CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2009
| Author | Hwang, Brianne Nicole |
|---|---|
| Title | Constructing the Communist Other: A Comparative Study of Museum Representations of Communism |
| Summary | This thesis compares three museums’ representation of Communism as presented to the Western visitor: the House of Terror in Budapest, Grutas Park near Druskininkai, Lithuania, and the DDR Museum in Berlin. These museums represent divergent approaches to the difficult and controversial subject of how to represent the nation’s recent past. The aim of this thesis is to analyze each narrative of Communism as it is presented to a Western audience, and to elucidate the components of exhibition that contribute to creating a particular representation of Communism. I argue that the House of Terror claims to own and impart “the truth” about the evil Communist Other and uses manipulative exhibition practices to relay this Truth. The narrative of Grutas Park is more ambiguous in that it fosters themes of victimhood and resistance, but does so inconsistently. The DDR Museum’s optimistic representation of everyday life appeals to the trend of Communist Kitsch but still presents a critical view of life under Socialist dictatorship. I use blog entries and visitor comments to gauge the Westerner’s reactions to these representations and museum experiences. These studies are situated within their political and national contexts, aligning their representations with cleavages in academic literature regarding how the history of life under Communism should be written. |
| Supervisor | Rév, István; Iordachi, Constantin |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2009/hwang_brianne.pdf |
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