Rodostina Sharenkova
Ph.D. Student, Ethnographic Institute and Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
Ladda ner artikel
Ingår i: National museums in a global world. NaMu III; Department of culture studies and oriental languages; University of Oslo; Norway; 19-21 November 2007
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 31:10, s. 119-121
Publicerad: 2008-07-16
ISBN:
ISSN: 1650-3686 (tryckt), 1650-3740 (online)
The effects of globalization have started to influence the national museums in Bulgaria since the beginning of the 1990s. The reasons for the long-lasting isolation up to the democratic transition stem from the communist regime which practically closed the state borders and abandoned freedom of thought and movement.
Nevertheless; questions of diversity could not have been swept under the rug by the ethnographic museum. The presentation of ‘Us’ always implies comparison with the ‘Other’. Like many other regions in the world the Balkans are inhabited by a mix of cultures historically and geographically interrelated. No doubt; the Bulgarian National Ethnographic Museum (NEM) has tried actively to participate in the nation-building process ever since its own foundation.
The museum’s tradition in presenting the Bulgarian national culture for a long time had excluded the display of other ethnic communities’ cultures. Until recently; such materials had never been subject to collecting as if they were not to be found within this same country. This element of NEM’s politics was changed under the influence of globalization and re-opening of the state after the fall of the communist regime in 1989.
Turning the tide with the fall of the communist regime in 1989; the museum mission was changed in order to escape the link with the discredited past. The stress was firmly put on ‘difference’ in its various geographic; ethnic or religious aspects. The collecting and exhibiting policies were focused on the past and avoided any current social or cultural issues.
The influence of globalization seen as intercultural relationships and exchange of information could be traced in NEM’s exhibitions presenting the Bulgarian diaspora from the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. As a result of the impact of multiculturalism on ethnological research; NEM has started to present the ethnic communities in a series of temporary exhibitions. The series of displays have come to support state political concept of the ‘Bulgarian tolerance’.
????????-???????????; ???? (1996) ‘?????? ?????????? ? ???????? ??????????? ?????’; ??; 4: 18-29// Kovacheva-Kostadinova; Vyara (1996) ‘Hristo Vakarelski and the National Ethnographic Museum’; Bulgarian Ethnology; 4: 18–29.
????????-???????????; ???? (1997); ‘???? ???????? ??? (?????? ? ????????)’; ?: ??????; I-II: 267-291// Kovacheva-Kostadinova; Vyara (1997) ‘A Century of the NEM (Past and Present)’; in: Rodina; I-II: 267–291.
???????????; ?????; ??????? ????? (1995) ???????? ?? ????????. ???????? ?? ????????????????? ??????? ??????????; ?????: ???? ‘90 // Marushiakova; Elena; Veselin Popov (1995) The Gypsies of Bulgaria. Problems of the Multicultural Museum Exhibition. Sofia: Club ‘90.
???????; ??????? (1971) ‘??????????; ???????????? ??????? ? ???????????? ???????? ?????? ?? ???????? ??????????? ????? ? ????? (1906 – 1944)’; ????; XIII: 245-268// Radonov; Zdravko (1971) ‘Establishment; Initial Activities and International Cultural Relations of the National Ethnographic Museum in Sofia (1906-1944)’; Proceedings of the Ethnographic Institute and Museum; XIII: 245–268.
??????; ??????? (2002) ‘???????????? ??????????? ????? ?? ????????? ?? ??? ???????????’; ????????? ?????????; 4: 79-90// Teneva; Nadezhda (2002) ‘The National Ethnographic Museum at the Border of the Millennium’; Bulgarian Ethnology; 4: 79–90.
Ames; Michael (1992) Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes. The Anthropology of Museums; Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Anderson; Benedict (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism; London: Verso.
Decheva; Mirella (2001) ‘Ethnographic Exhibition as a Way of Intercultural Communication: the Experience of the Bulgarian National Ethnographic Museum’; in: Néprajzi Értesíto. Annales musei ethnographiae; 83; Néprajzi museum; Budapest; 117–122.
Decheva; Mirella (2005) ‘The Experience of the Bulgarian Ethnography Museum in the Process of Roma Cultural Changes’; in: Zborník Slovenského Národného Múzea v Martine; XCIX; Slovenské Národné Múzeum; Martine; 58–66.
Kreamer; Christine M. (1992) ‘Defining Communities through Exhibiting and Collecting’; Museums and Communities: the Politics of Public Culture. Karp; Ivan; Christine Mullen Kreamer; Steven Lavine (eds); Washington; D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press; 367–381.
Macdonald; Sharon J. (2003) ‘Museums; National; Postnational and Transcultural Identities’; Museum and Society; 1 (1); 1–16.
Prösler; Martin (1996) ‘Museums and Globalization’; in S. Macdonald and G. Fyfe (eds) Theorizing Museums; Oxford: Basil Blackwell; 21–44.
Teneva; N.; (2001); ‘National Ethnographic Museum; Sofia. Exhibitions; Audience and Problems’; in: Néprajzi Értesíto. Annales musei ethnographiae; 83; Néprajzi museum; Budapest; 53–62.
