Стопански фак ултет Книга 1/2021 (19) 32 Veselin Z. Vasilev* CULTURAL HERITAGE GOVERNANCE, POLICIES AND MANAGEMENT IN SERBIA Abstract: The article is set at the system of cultural heritage governance and management in Serbia, as a successor state of Yugoslavia, put to series of serious risks. These were not only economic downturn and public neglect, but also war and systematic destruction based on political and ethnocentric agenda. Since the beginning of the 2010s, the heritage community in Serbia was being given systematic public support in the form of fnance, legislation and priority. The article tests the efect of these institutional changes in practice using indicators on the museum visits, scholarly and curatorial activity and concludes that the rise in the number of visitors in museums in Serbia is hampered by a low cultural participation of the population and, additionally, by the lack of sufcient curatorial activity. Keywords: cultural heritage; governance; management; Serbia. Introduction With the collapse of the so-called Eastern bloc, the economic free fall, the “shock therapy” and the lack of institutional security put the cultural heritage governance at extreme hardships in the states of Eastern and Central Europe. Similar events followed in Yugoslavia, where the amalgam of small Balkan states united by their common Partizan past crumbled during the same years. However, the factors that afected cultural heritage were not only purely economic, war, embargoes and outright destruction of cul- tural heritage based on ethnic afliation are to be added, creating one of the biggest issues in that sphere since the Second World War. Thus, the study of those developments and the institutional measures for the revitalization of the cultural heritage in both protection and socialization are worth exploring. That is particularly valid for the successor state of Yugoslavia – Serbia. The systemic approach to cultural heritage in Serbia was ignited by the emerging Romanticism and nationalism in the end of the 18 th and the beginning of the 19 th centuries, mostly by single intellectuals such as Vuk Karadzic. However, the governance and management of cultural heritage developed quite late. The archaeological activity was dominated by the National Museum of Serbia and with the creation of the Archaeological Museum in the mid-20 th century, the archaeological work and its display increased dramatically 1 . Later, the cultural heritage management in Serbia became a leading one in comparison to other states from the end of the Second World War until the 1980s in terms of building conservation and restoration methods as well as in their integration within urban planning. That was supported by one of the most advanced legislation in the sphere across Europe 2 . 1 Cvjeticanin, T. Museum Archaeology in Serbia and the Myth of Museum Neutrality, Belgrade: Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, 2018, pp. 11–12 2 Živaljević-Luxor, N. & Kurtovic-Folic, N. TRANSVERSE ACTIONS FOR IMPROVING HERITAGE MANAGEMENT IN SERBIA. Madrid, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2015, p. 1129. * Veselin Vasilev – Professional in the area of administration and project management. MA in European Studies from Europa University Flensburg and Cand. soc. from the University of Southern Denmark, е-mail: veselin.zaharinov.vasilev@gmail.com