This chapter offers an imaginary archaeology of Moscow’s central district of Zaryadye located close to the Kremlin. It examines how three consecutive regimes – Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union, and the present-day Russian state – used this site for their own history politics. In the nineteenth century, the imperial legacy of the district was rediscovered by the restoration of a historical palace of the founder of the Romanov dynasty. Because of the proximity to the Kremlin, the Soviet Union used the main part of the quarter as a construction site for buildings representing the new regime. In 2006, the empty space left after the Soviet grand projects was turned into a park that was to bring Moscow in line with other global cities. With each step, the original district turned from a residential area with an individual character into a non-place, which serves only passers-by. The chapter shows how imperial cities such as Moscow are being transformed in a long-term process, which is responsible for the palimpsestic nature of their heritage, and how the imperial heritages are (de)constructed and (re)used in the capital’s cityscape.

This dissertation examines the institutional ontology of museums: how it is being changed and which issues and actors are calling for such change.  

A museum project that started from scratch in the mid-2010s – the Museum of Movements in Malmö, Sweden – is used as a lens to examine how the global processes of (re)imagining the museum are unfolding in the local Swedish context. The research questions addressed in the dissertation consider the use of politics in the process of museum making (and unmaking); framing of “difficult issues” which cultural institutions are dealing with in both the global and the Swedish museum context; and constituting socially relevant and sustainable museum practices based on agonistic memory framework and museum activism.  

Addressing these research questions, the text moves constantly between analyses of theories and empirical material. Each chapter also discusses existing research in the relevant field, be it museum politics, memory studies or the concept of “difficult issues”. The study relies on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the process of the Museum of Movements’ making and unmaking (2018-2020) and brings in theoretical frameworks to connect museology and memory studies in order to explain museum- and memory politics and museums as processes. 

Avhandlingen undersöker med ett kritiskt perspektiv förändringar i museivärlden, både i Sverige och globalt. Med utgångspunkt i Rörelsernas museum, ett statligt demokrati- och migrationsmuseiprojekt med inriktning på migration, mänskliga rättigheter, folkrörelser och civilsamhällesbaserad aktivism, som var aktivt i form av en försöksverksamhet mellan 2017 och 2020 i Malmö, tar avhandlingen upp museernas institutionella ontologier och vilka förändringar de genomgår i samtiden.  

I fokus för analysen står vilka förutsättningar som finns för att skapa ett demokratiskt och samhällsrelevant museum i samtiden samt vilka faktorer som påverkar den utvecklingen. Avhandlingen kretsar kring följande forskningsfrågor: Vilka politiska processer var avgörande för Rörelsernas museums skapande och upphävande? Hur förhåller sig en samtida minneskultur till kontroversiella och svåra ämnen? Vilken form kan ett museum som ska ta upp svåra ämnen ta?  

Analysen utgår från deltagande observationer och intervjuer samt tidningsmaterial och offentliga dokument. Med det empiriska materialet diskuteras politik och maktutövande i museivärlden samt olika former och praktiker för hållbar och samhällsrelevant museiverksamhet. Analysen drivs av begrepp och teorier från museologi och kulturella minnesstudier. Avhandlingen resonerar kring de skillnader som skapas mellan närliggande minnen och svåra ämnen som historiserats. Den argumenterar för att agonistisk minnesteori kan stödja museer att hantera både samtida och historiskt svåra och kontroversiella ämnen. Undersökningen resonerar kring svåra ämnens politik samt hur detta kan studeras och förstås genom de tvärdisciplinära fälten minnesstudier och museologi.   

This article focuses on the 2013–2016 exhibitions in Moscow Manege which were later transformed into a network of entertainment centres (“historical parks”) Russia–my (hi)story. The exhibitions are built on multimedia technologies and include no authentic artefacts/museum objects. There is a growing network of such centres all over Russia, all organized in a similar manner, appealing to the visitor’s emotions and creating a relation of affect through the unravelling of a nationalistic historical narrative. Claimed to present “the objective picture of the Russian history”, the exhibitions are following the recent developments in Russian cultural policies and history curricula. By analysing narratives presented at the “historical park” exhibitions, in policy documents and in media, this article follows the changes in public attitude towards history, which heritage is perceived as ‘difficult’ and ‘contested’ and how the digital representations influence these perceptions. Based on this analysis I argue that the reduction of the museum mechanism to only digital and multimedia form can bring along very serious issues in different political contexts. Russian historical parks enterprise, which combines the methods of fostering patriotism by the means of historical narrative templates both from the 19th and the 20th centuries, enhanced with the 21st-century technology in a form of “multimedia museums,” is only one of such examples.

Are museums political institutions? This question draws the attention of academic researchers as well as the broader public. In Sweden, where cultural institutions, even if state-funded, are officially autonomous from the ‘political sphere’, the discussion around museums, heritage and politics keeps emerging in traditional media, social networks, political communications, and academic debate.

Using analytical perspectives borrowed both from the political sciences and from the memory studies field, this article addresses the role of popular movements in Swedish museum practice and the emerging project of museum for migration and democracy (Museum of Movements) in Malmö as a possible arena for trying out a new form of museum as a civil society institution.

What Russian people are experiencing today is a conflict of memories of the shared past. The polarization within the society has risen to the extent that the critical approach to the past becomes an insult: one of the recent legislative initiatives in Russian Parliament is to criminalize “insulting patriotic feelings”. The problem of “misinterpretation of history” is used in political rhetoric on such level as “history as a science should serve the national interests of Russia” (as it stated in the thesis of the Russian minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky). The most recent Russian cultural policy includes the reconsideration of the 20th century’s history with all its paradoxes that cause heated public discussions. Such exhibitions as “The Orthodox Russia. From the Great Upheavals to the Great Victory” (Moscow Manege, November 2015; on this exhibition Soviet leaders were presented alongside Orthodox clergymen in one heroic narrative, ignoring the fact that the former gave orders to put the latter to death) could serve as illustrations of this process as well as civic initiatives such as “The Last Address” (a Russian analogue of the German Stolperstein project to commemorate the victims of political repressions). In the modern multicultural world, the preservation and dialogue of different identities is a highly significant question. The cultural institutions are historically located on the forefront of the national identity construction and specific role in this process belongs to museums. By studying the controversies in contemporary cultural narratives of Russian museums and the deliberate cultural insulation as a national policy, I intend to contribute to developing a new language for museums to encompass both global and local identities.

What does it take to make a museum? A building designed by wor- ld-known ‘starchitect’? Public demand? Authentic and exciting collec- tions to present? Committed staf? Generous sponsors? Depending on the context, more questions might arise. However, the question I aim to address is if there is a demand for museological competence in new museum projects, how this competence is being performed and what perspectives there are for further development. The article analyses and compares two museum projects. The first is the Orthodox Church’s museum at the New Jerusalem Monastery near Moscow, Russia; the second is a pilot study for the national Museum for Democracy and Migration in Malmö, Sweden.

Que faut-il pour créer un musée ? Un bâtiment conçu par un architecte reconnu ? Une demande populaire ? Des collections authentiques et intéressantes ? Des employés engagés ? Des mécènes généreux ? La liste peut s’allonger en fonction du contexte. Les questions auxquelles je souhaite répondre ici sont plus spécifiques : Existe-t-il un besoin de compétences en muséologie au sein des projets muséaux ? Com- ment sont utilisées ces compétences et quelles sont leurs perspectives de développements ? Cet article présente deux études de projets de musées : le Musée de l’Eglise Orthodoxe au Monastère de la Nouvelle Jérusalem qui se trouve près de Moscou en Russie et l’étude pilote pour le Musée National de la Démocratie et des Migrations à Malmö en Suède.

The actual definition of the museum is articulated around different roles: the preservation of tangible and intangible heritage in addition to research on and communication of knowledge. Consequently, visitors need to trust museums with their interpretation of reality. Historical or national museums hold a central role, insofar as they strongly influence the identity of entire nations.

In this article, I will study the ways in which heritage is used to construct politically engaged collective memories and contemporary Russian cultural policies, which promote such uses. In particular, I will analyse the transformation of the 2013‐2016 Moscow Manege exhibitions into an entertainment centre called ‘Russia—my (hi)story’, which is promoted by the Russian Orthodox Church and supported by the authorities. Another case presented herein is the Gulag History Museum in Moscow. My aim is to demonstrate how the cultural heritage is being ‘applied’ to construct historical narratives of the difficult past and what is the relation of cultural policies implemented by the State to this process.