The Great Dialogue, micro-dialogue and double-voiced words
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the European countries started the process of bringing the fragmented histories of the totalitarian regimes together. One of those efforts is the European House of History that opened in 2017 in Brusseles, Belgium. Because it is entirely funded by the European Parlement, the museum must be the most official form of European memory. As a transnational museum, the museum has the intention to become ‘a reservoir of European memory, containing experiences and interpretations in all their diversity, contrasts and contradictions’ (Mork 218). With these contrasts in mind, this chapters seeks to explore the museum’s polyphonic memory, specifically in the room that covers the Nazi and Soviet regime. However, to get an idea of the overall type of narrative and design, I will quickly adress two moments the museum hints at totalitarianism: once in the line-up of the
‘basic elements’ of Europe at the beginning of the exhibition, and once at
the theme ‘Industralisation’. Eventually, in the room
‘Totalitarianism-versus-Democracy’, we will see how the museum literally projects a
narrative over the two totalitarian regimes, without much room for the
visitor to take on a different opinion. Head-curator Andrea Mork said the
museum wanted to compare the Nazi occuppation with the Soviet
occupation, but what does that mean for the polyphonic memory of both?
Reservoir of European memory
The museum’s mission to become a ‘reservoir of European memory’ is a telling example of the general top-down approach that I will further elaborate on, throughout this chapter. A reservoir containing memories of all European subjects, presumes a definition of memory what Ann Rigney named as the ‘original plenitude and subsequent loss’ model (12).
This involves looking at memory as something that is fully formed in the past (it was once
‘all there’ in the plenitude of experience, as it were) and as something that is subsequently a matter of preserving and keeping alive. (Rigney 12).
This way of viewing memory, as something that happened in the past and can only be retrieved from there, does not acknowledge the practice of remembering. Especially in a museum, it becomes clear how memory is constructed in the present. Unlike Guernica (1937) or one of Dostoevsky’s novels, setting up a museum is above all a group project, done by different actors.
This has implications for polyphonic memory in the museum because we can distinguish a number of different voices.
One of the more critical commentators of the museum, Thomas Lutz, writes that the idea for the museum was initially formulated in 2009, as part of the European Day of Rememberance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism on the 23rd of August (45). According to Lutz, the equation of these two regimes has been the key message and also the basic idea from which the museum defines Europe. However, as Wolfram Kaiser shows in his article, this basic idea was not embraced by every contributing party. Initially, a Committee of Experts wrote a report about the new European museum that was to be built, with a large focus on European integration after 1945 (Kaiser 521). This changed after the committee handed in the report and a team of curators was appointed in 2010 to build the actual museum. This team was led by Taja Vovk van Gaal, who was chosen because of her work experience in both Slovenia and the Netherlands, bridging West and East-European perspectives (Kaiser 526). This was done after criticism of Polish commentators of the strong Western European bias, writes Kaiser (526).
Vovk van Gaal responded positively to these comments and presented her first ideas to the curatorial team with a heavy emhapsis on life under Stalinism (Kaiser 526). For this reason, Kaiser argued that this changing actor constellation had a great impact on the overall narrative of the museum (527). Thus, we can view these actors as separate narrators telling the story of twentieth-century European history in their own socially and culturally situated voices.
However, not every choice in the exhibition can be explained by the composition of the curators. According to Kaiser, Vovk van Gaal was keen on adding this dimension of everyday life, to connect Eastern and Western Europe in the museum space (536). In this chapter, however, I will argue that instead the curators took a top-down approach, that rarely translates back to memories of everyday life, especially in the rooms about totalitarianism.
The Great Dialogue in the museum
The museum’s mission to become a reservoir of conflicting memories, was a difficult task to fulfill. Incorporating difference, contradiction and conflict in the museum space, requires a specific artistic design. That is why Dostoevsky’s novels can be seen as an example. According to Leonid Grossman, the many discussions between Dostoevsky’s characters had the function of displaying the different stances of the characters (Bakhtin 16). Because the characters were constantly quarelling, their independent and authentic ideas could take centre stage.
Eventually, this design – together with other techniques – would shape the novel so that the author and characters debate with equal rights in an open-ended discussion. Bakhtin calls this
‘the Great Dialogue’ (71).
When applied to museums, this concept of the Great Dialogue brings out some issues. As Tony Bennett has argued in his essays, museums have been complicit in the exhibitionary complex. The complex must be understood in opposition to the concept of the carceral archipelago, as described by Michel Foucault (Bennett 73). In the late eighteenth century, a shift occured in the way the state disciplined its subjects. The punishing of criminals was no longer done in front of the eyes of the public, but moved indoors, to prisons in which constant surveillance became the tool of discipline (Bennett 74). The exhibitionary complex evolved during the same years, but showed the same dynamic the other way around. Art and natural history galleries literally opened their doors to the public, creating public arena’s in which visitors could see themselves in the eyes of power (Bennett 75).
Instead, through the provision of object lessons in power – the power to command and arrange things and bodies for public display – they sought to allow the people, and en masse rather than individually, to know rather than be known, to become the subjects rather than the objects of knowledge. Yet, ideally, they sought also to allow the people to know and thence to regulate themselves; to become, in seeing themselves from the side of power, both the subjects and the objects of knowledge, (…). (Bennett 76).
By seeing themselves displayed, a process of self-regulation started within the public. The galleries thus became a powerful tool for nationalization. Instead of forcing citizens into submission by fear, it flattered them into it by showing the hierarchy of power and providing the visitor a place in this order (Bennett 80). This system thus relays heavily on the idea of ‘the Other’, from which the visitors could distance themselves. Thus, by definition, the museum is a nationalizing instrument, in which there is no room for other traditions, cultures and opinions. Polyphony in the museum thus seems impossible.
However, much has changed since the nineteenth century. In recent years, memory scholars have been focusing on memory dynamics that cross borders, thus contradicting the nationalistic approach of Bennett (Jones 27). One of the main research area’s in this field is the
way totalitarian regimes are remembered in Europe’s transnational context. As Daniel Levy and Nathan Sznaider have argued, something of a ‘cosmopolitan memory’ has been forged by the transnational event of the Holocaust (88). Without clearly naming it post-modernism, Levy and Sznaider argue that the idea of modernity is questioned in the memory of the Holocaust (88). Due to the uncertainies that come with the lack of a master ideology, in the age in which reason itself is on trial, the memory of Holocaust became the ‘moral touch stone’, to formulate new morals (Levy and Sznaider 87). One of those values became universalism. The memory of the Holocaust has been so succesful in transcending national borders because it has been localized and universalized at the same time (Levy and Sznaider 92). Paradoxically, universal identification became possible because of this strong local memory of the Holocaust that made it possible for strangers to identify with each other histories (Levy and Sznaider 92). Thus, this goal of univeralism could only be attained by incorporation the histories of the Other, as Levy and Sznaider conclude (103). In theory, this two-way dynamic of the Holocaust memory – both universalized and localized – makes it reminiscent of polyphonic memory. However, as I will argue in the next paragraph, the ‘new morals’ that were formulated using this memory, can actually block the histories of the Other in the museum space.
The Great Dialogue in a museum would mean that multiple perspectives are visible, unmerged and without an overarching ideological claim imposed upon them. Levy and Sznaider argued that Europe’s memoryboom of the Holocaust was a response to the uncertainies that came with the ‘absence of a master ideological narrative’ (93). However, the morals that were formulated in what Levy and Sznaider call ‘the Second Modernity’, like the humanistic value of individual life, have had the same effect of an overarching ideological claim. The European House of History tries to show different standpoints by ending almost every audiofragment with moralizing questions. However, the obvious answers to the questions show that visitors are presumed to share one ideology . There is litte room left for the interpretation of ‘the Other’. On the first floor of the permanent exhibition of the museum, after the introduction about the classical foundation of Europe, visitors walk up to a wall that shows ‘basic elements’ of the European continent. Themes like democracy and humanism, but also colonialism and genocide, are shown through historical objects behind a narrow window.
Underneath each object, a photo is placed in the same showcase, which is only visible in the window by standing on tiptoe. Every photo shows how these historical themes are still relevant today. In the audiofragment about the theme ‘State Terror’, the narrator speaks about the period of terror just after the French Revolution:3
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> Figure 17
Picture of the temporary monument 'Fountain Against Torture' by Erik
Tannhäuser, realised in Bremen, Germany by Amnesty International.
> Figure 18
Floorplan of the third floor of the European House of History.
Section A: Europa: A Global power Section B: World War I
Section C: Totalitarianism versus Democracy Section D: World War II and the Harvest of
Their reasoning, that idealistic goals can justify brutal means, have been used many times in European history, including the police-state measures of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and the Nazis in Germany. Can an act of terror ever be justified as a means to an end, or is violence of any kind unacceptable?
The narrator asks whether violence is acceptable when it is used for an idealistic goal, which is a moral question that is answered differently in different ideologies. The museum shows this by naming specifically and exclusively the two totalitarian regimes, thus placing this question of violence in a specific totalitarian context. The object that illustrates the theme ‘State Terror’, is the blade of a guilliotine. The blade is an illusterous example of the efficient use of violence, to eliminate opposition, typical of the period of Terror in France, after the Revolution. Just underneath the blade, visitors can see a photo, visible in Figure 15. It shows the monument
‘The Fountain Against Torture’, a monument against torturing, that was temporarily placed in Bremen, Germany by Amnesty International. The intonation and the usage of the words ‘ever be’ show that a pro-violence answer would not follow logically after this phrasing. With all of this – the totalitarian context, the monument against torture and the phrasing – the museum takes a humanistic stance, rejecting violence of any kind. It shows that the museum counts upon its visitors to share the common conviction that violence is never acceptable. Thus, even though the museum asks open questions, there seems to be an monological rethoric.
Polyphonic layout
The second floor of the permanent exhibition starts off with a large screening of the French Revolution and continues with the topics of nineteenth century industralisation, technology and imperialism, ending in the theme of World War I. According to Kaiser, the prominent space for these topic was celebrated by left-wing comentators, who saw the rising class-struggle and nationalism as important contributing factors to the two World Wars (528). I found the same Marxist influence in the exhibition, by the way that they placed a giant piece of machinery in the middle of an isle, with underneath the object, placed on the floor, a copy of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. The placement of the showcase, visible in Figure 17, is noteworthy because the floor is one of the most inpractible places to place an object. Visitors would have to get on their knees to see it, something that has been pointed out as a problem in museum design, already in the beginning of the twentieth century (Tissink 48). This leads to the conclusion that the Communist Manifest plays a symbolic role in the exhibition, not a practical one. The placement seems to suggest that the steam hammer grows out of the book, symbolizig its roots. In Figure 17, we can also see the citation of Marx, about the ‘spectre of Communism’
that is haunting Europe, that literally hoovers over the room. The placement of the book and
the quote, prove that indeed a Marxist historiography is shown, that is used to ultimately explain the two World Wars. This is significant because it underlines the notion of Judt, that the comparison of Hitler and Stalin as dictators is easier done in Western memory discourse, than the comparison of Facism and Communism as ideologies (826). The prominent space for the ideas of Marx are in stark contrast with the room about totalitarianism. With this, the museum clearly seperates Stalinism from Communism. This constrast is even visible in de lay-out of the entire floor, in which the room of Marx is placed at the direct opposite of the room of totalitarianism, the room that we now have arrived to.
> Figure 19
Replica of a steam hammer, without the book placed in the showcase.
‘Versus’
If Lutz his understanding of the museum is correct, that the equation of the two totalitarian regimes were the reason d’être of the museum, this would be visible in the representation of totalitarianism. As visible in Figure 16, the two regimes cover quite a bit of the second floor, which would support the claim of Lutz. However, the theme might receive a lot of attention, but that does not mean that the topic of totalitarianism has a voice in the museum. To understand how in polyphony normally passive subjects get a voice, we will again return to Bakhtin. In Dostoevsky’s authorial design, the author’s – or narrator’s – finalized views are known to the characters themselves (Bakhtin 49). Thus, the author or narrator is in an active discussion with the characters throughout the book about who these characters really are. The result is that the readers of Dostoevsky do not get an objective description of who his characters are, but how these characters think of themselves (Bakhtin 53). This creates an integral view on the person, writes Bakhtin, or something that Dostoevsky himself called ‘the man in man’:
In a human being there is always something that only he himself can reveal, in a free act of self-consciousness and discourse, something that does not submit to an externalizing secondhand definition. (Bakhtin 59).
The question then rises, whether the memories of the two totalitarian regimes in the European House of History, speak back to the narrator.
In the ‘Totalitarianism versus Democracy’-room, there are three ideologies placed into one composition: Democracy, National Socialism and Stalinism. Along the left wall the topic of ‘Democracy’ is explored, but remains within the timeframe of the 1920s and 1930s. On these panels the museum contrasts different concepts, namely: Pacifism versus Ethnical conflicts, Rapprochement versus Revanchism, European idea versus Fascism, and Keynesianism versus The Great Slump. Although these appear to be opposing ideas, the narration does not set out to stress the differences between the concepts. In the panel ‘Rapprochement versus Revanchism’, these opposing ideas do not oppose each other:4
Political and economic crisis engulfed Germany in 1923, when French and Belgium forces invaded the industrial Ruhr-valley, attempting to force payment of compensation owed to them after the war. The occupation ended in 1924 when Germany received financial loans from the USA, to pay these reparations, in what became known as the Dawes-plan. The French and German foreign ministers Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann played key roles in easing Franco-German tensions and shared the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.
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While the title of the panel suggests that there are two different perspectives on one period in history, by using the word ‘versus’, the fragment does not contain any opposition. A more monological story is told that flows chronologically, without any debate between these competing visions of the economic situation of the 1920’s.
Besides this narration, the physical positioning of the topic ‘Democracy’ assumes an objective role. The panels are placed along the entire length of the room, thus the visitor walks parallel to the topic of ‘Democracy’, as if following it as a timeline. Also, the visitor must physically line up with this democratic side to view the slideshow of the totalitarian regimes on the other side of the room, increasing the emotional distance between the visitor and the totalitarian regimes. It creates a ‘normal’ side and an ‘abnormal’ side, leaving a physical space for the non-participator. This layout underlines the narrative of the battle between democracy and totalitarianism, which can be seen as the main narrative of the room (Jaeger, 207).
Opposite to the left wall are the showcases about Nazism and Stalinism. Projected onto the showcases is a slideshow of videos, showing either videos of Nazis on the left side of the room or videos of the Soviets on the right side. In the accompanying audio fragment, the narrator compares the two regimes by talking about the Nazi and Soviet oppression, victimhood, and censorship. The showcases cover the topics ideology, leadership, economy, and mass terror. In these showcases Nazism and Stalinism are explained through these four aspects, ensuring that the visitors can see the similarities. This makes the more technical comparison of the totalitarian regime possible but leaves room for the visitors to make up their own mind about the equation of the regimes.
> Figure 20
The ‘Totalitarianism-versus-Democracy’- room, with on the left side the Democracy panels and
The placement of the showcases shows an interplay between the two totalitarian regimes. Divided over four showcases that mirror each other and light up alternately by the video projection, there exists a dialogue between the two regimes. However, this dialogue happens only on this curatorial plane. The narration is done from the same top-down point of view, in which there are no other voices audible. This gives of the impression that this is the official memory of both regimes, without addressing multiple variations of these memories that citizens of Europe have. In the audio guide the narrator speaks about the regimes, but no one is speaking back.
Thus, literally projecting a narrative over the two totalitarian regimes with the video projection, without the input of any of the memory actors who would have witnessed either one of the regimes, the museum remains the authoritative voice in this set-up. However, as we will see in the next section, this confident tone of the narrator shows a crack, just before the entrance of the ‘Totalitarianism-versus-Democracy’- room.
Double-voiced words
As the previous example has shown, the role of the narrator is important in facilitating an open-ended discussion. Much has been written about the narrator in Dostoevsky. Bakhtin argued that a new form of narrating had to be developed in order to create a polyphonic novel (8).
Bakhtin would call this Dostoevsky’s ‘small scale Copernican revolution’ in authorial design (49). The narrator in Dostoevsky’s novels seem to be talking to someone, in expectance of a reply. Although the second speaker is not there, he leaves ‘deep traces’, from which the reader can sense the hidden dialogue. Bakhtin calls this hidden dialogicality. The speaker seems to
‘glance sideward’ in his speech, anticipating the reaction of the second speaker. According to Bakhtin, this hidden dialogicality is a result of Dostoevsky’s ability to see contending voices within every utterance.
In every voice he could hear two contending voices, in every expression a crack, and the readiness to go over immediately to another contradictory expression; in every gesture he detected confidence and lack of confidence simultaneously; he perceived the profound ambiguity, even multiple ambiguity, of every phenomenon. (Bakhtin 30).
Similarly, in the European House of History the narration changes, when the room about the two totalitarian regimes comes into sight. This ‘crack’ in narration can be heard long before the actual room comes into sight. This well in advance remark, further attributes to the nervous
‘sideward glance’ this sentence seems to reveal:
We have chosen to compare and contrast these systems, which were ideologically opposed to each other and yet so alike in their brutality and oppression.
For the first time in the audio-guide, does the narrator speak of a ‘we’, to explain why the curatorial team has chosen to compare the two totalitarian systems. It shows a crack in the previous unwavering tone of the narrator. This ambuigity can be explained by the debate whether Nazism and Stalinism should be compared or not. This debate has been dubbed the Historikerstreit and has been going on since the 1980’s. By using ‘we’, the narrator subtly shows this conflict within its speech. The phrase becomes double-voiced, adressing both the visitors within the dialogue of the museum, and the scholars of the dialogue of the Historikerstreit.
Other micro-dialogues surround the topic of the Holocaust, that after the theme
‘Totalitarianism versus Democracy’, is discussed again in the room ‘World War II’. It is in this room that the words of head curator Andrea Mork become interesting. ‘Comparison is not equation’, writes Mork, in an article explaining the construction of the museum (Mork 229).
In the intoductionary audiofragment, the narrator says that ‘in both its scale and bureacratic form, the genocide of the European Jews became an unparalleled event in history’. However, in the showcases itself, the parallels with Stalinism keep being drawn (Jaeger 208). It gives the impression that the museum wants to compare totalitarianism in technical terms, but does not want to overshadow the Holocaust in moral terms, by saying it can be equated.
In conclusion, this technical comparison overshadows the diversity of memory experiences of the two totalitarian regimes. Instead of showing the everyday lives under both regimes, the museum statically sums up the similiarities and differences of the two dictators.
Therefore the room ‘Totalitarianism-versus-Democracy’ is much more a room about the Historikerstreit, than a plurality of contradicting memories, as the museum wrote in their mission.