of people. Videos and CD ROMs could with time enter the homes of those capable of using them. This kind of virtual museum could also express its messages in some other focal points of the local community. Arranging individual localities where historical memory in space has been preserved, the reconstruction of settlements and historical complexes of houses or rural and urban nuclei, in which consciousness of the need for protection and practical interpretation of these values would be in-built, will encourage people to make the identification with the historical space. Small notices including discreet interpretations of such places that are an invitation to thought create a feeling of belongingness to the country and found it on not only emotions but also on an acquaintance with certain facts and phenomena.

The economic and cultural development of local communities in Croatia, especially in the regions that have been particularly affected by war and occupation will depend in good measure upon the quality of museum activities. Museums this time too will be able to play a renewed role as generator of culture and catalyst in the creation of a new (old) identity for people, for those who have endured enormous economic and cultural harm, physical and mental pain and suffering during the war years. Trusting to the Latin primum vivere deindephilosophare (live first, philosophise after), it is logical that the establishment of museum activities to the full and the stimulation of their work will follow only when the basic conditions for people's life and work have been provided. However, the logic of museum work makes a temporary solution possible as well; during the process of the work of the reconstruction of the economy and of houses this will give people a certain amount of relaxation and an unconscious foundation for the new community via the collection and interpretation of values that have been preserved and that will come to life once more. On the one hand this is done by church communities, stimulating people to gather together, to live together, reconstructing the church buildings. They develop one of the forms of spiritual community, which in Croatia is founded on an age-old tradition. Museums though should complementarily develop other forms which would stimulate the collection, preservation, study and communication of the material culture so as to establish and preserve the cultural identity of the community. They would thus gradually become the nucleus for the collective memory of a given milieu. Here it is not even crucial what the quality of the gathered material is. In time it will grow and be supplemented. It is important to have and to preserve one's own credible testimonies, which will talk about themselves in such away as to encourage them to a common life. An ordinary object, a fragment, shard, remains, photographs, letters, utensils or ornaments can bear witness to human life on a certain soil. Diversity too is a quality that can be seen in the museum collection. Of course, great things like works of art, great architectural finds, the opulent contents of houses and churches, rich costumes and similar prestige items have their own cohesive attractiveness. People like to gather round and identify themselves with articles of great value. There is no dispute here. However, it is not always possible to have this. So it is necessary to find magnitude in small things, identity in the quotidian, which, transferred to the museum medium will become a genuine testimony of the times.

The education of museum personnel is based largely on the known premises of museum work. In recent time training programmes have extended, on the one hand, to an ever wider theoretical, sociological and philosophical approach to museology and museum work, and, on the other, to ever more sophisticated forms of practical work. Both options have their base in the structure of museum work. Museology is gradually developing into an academic discipline and through its own development is evolving new methods and approaches to the concept of the museum. On the other hand, with new technology in the research, preservation and physical protection of objects, linked with the possibility of communicating with the public in various ways, the need arises for students to be acquainted in more detail with the methods and opportunities of this kind of work. From the point of view of museum work, it is clear that there is an ever firmer bond between museum institutions and the general process of the global protection of historical buildings and wholes, of the cultural and natural landscape. A museological interpretation of the cultural heritage is more and more in demand. In the context of these processes, it is exceptionally important to mention that we in Croatia have sensed gaps in the knowledge, and so in the training, of museum personnel, unfitting them to respond completely to the tasks and challenges that the war and its aftermath have posed the museum profession as a whole. We were able relatively successfully to evacuate a good part of the museum material from dangerous and war-tom regions, but we had too little support, or perhaps did not stress enough the need for quality storage for this material in its new locations. Today, we are taking the museum material back to the places it was evacuated from, but we are not getting enough support from local governments to re-activate museum institutions. The personnel of the museums are getting on with its job in the traditional way. There are not enough initiatives and undertakings to draw attention to the fact that a changed situation requires a change in the manner of work, first of all with respect to the collecting of material and the communication of its messages. Therefore, it is our task to set up short intensive courses for the staff of local museums, at which we should be able to refresh their theoretical and practical knowledge about the topic of collecting today for tomorrow, as well as the topic of how to set up a new sense of local community through museum communication. At the same time it is necessary to bring into our museology syllabus things that will be able to answer the question: "How can people be helped to find their identity in a totally new natural, cultural and social environment?" The urgency of this has become completely clear after the destruction of the war in our country, after the enormous shifts and migrations of the population, the total rebuilding of devastated historical settlements and the disappearance of the centuries old signs which showed people who they are and where they are from. Education has to enable the new generation of museum professionals to give answers to these questions and challenges too.

Zagreb, October 5, 1996

Prof. Dr Ivo Maroevic Zagreb University Croatia