Does The Memory of Socialism Need To Be Decolonized? Heritage of European Socialist Dictatorships in Museums And (New) Possibilities of Its Reflecting in Emancipatory Ways

Result code in IS VaVaI

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Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Does The Memory of Socialism Need To Be Decolonized? Heritage of European Socialist Dictatorships in Museums And (New) Possibilities of Its Reflecting in Emancipatory Ways

Original language description

As a famous book by David Lowenthal (1985) title says, &quot;the past is a foreign country&quot;. From the perspective of today&apos;s findings on intercultural encounters, we know that even the well-intentioned discovery of foreign lands does not have to be (and often is not) based on egalitarian relationships nor is it fully innocent. On the contrary: it is usually strongly affected by stereotypes, a sense of superiority and direct or implicit instrumentalization of what the visited Other offers. In the cultural sense, we can consider as Stranger without doubt not only a foreigner in the literal sense, but also people living in the past in general or bearers of marginalized collective identities and dissent collective memory.One of the traditions on which the institution of the museum grew is, in addition to the Enlightenment ideal of cataloging the knowledge and making it accessible, the concept of the cabinet of curiosities. Although we don&apos;t always admit it today, this feature still influences some forms of museum narratives and is also reflected in history museums - being present in manners, in which contemporary history is musealized, as well. In former socialist countries it is often observable in ways of displaying the history of the second half of the 20th century. The socialist past is, in fact, exoticized within the narratives and visual expression tools, which aim to show the period as distinctly different from the present: bizarre, shocking, ridiculous, retrograde. The choice of topics and artifacts displayed is subject to their simple attractivity as visible signs of otherness and to potential to arouse emotions. Thoughts and values of some social groups are sometimes interpreted in strongly presentist spirit or become objects of commodification, without any endeavor to approach genuine mentality and feelings of the people in the past. On the other hand, the huge debate about decolonizing our viewing of cultural heritage and its application in museums, seems to not completely avoid the museums of newest history. There are, in the widely understood region, institutions (eg. Museum of Yugoslavia in Belgrade) which, in contrast, consider the methods of postcolonial studies as a valuable tool to grasp the heritage of the former socialist countries and strive to address it in a more emancipatory and sensitive way.The paper will focus on the phenomenon of exoticization of the socialist past in museum presentations and the possibilities and limits of postcolonial approaches to reflect this period and its heritage. Based on examples from current museums in East-Central Europe and with a special regard to the context of Polish history we will mainly try to answer following questions:- in which way is the socialist past exoticized and what are the reasons for this?- what does the otherness of the socialist experience consist of?- to which extent the common view of this period could be affected by the &quot;Western gaze&quot; and to which extent it is a result of the inner development of post-socialist societies?- how postcolonial theories can help to grasp the socialist past and to narrate about it?- what are, on the contrary, their limits?- if the main purpose of the museums is, &quot;to preserve the past from the aggression of the present&apos;&apos; (Šola 2003), how can we deal with it and not to ignore the conflicting aspect of the socialist dictatorships heritage, which is its inherent feature?

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů