Museum Representations of the Classical Past in Post-War Greece: a Critical Analysis

MARLEN MOULIOU Museum representations of the classical past in post-war Greece: a critical analysis ‘WHHATAT DDOESOES “AASKSK” TTHEHE SSOURCESOURCES mean?’.1 This is and contextual in perspective, will help us collect relevant a core question that must preoccupy all historians and evidence and clues which will hopefully lead to a better interpreters of the past, who read the past according to understanding of the various interconnecting systems that the questions they subject their sources to and the kind contribute to the representation of the classical past in the of conceptual theories they use. The choice of theory and Greek museum. methodology undoubtedly defines the structure, breadth and content of a research project and consequently the production of knowledge. Historians are, in a way, like Studying museum representations of the classical past: the fishermen;2 the kind of fish they catch depends on the discourses, systems and changes from 1948 to the kind of net they cast in the water. present day This paper’s ‘fish’ is museum constructions of the classical past in post-war Greece,3 which will be critically With the outbreak of World War II, the Greek Archaeo- investigated using a complex set of ‘nets’. These are the logical Service9 was placed in the unfortunate situation of Foucauldian concepts of ‘discourse’4 and ‘representation’,5 having to dismantle all the archaeological museum exhi- change management6 and organizational theories as well as bitions around the country and rebury the antiquities in theories deriving from the field of developmental psychol- the ground in order to secure their safety and survival dur- ogy and human ecology.7 ing wartime operations. However, ‘destroying’ the work The aim is to shed light on the process of production that past generations of Greek archaeologists had created, through which Greek museum exhibitions construct, or- meant that archaeologists in Greece after the war were der, represent and interpret the classical past. It is also to faced with the great challenge of producing new museum explore the essential factors and forces, whether driving or displays and embarking on a fundamental reorganisation restraining, that have been shaping this process of produc- of museums in the country. This long and historically tion since the late forties. The intention is to unmask the chequered post-war period, which can only be reviewed poetics and politics of museum representations of the clas- in summary fashion, may be conventionally divided into sical past and view both within the historical, cultural and three large chronological chunks, themselves defined by political contexts of a long-standing intellectual tradition. important landmarks of an institutional and/or historical Thus, these museum representations will be investigated nature: a) 1948-1976, the regenerationperiod: this is the both in their historical development and in comparison time of intensive reorganization and gradual maturation of with contemporaneous examples. The former route, chron- Greek archaeological museums, when theclassicalpastas ological in nature, will allow us to better assess the changes 8 linearevolutionofart prevails as the dominant interpreta- that occur from 1948 onwards; the latter, more discursive tive museum paradigm; b) 1977-1996, the period of un- 3rd SU PPL EMEN T, AT HENS 20 08 83 A SINGULAR ANTIQUITY MARLEN MOULIOU sustainable archaeological museum expansion: throughout settling questions about what, and whom, the subject is this phase the interpretative paradigm of theclassicalpast for’ and try to ‘make the best of, a plurality of answers’. 12 asempiricalandobjectiveanalysisofarchaeologicalfinds Naturally, the range and number of archaeological ex- was developed and consolidated, alongside the previous hibitions available for this study is vast. It is impossible model which had in the interim been broadened to cover to present all the different examples within the space of other forms of art apart from sculpture and pottery. A a single article, thus we shall focus on a few eloquent and parallel demand for a more educational museum and thus illustrative ones. one more useful to society, which could and should narrate interesting stories about the past gradually emerged. This ‘Museum-School’ conceptual model was steadily embed- The regeneration period (1948-1976). The classical past ded and diversified, by means of educational programmes as linear evolution of art targeting school groups and other interested audiences. It failed, however, to replace the two earlier leading interpre- The end of World War II and later of the civil war in tative paradigms in the production of permanent museum Greece signaled a new era for Greek museums. In 1948, displays; it was, nonetheless, tested for the purposes of at the dawn of the post-war reformation, when the na- temporary museum exhibitions, presented in Greece and tion was still embroiled in a devastating civil war, the abroad, though it only had a marginal influence on the reopening of three galleries in the National Archaeologi- making of permanent exhibitions; and c) 1997 to present cal Museum was cheerfully greeted by the print media day, the period of great opportunities (legal, financial, of the time. Newspaper commentaries and literary texts scientific, technological) and of pressing challenges (in- by leading intellectuals assigned to this reopening a sym- stitutional, ideological, social and epistemological). This bolic meaning.13 George Seferis experienced the return changing landscape offers fertile ground for the propaga- of the statues to the museum galleries as a ‘chorus of the tion of eclectic museological and museographical options, resurrected, a second coming of bodies that gave you a consciously or unconsciously followed. However, the need crazy joy’.14 Marinos Kalligas identified the museum re- for a mindful, humane, socially open, conceptual museum opening with the need for national resurrection and the model that can also offer a more theoretically rounded cul- urgent need for a strengthening of the nation’s collective tural interpretation of the classical past is more necessary conscience and unity: than ever. Some twenty years ago, Anthony Snodgrass and Chris ‘The reopening of the National Archaeological Museum Chippindale, commenting on the subject of classical ar- is a cultural event of global significance. Undoubtedly our chaeology, remarked that ‘our choosing to venerate the National Museum is the most important museum of its classical as classical says something about ourselves but kind worldwide. [...]. These objects belong to the era that not of itself or about classical society’.10 Today, classical gave birth to a new mythology, which we could call Euro- archaeology is going through profound changes, and mu- pean mythology, that is precisely the symbolic representa- seum constructions of the classical past, as one of the most tion of the values that have guided us, at least up to now. powerful and telling disciplinary systems, can potentially This is exactly why the reopening of the Museum acquires reflect and express these changes. a further significance, for it provides the opportunity to This process of changing our views and tools for looking weigh up [the symbolic representation of the classical and at the classical past is still very much in progress, encom- European] values, and to judge whether it is worth fighting passing not one but many archaeologies of Greece with a for their survival or instead for their replacement by other plurality of agendas, theoretical positions and interpreta- values which represent a new state of affairs. We welcome tions.11 Many maintain that we cannot assume there is, the opening of the Museum as an auspicious turning point or indeed should be, a single manifesto or rhetoric for the for the revival of cultural values in our land’.15 ways classical archaeology should work or indeed that the classical past should be represented in the museum. In- In subsequent years, an ‘unfreezing’ process started for stead, what classical archaeologists must do is to ask ‘un- Greek museums and an array of forces, events, personali- 84 ΜΟUSEIO BENAKI ARCHAEOLOGY AND HELLENIC IDENTITY IN TWENTIENTH-CENTURY GREECE Museum representations of the classical past in post-war Greece: a critical analysis ties, norms and ideas shaped the ‘systems’ through which Last but not least among the forces that affected ar- their interpretative approaches toward the representation of chaeological practice at the time was the gradual trans- the classical past were determined. formation of Greece into a popular tourist destination, The outcome of the Civil War was one of the core ele- which had an immense impact on the quality and extent ments in preserving Hellenist archaeology.16 Greece’s new of the country’s development. A ‘tourist archaeology’ foreign relations were made explicit, firstly with an open gradually gathered momentum, as sites, antiquities and British intervention during the civil war and, secondly, museums were attributed, by state and public alike, with with the commencement of the Truman Doctrine in 1947 an added value of a monetary nature – mundane, perhaps, which allowed the continuous involvement of the USA in though expedient nonetheless.20 Greek archaeology and the political, economic and administrative life of Greece. its monumental material culture were called upon to sat- During this period, the country started a long process of isfy the demands of the state for economic development

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