70 years of National Museum of Contemporary History
Exhibition on view from: June 16, 2018 to April 16, 2019
The National Museum of Contemporary History celebrates its 70th anniversary. We honoured this jubilee and the European Year of Cultural Heritage with a temporary exhibition: Museum (R)evolution 1948-2018, which offers a walk through the four periods of the museum, and welcomes you with the most distinguished museum objects that embody the national history of the 20th century.
The exhibition, Museum (R)evolution 1948-2018, provides an insight into the seventy years of building and functioning of the Museum, the preserved heritage and the interpretation of recent national history. Social changes led to new names and new public images and functions. A walk through the periods of operation is a walk through selected interpretations of the past, through ways of shaping the post-war collective memory, the post-independence revisionism of history, and the pathological (non-) confrontations with those parts of the past that did not coincide with institutionalized historical interpretations. These have often reflected the efforts of the ruling political order to appropriate interpretation of the national past and to give new meaning to past events. National stability and state building were expressed in carefully selected and selective narratives about the past, which were reinforced by museum layouts and carefully chosen museum exhibits. These strengthened and confirmed in the visitor memories of past events, the created identity and national attitudes.
In this respect, the National Museum of Contemporary History is a story about confrontations and struggles with interpretations of the national past, the exclusion and erasure not only of events and persons, but those collective memories that did not seem important or state building. The exhibition about the history of the museum is more than an exhibition about the museum’s exhibitions. It holds a mirror to our society and allows a flexible understanding of interpretations of the past, the politicization of evaluation of the national heritage, and the fragility of forming memories of events that we did not experience directly.
