Hegemony or grassroots movement? The Musealization of Soviet deportations

Collection:
Mokslo publikacijos / Scientific publications
Document Type:
Knygų dalys / Parts of the books
Language:
Anglų kalba / English
Title:
Hegemony or grassroots movement? The Musealization of Soviet deportations
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Summary / Abstract:

ENIn this chapter I criticize this tendency to interpret narratives about the past as presented in Lithuanian state museums as an expression of both a hegemonic ideology and coherent state policy. Here I want to make my position clear: I do not suggest that the narrative of national suffering, which tends to focus on ethnic Lithuanians, is entirely absent from Lithuanian historiography and history museums. My point is that there are indeed many manifestations of this narrative, but I doubt if it is used to impose a hegemonic order on public history discourses. In Lithuania, the ethnocentric narrative of suffering did not actively suppress and expel different or contrasting narratives, such as, for instance, stories about ethnic Lithuanians as perpetrators, or stories about the suffering of other ethnic groups, such as the Jews. This is evident, I will argue, even in the displays of the Museum of Genocide Victims. Furthermore, this article furthers my argument that there is a special epistemology of history museums that requires a particular methodological sensitivity from a researcher. Museums are not books. Museums are highly heterogeneous sites, in which plural and even contradictory meanings may coexist in one institutional framework. A researcher should resist the temptation to make generalizing arguments on the basis of one, or even several museums. This article is, therefore, an argument against “-isms.” It warns against the stereotypical pre-packaging of Eastern European developments in misleading categories of state-sponsored ethnic nationalism. [p. 150].

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https://www.lituanistika.lt/content/25364
Updated:
2026-07-28 15:23:21
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