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Museumizing Contested Heritages

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Museumizing Contested Heritages MUSEUMIZING CONTESTE D HERITAGES: POST - COM MUNIST IDENTITY POLI T I C S A N D REPRESENTATION S OF COMMUNIST HERITAG E I N BULGARIA A CASE STUDY OF THE MUSEUM OF SOCIALIST ART IN SOFIA Leisure, Tourism and Environment: Thesis Report Thesis Code: GEO – 70436 Academic Year 2012/2013 Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Meghann Ormond Cultural Geography Chair Group Manuela Stefanova Ilakova Reg. Number: 880920381120 MSc in Leisure, Tourism and Environment Wageningen University and Research August, 2013 1 | P a g e TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5 2. Problem statement ....................................................................................................................................................... 7 3. Relevance of the research .......................................................................................................................................... 8 4. Theoretical framework ............................................................................................................................................... 8 4.1. The politics of heritage and identity ............................................................................................................. 9 4.1.1. Heritage ............................................................................................................................................................ 9 4.1.2. Identity .......................................................................................................................................................... 14 4.1.3. Heritage as reification of identity ....................................................................................................... 17 4.2. The politics of heritage tourism ................................................................................................................... 20 4.3. Objects, museums and the politics of exhibiting ................................................................................... 22 4.4. The politics of heritage tourism in post-communist identity transformations ....................... 30 4.4.1. Post-communist transformations in Central and Eastern Europe ....................................... 30 4.4.2. The role of heritage tourism in the identity transformations in Central and Eastern Europe ........................................................................................................................................................................ 32 4.4.3. Communist heritage as “dissonant heritage”................................................................................. 34 5. Case study – the Museum of Socialist Art – Sofia, Bulgaria ....................................................................... 38 6. Research objectives and questions ..................................................................................................................... 42 7. Methodological framework .................................................................................................................................... 42 7.1. Research design .................................................................................................................................................. 42 7.2. Data generation .................................................................................................................................................. 43 7.3. Data analysis ........................................................................................................................................................ 46 8. Results ............................................................................................................................................................................. 48 8.1 The context ............................................................................................................................................................ 48 8.2. To tell: the institutional narrative ............................................................................................................... 56 8.2.1 A tour through the Museum of Socialist Art .................................................................................... 58 8.2.2 The formal narrative of the Museum of Socialist Art .................................................................. 70 8.2.3 The audiences of the Museum of Socialist Art ................................................................................ 73 8.3 To remember: the narratives of those who lived socialism .............................................................. 76 8.3.1 The ‘Ostalgic’ ................................................................................................................................................ 77 8.3.2 The ‘Critics’ ................................................................................................................................................... 78 8.4 To learn: the narratives of the transition generations in Bulgaria and the international tourists ............................................................................................................................................................................ 79 8.4.1 The transition generations in Bulgaria.............................................................................................. 79 8.4.2 The international tourists ....................................................................................................................... 82 8.5 In sum ...................................................................................................................................................................... 86 9. Conclusion and discussion...................................................................................................................................... 89 10. References .................................................................................................................................................................. 92 2 | P a g e Appendices ........................................................................................................................................................................ 99 Appendix 1: Interview guides used in the research..................................................................................... 99 Appendix 2: Participants ...................................................................................................................................... 102 3 | P a g e Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to the Director of the Museum of Socialist Art Bisera Yossifova who granted my access to carry out the field research on the grounds of the museum, as well as for her participation in my study. I am also thankful to all other kind people who took part and shared their views and personal stories with me, including the museum staff who made my experiences at the museum all the more enjoyable. And importantly, I want to thank Dr. Meghann Ormond of the Cultural Geography Chair Group at WUR whose supervision and guidance encouraged me and helped me develop and continually improve this project. 4 | P a g e 1. INTRODUCTION Throughout the second half of the 20th century the Iron Curtain divided the European continent into two ideologically opposed blocs. The West was a symbol of democratic freedom, opportunity and thriving prosperity, while the East represented its communist repressive and backward ‘Other’. The year 1989 will remain in history as the year of the implosion and overthrow of the communist regimes across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In the wake of the dramatic events these countries emerged in a radically transformed environment that required their all-out re-organization and adaptation according to the neoliberal political and economic principles. Since then, the states from the former Eastern Bloc have undergone a long and complex process of democratization, pluralization and marketization, ultimately aimed to turn them into Western-type capitalist democratic economies and prepare them for accession in powerful supranational structures, such as NATO and the European Union (EU). This so called ‘transition process’ has in recent years been problematized and critiqued for being too reductive in that it has focused mainly on technical and procedural changes, thus ignoring and being insensitive to the profound political, social and cultural transformations that have been taking place in the countries of the region. It has also been claimed to have turned a blind eye on the long-standing impacts of the regimes that continue to have a bearing even in the post-socialist development of those countries (Verdery, 1999; Young & Light, 2001; Blokker, 2005). What is more, some critics of the transition in Central and Eastern Europe have argued that insufficient attention has been paid to issues related to a process that has been going on in parallel with the state restructuration, which is no less significant. As the former socialist states faced up to their renewed contexts while getting inserted in the international division of labour and the global flows of capital, people and ideas, it became necessary that they work on the renovation of their political identities and national representations to project an image of stability
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