Museum and Historical Culture: How is Jewish History Included in the Museum Narrative of Lithuania?

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reveal the dynamics of the museum narrative of Jewish history in the contexts of Lithuanian historical culture in the period 1990–2020. Seeing the tensions between ethnocentric and polycentric, civic, civilizational models of identity in historical culture, the topic of Jewish history representation was chosen because of its complicated integration into the scheme of ethnocentric national narrative. The study shows that the museum representations of Jewish history are increasing in number and becoming more various in themes and forms. That was predetermined by the changes in the political conjuncture and public memory and by individual initiatives.

Keywords

• historical culture
• lithuanian museums in 1990 to 2020
• museum representation
• history of the jews in lithuania
• holocaust
• shtetl