Eastern European museums represent traumatic events of World War II, such as the Siege of Leningrad, the Warsaw Uprisings, and the Bombardment of Dresden, in ways that depict the enemy in particular ways. This image results from the interweaving of historical representations, cultural stereotypes and beliefs, political discourses, and the dynamics of exhibition narratives. This book presents a useful methodology for examining museum images and provides a critical analysis of the role historical museums play in the contemporary world. As the catastrophes of World War II still exert an enormous influence on the national identities of Russians, Poles, and Germans, museum exhibits can thus play an important role in this process.
Table of Content
List of Illustrations
Preface: Project’s History
Zuzanna Bogumił
Acknowledgements
Zuzanna Bogumił
Introduction: The Enemy on Display
Chapter 1. Temple of Heroic Community: Soviet people, Leningraders and German-Fascists in the State Museum of the History of St Petersburg
Chapter 2. Temple of Romantic Martyrdom: Poles, Germans and Jews in the Historical Museum of Warsaw
Chapter 3. Forum Revising National Myths: Second World War in the Dresden City Museum
Conclusions
Appendix: Museum descriptions: The Second War World and City History
Notes on Contributors
About the author
Zuzanna Bogumił, Ph D, works at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Her published works include Gulag Memories: The Rediscovery and Commemoration of Russia’s Repressive Past (Berghahn 2018), Milieux de mémoire in Late Modernity: Local Communities, Religion, and Historical Politics (Peter Lang 2019), and co-edited volume Memory and Religion from a Postsecular Perspective (Routledge 2022).
More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
123,700 Ebooks in this category
