Memory Culture in Post-Soviet Museums

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

As museums serve as hot spots for telling national, transnational, local and personal narratives, curators and administrators find themselves recalculating as the political and economic contexts for their work change over time. The divergent trajectories of the former Soviet Republics provide a useful backdrop for comparing how museums adapt to new narrative frameworks especially as regards their Soviet pasts. This panel draws on research from Lithuania, Russia and Uzbekistan.

Sub Unit

• Anthropology, Cultural Studies

Chair

• Kathleen Elizabeth Smith, Georgetown U

Papers

• Contemporary Narrations of the Soviet Past in Lithuanian Museums - Lea Garcia, Greifswald U (Germany)

• Uzbek Museums: Between Decolonization and Persistence - Corinna Kuhr-Korolev, Centre for Contemporary History (Germany)

• Curating Lessons from Literary Lives: The House Museums of Pasternak and Chukovsky - Kathleen Elizabeth Smith, Georgetown U

Discussant

• Ekaterina V. Klimenko, Woodrow Wilson Center, Kennan Inst

Session Manager

• Susan Zayer Rupp, Wake Forest U