The Dynamics of National Identity
Represented Within National Museums
The Deutsches Museum in Munich and the Museo Nazionale Del Risorgimento in Turin
Submitted to the Graduate School of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
Master of Arts in
Heritage Studies: Museum Studies
Supervisor: Dr. Mirjam Hoijtink Second Reader: Prof. Dr. Bram Kempers
Anamarija Tokic 11764449
Submitted on 31st January 2019
For my family.
Acknowledgements
Introduction | National Museums and National Identity 1
1. Chapter I | Construction of National Identity in the Course of Time 8
1.1. History and the Founding of the Museums 8
1.2. ‘Resistance’ and Reinvention of Bavaria and Piedmont 13 1.3. Fascism and National Socialism and Their Aftermath 20
2. Chapter II | Narrating and ‘Renewing’ National Identity 26 2.1. Correlation of Collective Memory and Identity
26
2.2. Museum Objects Conveying Meaning 29
2.3. National Myths - A Product of Imagination 40
2.4. Facilitators Between the Public and the State 47
2.5. Between ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Identities 51
3. Chapter III | Education Programs ‘Teaching’ National Identity 57
3.1. Museums and Education 57
3.2. Bild-Schrift-Codes 60
3.3. Research Method 61
3.4. Discussion 62
Conclusion | National Identity Challenging National Museums 74
Bibliography 77
Appendix 85
I was always fascinated by the social role and function of museums, an inspiration that was augmented by the university courses that I was fortunate enough to attend during my masters in Museum Studies at the University of Amsterdam. In particular, the examination of museum theory, concepts and narratives intensified my interest and expertise. Whilst working as an intern in the Deutsches Museum in Munich and creating the school program
‘Bild-Schrift-Codes’, I noticed how education programs are indirectly linked to the notions of the Ministry of Education in Bavaria. Moreover, I asked myself how other instances of the museums are influenced by third parties and how are they represented in the entire museum?
The combination of my experience during the internship and an excursion and analysis of current issues in the northern Italian museum landscape, resulted in the final decision to focus on a comparative approach of the Deutsches Museum in Munich and the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento in Turin - two national museums that are located in capital cities of nation states.
Museums have a strong influence on the opinion formation of its visitors, and therefore, it is important to question whose interests and opinions are forwarded. These issues inspired me to concentrate my thesis on how museums represent and support the creation of national identity.
I would first like to thank for the assistance and guidance of Mirjam Hoijtink and Bram Kempers,
gratitude goes also out to the Deutsches Museum, providing the possibility to conduct the evaluation of the school program ‘Bild-Schrift-Codes’ - With a special mention to Lorenz Kampschulte and Gertraud Weber, who supported me to create the school program and its
evaluation.
National Museums and National Identity
“[Exhibited Objects are] a conducted translation of identity, a manipulation of the masses for
political reasons.” (Mihály 2014:40) 1
This statement implies how today’s political constitutions use museums as a tool to mediate national identity, but what needs to be elaborated how they are applied to the public. The use of national museums is one of the many common standards that nations use to brand, represent and articulate national values and therefore, support the creation of national identity (Aronsson
& Elgenius, 2015).
In the past, museums were often used in the national narrative as tools to legitimise various aspects of the nation building process, such as the Deutsches Museum (1903) in Munich re ecting German - Bavarian - modernity and in contrast the Deutsches Historisches Museum (1987) in Berlin or the Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1982) in Bonn representing the signi cance of the German reuni cation and contemporary history. Therefore, museums should not only be analysed as representers of historical ‘facts’, but also as hosts of cultural and political ambitions. Although, the brand of a ‘national’ museum consequently leads to an association with ‘national’ goals, it is also important to di erentiate between regional and national politics and values. Germany’s museum landscape is regulated by the federal states, whereas Italy's is regulated by a central administration (Wagner 2010; Direzione Generale Musei n.d.). This is why it needs to be analysed if local and/or national politics de ne the content of the national museums that are educating the civic population.
This question originates in the formation of the museum, reveals the reasons behind its foundation and manifests how a community is represented to the world and how it produces its own narrative of history and memory. Munich and Turin are capitals of a nation state and before the nal nationalisation of the countries, in 1989 and 1861 for Germany and Italy respectively, they both had a dominant role in the competition between di erent cities crusading for capital status. According to the o cial website of the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento , it
“[…] is the oldest and best-known museum of History of the Nation, the only one to be truly signi cant at a national level for the relevance, wealth and breath of its collections”, implying
1 Mihály’s analysis about the political use of census, maps and museums to shape national identity is based on Anderson’s (2006) ‘Imagined Communities’ and draws a line between the creation of national identity in past and
that no other museum in the country dedicated to the Risorgimento has the power to tell the history of that period in the same way as the museum in Turin has (Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento n.d.). It was Turin that became, in 1861 right after the Risorgimento, the capital 2 city of Italy. Although the national political power was taken away from Turin, the city kept its prominence by ourishing during the early industrial period. Just as Turin is competing to remain a relevant and in uential factor in the national history discourse in Italy, Munich also similarly challenges its role in Germany. ‘The star of the south’ ( Der Stern des Südens ) is how Munich is often referred to, a wealthy city and the capital of the biggest nation state in Germany.
It is a rather prestigious matter that one of the largest science and technology museums of the world is located in Munich. The Deutsches Museum stands for the progress and achievements in science and technology, thus representing Munich’s ‘Zeitgeist’ and normative ideals.
The debate about national identities has been widely discussed in diverse elds, including museum studies. Researchers focused on de ning how national museums, in uenced by the rise of nation states and then again by nowadays’ globalisation, present identities, and thus have an e ect in the formation of national identities. Moreover, ways in which museums re ect and in uence the public perception of identity within the nation frame have also been researched (McLean 2015:1). In this respect an important aspect to examine, is whose history and memory is constructed, hence who is represented and who is left out in the narrative. Authors who have speci cally investigated the relationship between museums and the creation of national identities are Kaplan 1994 & 2011, Mclean 1998, Macdonald 2003 & 2013, Ostow 2008, Aronsson and Elegnius 2011 & 2015, Weiser 2015, Lleras 2017 and Warren-Findley 2017. There are also a 3 number of works that concentrate on individual case studies or focus on the broader topics around nation building and identities, but which can also be used in terms of museums and identity.
2 http://www.museorisorgimentotorino.it/nuovo_allestimento.php?l=en, Last access: 28.01.2019.
3 Kaplan 1994, Museums and the Making of “Ourselves.”. The Role of Objects in National Identity. ; Kaplan 2011, Making and Remaking National Identities. ; Mclean 1998, Museums and the construction of national identity. A review. ; Macdonald 2003, Museums, National, Postnational and Transcultural Identities. ; Macdonald 2013, Memorylands. Heritage and Identity in Europe today. ; Ostow 2008, ( Re)visualizing National History : Museums and National Identities in Europe in the new Millennium. ; Aronsson and Elgenius 2011, Building National Museums in Europe 1750-2010. European National Museums: Identity, Politics, the Uses of the Past and the European Citizen. ; Aronsson and Elgenius 2015, National Museums and Nation-building in Europe 1750-2010.
Mobilization and Legitimacy, Continuity and Change. ; Weiser 2015, National Identity Within the National Museum. Subjectification Within Socialization. ; Lleras 2017, National Museums, National Narratives, and Identity Politics. ; Warren-Findley 2017, Public History, Cultural Institutions, and National Identity. Dialogues about Difference.
Throughout the research, it became clear that the Deutsches Museum and the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento do not form, but support the creation of national identity. Therefore, this thesis will follow the notion that national museums do not create national identity, but support the formation of it. The process of creating a sense of national identity is dynamic and in uenced by a variety of components; museums being one of them. Nevertheless, it is crucial to question what can be understood from the term of ‘national identity’, with a contemporary de nition being “a sense of a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language” (English Oxford Dictionary n.d.). But can a nation today be perceived as 4 a ‘cohesive whole’?
National identities can not be perceived as a universal phenomenon, they always have to be analysed in regard to their historical and cultural surroundings (Macdonald 2003:1). The creation of national identity is a dynamic process that re ects political and social movements, hence it is necessary to draw a distinction between the notion of national museums in the 19th and early 20th century; the high peak of nation building, and their function today. In particular the contemporary globalisation a ects the notion of belonging to only one nation and sharing solely one identity, which creates the question of whether or not national identity is becoming irrelevant and in contrast, questions the necessity for creating new identities (Macdonald 2003:1). These issues form the basis for a research on the relationship between museums and the formation of identities. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse how these museums approach the fact that national identities are being challenged. Further, the extent to which they hold onto their old and traditional forms of representing ‘national’ values and identities or if there is an attempt to engage with changes in society, has to be analysed.
Many researches, focusing on European case studies, concentrate on the correlation of museums and national identities in countries that are still in the nation building process, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina or Scotland. When it comes to countries that are widely seen as 5 post-nations, the exploration is limited to analysing the shift of representing ‘national identity’
towards a new ‘european/global identity’. The concept of new identities overshadows the fact
4 By retrieving the de nition of ‘national identity’ from a dictionary the aim is to avoid interdisciplinary connotations for the term. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/de nition/national_identity, Last access: 28.01.2019.
5 For instance Walasek, H. (2015). Bosnia and the destruction of cultural heritage .; Duraković, J. (2011). Kako graditi imidž države na temelju kulture i kulturnog identiteta – bh. paradigma. ; Bucciantini, A. (2018). Exhibiting Scotland: Objects, Identity and the National Museum. ; Fladmark, J. M. (2000). Heritage and Museums. Shaping
that many museums still struggle with their old ways of representing national identities.
Therefore, it is important to analyse how far national museums stick to their old patterns or struggle adapting to new concepts of identity. The Deutsches Museum and the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento are museums that were essential cultural components in the nation building process of Germany and Italy; promoting and implementing values to validate the authorities’
power. Even today they have the power to in uence the formation of national identity by including regional values and goals, hence not necessarily representing a ‘cohesive’ identity. A
‘cohesive’ national identity stands for an identity, where the same values are shared by the entire nation - and not a formation that is pursuing goals and values deriving from certain areas in the country. This is why it is necessary not only to analyse how ‘cohesive’ national identities are represented, but rather concentrate on historical, political, and socio-geographical circumstances in Munich and Turin, which are leading to a representation of national identities - including regional goals and values.
Therefore, this research paper will outline in a comparative analysis, the extent to which the Deutsches Museum and the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento , not only form a cohesive national identity, but are also in uencing the formation of a national identity by incorporating regional values and notions. Hence, the research question: How can the Deutsches Museum in Munich and the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento in Turin be distinguished as tools for identity formation in Germany and Italy? Whose ideals of a national identity are represented?
Museums as political institutions, are a ected by political power and ideology and hold a symbolic role and meaning for society, hence it is necessary to analyse the historical and organisational background of the cities they are situated in. It is also essential to question the ways in which the institutions are organised. This includes a re ection on who is nancing them and, hence, having their own interests represented. Furthermore, it will be elaborated how narrating national identity, in uences the museums’ discourses in the public sphere. The Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento undertook major renovations in 2011 and the Deutsches Museum followed with a ten year long renewal and plans to reopen in 2025. Therefore, this research will evaluate to what extent the renovations have an e ect on the representation of national identity as shown by the institutions, which includes the analysis of how and if the museums try to include a new concept and to open up ‘identity’ to a wider and global understanding. At last, the
research will analyse how education programs support the creation of national identity. In other words, how museums, using school programs as a tool, a ect the process of opinion formation.
As already introduced the focus will be a comparative analysis of the Deutsches Museum in Munich and the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento in Turin. Both museums will be analysed in relation to their representation of national identity as they are not standing for national museums in a capital city, but in cities that are capitals of nation states. Two nation state capitals that still compete to remain relevant and in uential in the national discourse. However, the museums also imply an essential di erence, as the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento and the Deutsches Museum di erentiate in content. The museum in Turin is a history museum presenting a collection of historical artifacts containing documents, ags, sculptures, paintings, royal accessories and other historic objects. The Deutsches Museum on the other hand, is a science and technology museum, that presents objects re ecting the past and present of science and technology.
Besides following the current research in literature, this thesis also builds upon observations of the museums and the cities in which they are located. Moreover, an evaluation was conducted in the Deutsches Museum during eighteen pilot runs of the school program ‘Bild - Schrift - Codes’
and will be used to underline the relation between education and museums and their social and political role. Consequently, the aim is to analyse to what extent education programs in uence the creation of national identity by being strong tools for opinion formation. The evaluation was conducted from 7th November 2018 until 5th December 2018. During that period, all in all, 373 students and 32 teachers were questioned.
The rst part of the research will examine the historical background of the Deutsches Museum and the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento . This section will initially concentrate on the history of Turin and Munich and its e ect on the founding of the museums. The extent to which Turin’s status as the capital city of Italy from 1861 until 1865, has in uenced today’s perception of the city and its meaning for the museum, will also be analysed. Moreover, Turin’s capital status and the consequent loss of it, will be examined especially in regard to the foundation of the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento . The research will probe the causes for establishing the museum in 1878 in Turin, and not in Florence or Rome; thus, investigating how the early history in uences the representation of national identity. Consequently, newer developments in
the history of the perception of Italian national identity will be interpreted and related to its origins. Similarly, the history of the Deutsches Museum which was founded in 1903, will be analysed and connected to the intentions that led to its consequent establishment as one of the largest science and technology museums in the world. This includes a closer look at the reasons behind why the national museum, representing modernity and the progress of the nation, was founded in Munich, in the south, which was the former royal capital of the Bavarian Kingdom.
Moreover, the research will draw a line to conclude how the early history of the city and the museum a ected the museum’s role in Germany.
The second chapter will concentrate on the narrative of the museums. In particular, the research will present how the objects and their display support the intended representations of national identity. The goal is to determine the extent to which the museums themselves and their display methods support the narrative, with their claim of authenticity deriving from the modernity and progress in Munich and Turin during the Risorgimento. Moreover, this chapter will investigate the role of each museum in the public sphere. As the research is concentrating widely on how the museums are in uenced by politics and therefore, representing the ongoing political discourse, this section will also depict the counterpart; an exploration to what extent museums as cultural constitutions, in uence and shape the political constitution.
Furthermore, this chapter will evaluate the results of the museums’ renovation. The Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento was renovated in 2011 and claims to o er to its visitors
“outstanding” displays and services, accompanied by the use of multimedia to guarantee a
“unique experience” (Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento n.d.). This part of the research will 6 analyse how far the modernisation process in uenced the narrative of the museum - including the formation of national identity. Moreover, the museum states that “the period of the Risorgimento is now recounted from a European viewpoint as well as through the eyes of Turin, Piedmont and Italy” (Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento n.d.). On that account, it will be 7 evaluated whose voice is the most dominant one, or if the museum approaches the topic from an
‘unbiased’ perspective. The goal is to investigate the extent to which the renewal has or has not changed the representation of national identity. Does an attempt that includes a more diverse approach towards identity exist in a contemporary setting?
6 http://www.museorisorgimentotorino.it/museo.php, Last access: 28.01.2019.
7 http://www.museorisorgimentotorino.it/museo.php, Last access: 28.01.2019.
