Open AccessHistory between Red Brackets
Author(s) -
Johan Hegardt
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
museum worlds
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.102
H-Index - 1
eISSN - 2049-6737
pISSN - 2049-6729
DOI - 10.3167/armw.2019.070111
Subject(s) - cold war , iron curtain , baltic sea , period (music) , narrative , history , russian history , economic history , ancient history , political science , law , literature , politics , art , aesthetics , oceanography , geology
This article derives from the research project entitled “Art, Culture and Conflict: Transformations of Museums and Memory Culture around the Baltic Sea after 1989,” which was financed by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University. It discusses how history museums in Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have reacted to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the conclusion of the Soviet occupation of the three Baltic states. It argues that the Cold War is understood by the museums as a special historical epoch not comparable to any other historical period in these six countries. It concludes that to be able to deal with this particular point in history we either need to metaphorically put the Cold War in between red brackets, as it were, which makes it possible to address the Cold War when needed, or to place it outside the historical narrative of the modern rise of the five discussed nation-states.