Musealisation of Communism in Poland and East Central Europe

Introduction

Based on Michel Foucault’s theory, according to which cultural practices are interpreted in terms of the state’s increasing regulation of culture through power-knowledge discourses, I consider museums as a combination of historical structures, narratives, exhibition practices and strategies, and the interests and imperatives of various (governing) ideologies.¹ From the very beginning, public museums have been institutions that promote specific pro-government values and serve the needs of the state and the dominant interest groups within it. Even though they are today the object of multifaceted transformation resulting mainly from the emergence of new socio-cultural rules and technologically advanced exhibition solutions, it is impossible not to notice the continuity that characterizes the museum’s main assumptions and mission. This is especially true of historical museums, which eagerly present themselves as neutral and disengaged (ethically and politically), but which are in fact deeply interested in the power that comes with the assignment of meanings to the past and present, and with the representation and creation of the official versions of history that become (presumably) generally accepted views. Contrary to what modern theories like “new museology” say, museums do not want to share power and authority with the public. Instead, they want to maintain control over it. I would describe this control as “soft” because it consists mainly in granting oneself the right to represent a given society and its highest values, which also means the power to define the community and individuals functioning within it. Technologically modern solutions do not guarantee modernity throughout an entire exhibition; they may, at the same time, strengthen well-known and deeply traditional visions of the past, make use of old metaphors, and mask ideological involvement.

The analyses I present in this book focus on very recent history, i.e. a particularly sensitive period, one that includes events which members of the oldest living generation of a given society witnessed, or in which they participated. This recent past involves roughly the last 80–90 years. From this perspective, the thirty years that have passed since the fall of communism is not a long period of time, so it can be assumed that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are still in a state of transformation and working through the events of this recent era. The societies of the former Eastern bloc certainly also have greater needs in terms of self-identification and creating integrating stories than the stabilized Western democracies. Historical exhibitions are a key element in these processes as factors in the institutionalization (musealization) of history and as a reservoir for ways of representing the past.

The answer to the question of how to think about and remember the recent past depends on many elements, such as the course communism took in a given country, the degree to which the society was entangled in the regime, the intensity of resistance or the lack of resistance, the manner in which the system collapsed, and specific social and economic determinants of transformation. In addition to historiography, which is a reference point for other activities, tools for dealing with the past include creating films and historical exhibitions, and organizing public space, as well as (in a different dimension): vetting, amnesia, forgetfulness, and the privatization of memory. The above solutions appeared with great intensity in Central and Eastern European countries after 1989, when the pressure to deal with the communist past overlapped with the need to present oneself in the most favorable way towards Western Europe.

Before I can outline the structure of the book, I need to consider some conceptual and terminological issues. The subject of my research is the representations of communism that emerged as a result of the international balance of power and the administrative division of Europe based on the 1945 Yalta agreements. Therefore, exhibitions depicting communism at earlier stages of development (e.g. the National Museum “Memory of the Victims of the Great Famine in Ukraine”) are beyond the scope of this analysis. For the bloc of countries that found themselves behind the “Iron Curtain,” I use a symbolic (not geographic) definition of East Central Europe, despite the fact that after the transformation in 1989 this definition lost its sharpness and is interpreted differently by researchers. I am also aware of the problematic nature of the term “communism” in relation to the political and economic system that emerged at that time and of the complexity of this issue, both in the case of Poland and other European countries. In practice, the political situation in each of the Eastern bloc countries was slightly different, which is why it would be instructive to carry out separate definitional and terminological analyses. In general, however, we may assume that no country has ever achieved communism as an ideal phase characterized by intense industrialization, a fully controlled economy, and the complete liquidation of private property. To describe what was, in fact, a constantly “transitional” phase, such terms as socialism, real socialism, socialism “with a human face,” totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and people’s democracy are currently used. Since my research does not concern itself with systemic or political issues, attempts to define the actual legal and political situation of countries on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain remain beyond the scope of my scientific research.

Today, the term “communism” functions both in the description of past reality and in current political disputes, where it is used to stigmatize the enemy, who in principle can be anyone, including communist-era opposition activists. Such terms as “post-communist countries,” “post-communist opposition,” and “decommunization of public space” are also commonly recognized. The term “communism” is tied to strong emotions, and it has become a kind of label since it sounds much more dangerous than, for example, socialism. It is the term “communism” that appears most often in museum representations. Entire establishments are named using the term (e.g. the Museum of Communism in Prague), as are individual exhibitions (the “Poles against communism” gallery will be one of the key elements of the Polish History Museum in Warsaw). Therefore, in my research I use both this and other terms interchangeably, leaving terminological issues to historians who deal with this political period.

This book has a thematic structure given that I discuss Polish and European exhibitions together, grouping them into specific categories. Such a system has a much greater comparative and synthetic value than creating separate chapters for each country of the former Eastern bloc. Moreover, the task I set for myself was to search for common features of the representation of communism in various countries, which requires the compilation of specific exhibitions and not the generation of separate descriptions for each of them.

Contemporary historical museums are categorized in several conflicting ways: high culture – commerce, history – heritage, history – memory, research – entertainment, education – audience satisfaction, all of which causes difficulties when it comes to institutions’ self-determination, methodologies applied in research of these institutions, and debates about their various functions. Chapter 1 is therefore devoted to reflection on theoretical categories and concepts influencing the understanding of museums and the scope of their activities. The purpose of this short introduction is not so much to organize the subject matter or to absolutely define a historical museum, but to show the complexity of the issues involved here and to justify the methodology used by me and necessary in the interpretation of historical exhibitions.

Chapter 2 presents the basic trend in museology, as viewed from the perspective of the official historical policy taken by most countries of the former Eastern Bloc, which I define as identity-heroic. Together with the martyrdom representations that I discuss in Chapter 3, they establish the mainstream in the portrayal of communism in Central-Eastern Europe. In these parts of the book, I present many examples of both types of exhibitions, their characteristics, their exhibition strategies, and their possibilities and limitations. The identity type includes museums as different from each other as the European Solidarity Center in Gdańsk, TerrorHáza in Budapest, and the Occupation Museums of Latvia and Estonia.² It is true that they use different means of communication, but it is not the latter that is the decisive factor in whether the representation belongs to a particular current. The Tyrtaeus-martyrdom type is, one could say, a variant of the identity type, despite the fact that it evokes different emotions in visitors and clearly differs from the heroic type through its commemorative perspective. In a paradigmatic form it is represented by the Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius³ in the Memory Rooms of Victims of Communist Terror in Warsaw and in Tomaszów Lubelski. While discussing identity museums, I also present the House of European History in Brussels, which is a variant of this trend. The fragment of the Brussels exhibition devoted to communism focuses intensely on the differences between Eastern and Western Europe in the perception of modern history.

In Chapter 4, I focus on the third type of exhibition which I describe as nostalgic. The phenomenon of nostalgia and its materialization in museum exhibitions is a peculiar phenomenon characteristic of the entire region. It appears everywhere with varying intensity, despite the fact that it is not supported by the official historical policies of individual countries. Similar exhibitions use strategies characteristic of participatory institutions and focus on everyday life under communism. A model example in this category is the DDR Museum in Berlin.

I devote Chapter 5 to monuments and art belonging to the material heritage of post-communism. This usually undesirable and embarrassing legacy has remained problematic for the last thirty years. Two basic ways of dealing with these uncomfortable traces of the past are removal from public spaces and musealization, which changes the meaning of the monuments. In Chapter 6 I continue the topic of negative heritage and how to manage it. This part of my work is devoted to Nowa Huta and non-classical forms of creating a canon of memory in the form of city tourist routes and the concept of a “distributed museum.” It is also an excellent example of how to deal with the difficult decline of the communist era so as not to lose its positive or exceptional elements (socialist-realist architecture), and at the same time not to glorify the past.

The aim of this book is not to evaluate individual museums; they differ too much in terms of their presentation and even potential (large state institutions have great financial resources compared to modest private undertakings) for me to make valid evaluations. Moreover, exhibitions belonging to different trends fulfill different social functions, not all of which claim to represent “national” experiences or to create broad visions covering the past epoch. For this reason, I formulate specific judgments in relation to individual exhibitions, taking into consideration the degree to which they achieve the goals they set for themselves, along with the originality of their media and individual exhibition strategies. It should be noted, however, that even those exhibitions that deal with relatively narrow issues are open to various readings and interpretations that may affect the overall image of the system. A conglomerate of many individual representations functions in the public space and constitutes a phenomenon that I refer to as the musealization of communism.

The book is the result of a project financed by the National Science Center in 2014–2017. I would like to thank all the employees of museums and institutions dealing with post-communist heritage whom I interviewed during my inquiries in Poland and Central-Eastern Europe for their assistance in writing it. I would like to express my special thanks to Bożena Kulicz from the State Collective Farm Museum in Bolegorzyn and Sławomir Grzechnik from the Zamoyski Museum in Kozłówka, whose commitment and unwavering support was an invaluable contribution to the realization of this project. At this point, I would also like to express my gratitude to the first reader and critic of the manuscript, my husband Piotr Witek, whose comments contributed to valuable modifications to various parts of this book.

1 The concept of power-knowledge (present explicitly or implicitly in all of Michel Foucault’s works) implies that power operates at all levels of society, not just from the peaks (from rulers to the ruled). Knowledge cannot be separated from the activities of power, and science cannot be separated from ideology, because as a form of knowledge it is embedded in the structures of power. See Charles C. Lemert, Garth Gillan, Michel Foucault. Teoria społeczna i transgresja, trans. from the English Damian Leszczyński (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1998), 89–121. Many researchers treat museums as a model combination of knowledge and power. See for example Museum Culture. Histories-Discourses-Spectacles, ed. Daniel J. Sherman and Irit Rogoff (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994).

2 At present: Museum of the Occupation of Latvia and Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom (Estonia).

3 From 2018: Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights.

Public museums have been established continuously since the eighteenth century, but there are periods in the history of culture when their development was abrupt and very intense. These include the years 1800–1899, the 1970s and the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These museum booms happened as the result of profound socio-cultural changes, such as the formation of nation states (in the first case), the appearance of mass tourism and an increased amount of free time (in the second) and the development of a consumerist and postmodern society which broke the boundaries between low and high culture (in the third). In the latter situation, the neoliberal expansion of a previously untapped market was also a factor, which influenced the opening of earlier sanctuaries to mass audiences by including shops, restaurants and cafes in museum spaces that provide a comprehensive experience in the spending free time.⁴

The Polish museum boom began after the political transformation of 1989, but the best conditions for this boom were established only after 2004, when Poland joined the European Union and began a period of solid economic development, all of which led to the implementation of museum projects and allowed museum directors to apply for additional grants and funds.⁵ New museum buildings have been the result of international competitions, to which architects from all over the world apply (POLIN. Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Museum of the Second World War) or are created thanks to the revitalization of post-industrial facilities (the Warsaw Rising Museum or the Mazovian Center for Contemporary Art). The transformations of museum architecture (from classic palaces and temples through modernist geometric forms to the currently dominant postmodern buildings full of symbolic references or popular post-industrial architecture) are accompanied by revolutionary changes in exhibition strategies.

It is not without reason that most of the new museums are historical museums, and these are the focus of attention for museologists, audiences, and politicians. The remarkable metamorphosis of museum institutions – in terms of financing, attendance, and image – has been quickly noticed by decision-makers and is increasingly being used for purposes other than cognitive, aesthetic, or educational purposes. Museum exhibitions often become instruments of historical politics and expressions of particular visions of the world and particular ideologies. For the purposes of this work, I understand historical politics as the idea of using historical knowledge and various interpretations of the past as a tool of social and political influence.⁶ The implementation of similar intentions is facilitated by narrative exhibitions that depart from displaying a traditionally understood museum object towards the use of para-theatrical forms, copies, scenography, and technologically advanced multimedia installations. The coherent lines of interpretation presented by them are easy to use politically, which brings in its wake numerous problems, because although the exhibitions have never been neutral in terms of worldview, the high degree of ideologization causes them to lose their greatest value: authority and social trust.

A museum has the potential to discover its own conceptual order, even to reverse or criticize it (“critical museum”⁷). It is an institution capable of reflecting on its own status and identity and contesting specific discourses of power-knowledge, so it is certainly not a place that is only defined by its objects and collections. Therefore, the intensive emergence of new museum institutions is accompanied by debates on changes in their meaning and functions, and on their impact on the perception of social reality.⁸