What is it about?
In analysing the qualitative data obtained, through collecting visual information, and undertaking face-to-face in-depth expert interviews and observations, the author explains how the curators have positioned religious objects chronologically in a specific social and political context by using storytelling as the exhibition’s primary interpretative strategy.
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Why is it important?
Compared to the previous period of activity (1945-1990) when the museum was an institution of Soviet ideology, today the National History Museum of Latvia has developed a new paradigm for the evaluation and interpretation of religion and religious objects. Alongside to ethnicity, politics and language, the curators have identified religion as the most important element in Latvia’s formation process. Religion is interpreted as one of Latvia’s constitutive elements in the exhibition, emphasizing that it was society’s major cohesive force in the past, influencing the development of national identity and defining the territorial borders of the Republic of Latvia.
Perspectives
The Latvia’s Century exhibition can be evaluated as a redefinition of national identity, which has developed over the course of the century and it explains who we are currently. In the exhibition, the curators have chosen to exhibit objects of a religious nature, which are rich in symbolism and meaning, and this allows for broad and deep interpretations to be made which reflect the interaction of the religious and the secular.
Prof. Anita Stasulane
Daugavpils Universitate
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Interaction Between the Secular and the Religious: The Exhibition Latvia’s Century at the National History Museum of Latvia, HISTORICKÁ SOCIOLOGIE, December 2019, Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press,
DOI: 10.14712/23363525.2019.16.
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