While spatial organization of memories and their insertion into citiscapes was traditionally considered a product of the contemporary ideological framework and work of political elites, the ways and forms in which we bring memories back to the present significantly changed during the last decade. Memory management became a collective process – cultural workers, local communities, tourists and visitors, residents, international community, NGO sector – they all participate in shaping new realities of memory places. Drawing on this new tendency, the paper will address alternative urban memory practices emerging in recent years across post-communist CEE, in the interplay of state and private actors, international and local communities, cultural production and market rules. It will analyse some of the major tendencies of the "contemporary" mnemonic regime, such as internationalization, commodification, touristification and disneyfication of memory places, focusing on the new mechanisms for dealing with the "unwanted" legacies of dictatorship in Europe.
The paper reflects on two cases of memory management related to the uncomfortable sites of totalitarian regimes in former Yugoslavia, focusing on their interaction with European expertise, funding and memory culture. First case adresses the fortress Mamula in southern Montenegro, former concentration-camp which after years of neglect and random pilgrimages has been recently turned into a luxury 5-star resort. While the decision to turn memorial site of death and suffering into an exclusive hotel facility raised significant international interest, there were almost no local initiatives to stop this unusual business arrangement. The second case analyzes reconstruction and transformation of Tito's boat Galeb into a museum-ship with accompanying tourist contents. The musealization of the controversial vessel funded from the EU grant was heavily contested and politically discredited as a nostalgic memorial to "dictatorial past and national oppression" going through significant political turmoil, economic hardship and societal challenges in order to ensure necessary local support.
In order to address the complex issue of memory management of "difficult" European pasts, the project aims to apply the influential concept of 'loss aversion', which refers to cognitive bias describing how the pain of losing something is psychologically more powerful than the pleasure of gaining the same thing. Thus, we argue that the contemporary obsession with memory in Europe is a direct consequence of 'loss aversion' mechanism, as preservation and maintenance of mnemonic capital is considered superior to loss and substitution of these elements. The discussion of mnemonic challenges in post-Yugoslav space in the framework of 'loss aversion' theory aims to shed light on the different modes of re-appropriation of the uneasy past of dictatorships. While the actors, discourses, processes and outcomes of memory work seem relatively diverse, the project aims to analyse whether certain patterns of convergence may be emerging, showing that the mnemonic landscapes of post-communist cities share some similar traits. The capacity to identify these patterns and at the same time embrace the diversity of approaches, actors and heritage processes seems to be crucial for coming to terms with the turbulent legacy of XX century in Europe.
