Breaking the silence? Contradiction and consistency in representing victimhood in Baltic museums of occupations

ENThis chapter looks at how four museums of occupation in the three Baltic states deal with writing the recent history of the Baltics. These museums of occupations—defined as museums dealing explicitly with the history of the recent past from the perspective of a national experience of foreign rule—are particularly important loci of investigation. They are academic institutions of critical inquiry, charged with a scholarly investigation of the past, and are discursive establishments, conduits of power, transmitting and shaping narratives of national identity through their scholarly and po litical authority. Museum expositions, particularly those dedicated to such high profile and politically charged issues as occupations, form a part of the “imagined community” of a nation-state. There, history is collected, systematized, and transformed into a narrative that can animate a nation and mold the shape of civil society. Because of this dual role of scholarship and nation-building, we must investigate the narratives these museums convey to determine which stories are privileged, which are contested or under played, and which are completely ignored. [p. 176].

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