Occupied Identites: National Narratives in Baltic Museums of Occupations (original) (raw)
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In this article, I describe common narratives of history in postcommunist Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and explore the intersection between multiculturalism and memory politics. I argue that dealing with history is a challenge in these countries and can be seen as part of a broader issue of memory politics in societies that have experienced trauma during the Nazi and Soviet eras. The hypothesis that I developed, based on my empirical analysis, is that it makes visible how a difficult process of negotiating competing memories can, under certain circumstances, lead to dialogical remembrance. The article also pays attention to unexpected events, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which gives a new dynamic to this process. The original contribution of this article is an analysis of historical narratives in three national museums, with a special focus on how these museums deal with the injustices and traumas experienced by different ethnic groups in the Baltic states. The final s...
Baltic identities in quest between the competing memory discourses
2016
Groups are integrated on the basis of their collective memory (Halbwachs 1992/1925), and collective identities are constructed through strategic use of historic narratives and memory discourses. In my research I am taking identity formation process in conjunction with social memory. In Latvia with considerable amount of settlers from former Soviet countries both the politics and the civic sphere are generating conflicts on citizenship issues due controversial historic understandings. Here we turn to the assumption that nations can not be described just as political constructs, but also as systems of cultural representations (Bhabha1990, Hall 1994). What is a main frontline between conflicting “grand narratives” which splits society into communities of memory; and what kind of politicized identities it produces? Politics of memory may escalate contradictions among different linguistic (connected with ethnicity) and mnemonic (related to commemoration) communities.
Occupying Whateverland: Journeys to museums in the Baltic
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Recent history of Central and Eastern Europe charts multiple occupations, liberations and reoccupations by a variety of states and regimes. Museums of recent history, located across the region, strive to both constitute a memorial shaping narratives of national identity, and to represent the past in a way both recognizable and persuasive for their predominantly international tourist visitors. These visitors come with their own preconceptions and aims towards building both a historical narrative of the past and a personal identity narrative of a cultured, engaged tourist. In this paper, we chart how the historical past is used in contemporary sensemaking processes in the museums, and how tourist interpretations cross organizational and national barriers that the museum-curated historical narratives attempt to create.
Contemporary Ukrainian and Baltic Art. Political and Social Perspectives, 1991-2021, 2021
The second half of the 20 th century presents a particularly turbulent time for the Baltic States. While the history of the region is still waiting to be written including its complex layers and different shades of grey, many silenced memories are gradually starting to return from the shadows. The Second World War, its aftermath, and the Soviet occupation presented dramatic changes for the whole region, bringing with them many mental and physical wounds left by the large-scale population losses and equally harsh repressions that continued after those conflicts, many of which have been silenced to this day and are only starting to be revisited. All three Baltic societies lost over 30 percent of their populations during the war and its aftermath including those who were killed or remained missing, were deported or emigrated. Deep losses were felt by most communities with two mass deportations of women, men, and children to Siberia as forced laborers in 1941 and 1949 under the Soviet occupation. The Nazi occupation between 1941 and 1945 was especially devastating for the Jewish and Roma communities, but the repressions also involved the majority population. Nearly all of the Baltic Jewish citizens were killed, and, although the local people's participation in the crimes against local minorities has been established, this often did not lead to the punishment of the criminals. Furthermore, these crimes do not concern the local minority groups alone but also thousands of Jewish people who were brought to the Baltic states for extermination from both Western Europe and other Eastern European countries. The postwar societies found themselves in chaos, with fear and uncertainty as the prevailing sentiments. The Soviet period
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The nation is born out of the resistance, ideally without external aid, of its nascent citizens against oppression […] An effective founding struggle should contain memorable massacres, atrocities, assassinations and the like, which serve to unite and strengthen resistance and render the resulting victory the more justified and the more fulfilling. They also can provide a focus for a "remember the x atrocity" historical narrative. 1 That a "foundation struggle mythology" can form a compelling element of national identity is eminently illustrated by the case of Estonia. Its path to independence in 1918 followed by German and Soviet occupation in the Second World War and subsequent incorporation into the Soviet Union is officially presented as a period of continuous struggle, culminating in the resumption of autonomy in 1991. A key institution for narrating Estonia"s particular "foundation struggle mythology" is the Museum of Occupationsthe subject of our articlewhich opened in Tallinn in 2003. It conforms to an observation made by Rhiannon Mason concerning the nature of national museums. These entities, she argues, play an important role in articulating, challenging and responding to public perceptions of a nation"s histories, identities, cultures and politics. At the same time, national museums are themselves shaped by the nations within which they are located. 2 The privileged role of the museum plus the potency of a "foundation struggle mythology" accounts for the rise of museums of occupation in Estonia and other Eastern European states since 1989. Their existenceallied with a plethora of analogous monuments and memorial sitestestify to a pervasive preoccupation with the pastor, more accurately, pasts.
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Museums are powerful actors in the making of national identity. Through selection of objects, their spatial arrangements and storyline they open a possibility of a personal engagement with the national past. This ethnographic study analyses the new permanent exhibitions at the Estonian National Museum (reopened in October 2016) as a site where the notion of the Estonian nation, its heritage, heroes and historical memory is constructed. The main argument is that the National Museum has initiated a shift towards inclusiveness in the way Estonian national identity is constructed. The initial post-Soviet nation-building was largely based on a firm rejection of the Soviet era as a valid part of national history and employed ethnocentrism which emphasised the privileged status of ethnic Estonian nation and culture while excluding Russian speakers from the core nation. The new exhibitions rely on the language of human experience rather than placing the nation as the main actor of history. Effectively, the paper demonstrates that in this new discourse the boundaries of Estonian identity have become more permeable and adaptable in comparison with the early post-independence time.
Culture Unbound, 2010
In the twentieth century Lithuania emerged from the crumbling Russian Empire as a post-colonial nationalising state. Its short-lived independence featured attempts to assemble the material foundations for an imagined community of Lithuanians, however in 1940 this nationalist project was disrupted by Soviet occupation. However, this article argues that regardless of the measures taken against political nationalism by the Soviets, the material work of assembling the Lithuanians as a historical and ethnic nation was not abandoned. The study analyses the ways in which Northern and Baltic categories were used to regionally situate the ethnic identification of the Lithuanian population in Soviet and post-Soviet Lithuanian museums. The cases of the Historical-Ethnographic Museum and the Museum of Amber reveal that Northern and Baltic dimensions had to be reconciled with the Soviet version of the Lithuanian past. The resulting assemblage of Lithuania as a synchronic and diachronic community of inhabitants who defined themselves through shared Baltic ancestors and centuries-old uses of amber was transmitted to the post-Soviet museums. The most salient post-Soviet changes were, first, the rewriting of the relations between Lithuanians and the Nordic countries in positive terms and in this way reversing the Soviet narrative of Lithuania as a victim of aggression from the North. Second, the Soviet construction of amber as a material mediator which enabled Lithuanians to connect with each other as a synchronic and diachronic imagined community was somewhat pushed aside in favour of the understanding of amber as a medium of social and cultural distinction for the ancient Balts and contemporary Lithuanian elites.