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National Museums and Nation-Building in Europe 1750-2010

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National Museums and Nation-Building in Europe 1750-2010 6 NATIONAL MUSEUMS AS NATIONAL SYMBOLS A survey of strategic nation-building and identity politics; nations as symbolic regimes Gabriella Elgenius This chapter will analyse national museums as significant national symbols and as nation-building devices. As part of the nexus of symbolism, used by elites as political tools, national museums raise awareness of, claim and contribute to the construction of national identities. National museums are uniquely placed as witnesses of nation- building, and illuminate, through collections and displays, that which Anderson (1991) identified as ‘imagined’ or Hobsbawm called an ‘invented tradition’ (Hobs- bawm and Ranger 1992). They also highlight the crucial role of high culture in nation-building (Gellner 1983). As a comparative framework is useful here the inaugurations of the first national museum are analysed within their socio-political context and the ‘politics of home’ (Duyvendak 2011). Although national symbols are often misunderstood to be mainly decorative they represent at their core imagina- tions and interpretations of the nation’s origin, its past, present and future. The cur- rent analysis leans on relevant frameworks developed out of a Durkheimian tradition (Durkheim 1976; Lukes 1975; Cohen 1995a; Turner 1967) with a focus on ele- mentary forms of nation-building as the symbolic production of imagining the nation as one community. In today’s world, nations use similar toolkits – they all have flags, anthems, national days, national museums and academies. Their role is, in other words, to demonstrate that nations are distinct, yet equal and on a par with other nations. With this in mind, we may assume that nation-building follows similar patterns and, even if the content of the proclaimed ‘uniqueness’ varies, claims to uniqueness appear to be less unique. National museums being no exception, they constitute strategic markers of nation-building introduced at pivotal times. As being of particular relevance here, this chapter provides a survey of the first national museums in Europe. (For the analysis of the ensemble of national museums as a concerted nar- rative see the second part of the conclusion, Chapter 7.) Placing national museums in the context of other national symbols helps us to understand nation-building further. All national symbols are introduced at pivotal 146 Gabriella Elgenius times in the nation’s history, such as independence, the break-up of empires, the loss of empire, the forming of republics, kingdoms or unions. Studying national museums as part of wider national building strategies enables us to draw attention to nations as layered and to nation-building as strategic undertakings on behalf of state and identity politics. An interesting pattern of national symbolism emerges when we analyse national symbols in a systematic manner. The symbolic regimes approach high- lights patterns of symbolic production and nations as symbolic regimes with the com- plexity, recyclable and ongoing nature of nation-building (Elgenius 2011a). National symbols as markers of nation-building It has long been recognized that nations are an important repository of symbols, whether in the form of golden ages, heroes and icons, capitals, public squares and statues, flags and anthems, national festivities, jubilees or commemorations, national museums and national academies, stamps and collections, war memorials or football teams. Symbols provide shortcuts to the groups they represent and are by nature referential, subjective and boundary-creating (Breuilly 1993; Cerulo 1995; Giddens 1991; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992; Mosse 1975; Smith 2003). Therefore, con- siderable activity is found in connection with the introduction of markers, following the strategic use of symbols in identity and recognition politics, which is in turn connected to debates and struggles about membership, nationality, ethnicity, citi- zenship and integration. Many governments seem to have adopted a Durkheimian approach, hoping, for instance, that celebrations of nations will ultimately con- tribute to cohesion. Thus, not having a popular national day is increasingly per- ceived of as a problem. National symbols constitute interesting variables as they authenticate boundaries and promote domineering majority narratives of the ima- gined community in times when it is deemed necessary to do so by undermining challenging, diverse or marginalized histories. National museums authenticate boundaries against others, in particular by identifying the origins of groups as spe- cifically national and by providing corresponding imaginations of nations as commu- nities. In this sense they provide building blocks to nations that rely on continuous as well as ongoing reinforcement. The national museum is uniquely placed as an analytical variable in this context as an institution filled with objects that, in one way or another, claim to represent the nation. It makes sense, therefore, to analyse the introduction and establishment of museums within particular socio-political contexts that have something important to tell us about the trajectory of nations. National museums and other national symbols constitute nation-building tools for elites engaged in this process, as they, together with sundry national symbols, raise boundaries against others. As the nation developed in modern times, with and after the French revolution in 1789, it arrived on the political map with an emerging toolkit of awareness-raising measures and symbols. The geo-social community boundaries which emerged, blurred, undermined or challenged (Alba 2005; Cohen 1995b) depended on the manipulation and embellishment of their use. Historically and comparatively, pivotal National museums as national symbols 147 times are associated with wars, conflicts, struggles for recognition and independence, state formations or the formation of unions. Therefore, the production of symbols and national museums follows nation- building, and when the latter takes a turn the symbols that represent it usually do the same. National flags – as the oldest strata of the nation and a main national symbol – closely follow the declaration of independence and other pivotal or sig- nificant sovereignty dates, whereas national days emerge as an established tradition towards the end of the nineteenth century, helping to activate the nation. Speci- fically, out of 42 national days in a previous study, 11 were older than 1870, few of them with a national focus, whereas six appear during 1870–1914 (the period that, according to Hobsbawm, is characterized by mass inventions) and 25 were intro- duced after 1914. (See Elgenius (2011a: 199) on the establishment of national flags and national days). The corresponding situation with national museums is described below (see Figure 6.1). The national museum is in this sense also an invented tradition that had been established by the middle of the eighteenth century and is established on the poli- tical scene earlier than national days (Elgenius 2011a, 2011b; Hylland Eriksen and Jenkins 2007; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992), both variables contributing to per- petuate the nation as one community characterized by sameness, which involves National Museums by Periods of Nation-building 14 12 10 8 6 4 National Museum Inaugurations 2 0 1750– 1800– 1850– 1900– 1950– 1799 1849 1899 1949 1999 FIGURE 6.1 National museums by period. 148 Gabriella Elgenius to ‘do things together, take decisions, achieve results’ (Miller 1995: 24). National museums in this manner help to justify the state and its sovereignty. In other words, nations are layered with symbolism, and nation-building is continuous and ongoing and intimately connected to formation of states. National museums, like other national symbols, are introduced at pivotal times of nation- building as claimants of national communities that help justify the sovereignty of the state. National museums and high culture Nations intimate connection to the state is crucial in more ways than one. After the rise of modern nationalism and states and more inclusive notions of citizenship, nation-building was accompanied by the cultivation of a national culture and, with time, the musealization of cultural production (Knell et al. 2011). The state plays a significant role in the negotiations of national culture and helps set the framework for this. National museums are therefore highly useful tools in the analysis of nation-building processes, regardless of whether the past is defined or not. They are interesting as national institutions of culture that transferred and visualized the nation into the present through their institutions, buildings and careful selection of museum narratives. Clearly, national narratives are characterized by being narratives of dominant majority populations that marginalize competing strands of identities (Elgenius 2011a). Thus, it is not surprising that collections and displays have increasingly become objects of considerable negotiation. With the endeavours of national museums in mind – as institutions, buildings, representations, displays and exhibitions – their activities are by nature boundary- making enterprises. This means in turn that rival ambitions and exclusion lie at the heart of nation-building (Elgenius 2011b). Anderson’s (1991) account of the imagined community did not originally specify what was actually imagined. National museums’ help to illuminate that which is actually imagined may indirectly lead to ascertaining the contours of the nation. The establishment of the first national museums is therefore
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