ABSTRACT
This chapter will analyse national museums as significant national symbols and as nation-building devices. As part of the nexus of symbolism, used by elites as political tools, national museums raise awareness of, claim and contribute to the construction of national identities. National museums are uniquely placed as witnesses of nation-building, and illuminate, through collections and displays, that which Anderson (1991) identified as ‘imagined’ or Hobsbawm called an ‘invented tradition’ (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992). They also highlight the crucial role of high culture in nation-building (Gellner 1983). As a comparative framework is useful here the inaugurations of the first national museum are analysed within their socio-political context and the ‘politics of home’ (Duyvendak 2011). Although national symbols are often misunderstood to be mainly decorative they represent at their core imaginations and interpretations of the nation’s origin, its past, present and future. The current analysis leans on relevant frameworks developed out of a Durkheimian tradition (Durkheim 1976; Lukes 1975; Cohen 1995a; Turner 1967) with a focus on elementary forms of nation-building as the symbolic production of imagining the nation as one community. In today’s world, nations use similar toolkits – they all have flags, anthems, national days, national museums and academies. Their role is, in other words, to demonstrate that nations are distinct, yet equal and on a par with other nations. With this in mind, we may assume that nation-building follows similar patterns and, even if the content of the proclaimed ‘uniqueness’ varies, claims to uniqueness appear to be less unique. National museums being no exception, they constitute strategic markers of nation-building introduced at pivotal times. As being of particular relevance here, this chapter provides a survey of the first national museums in Europe. (For the analysis of the ensemble of national museums as a concerted narrative see the second part of the conclusion, Chapter 7.)
