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6: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN Holtorf suggests that it is not necessarily the public that need a better understanding of archaeology but the archaeologists that need a better understanding of the public (Holtorf 2007:6). If we do not understand how the past that we see in the present has been created we cannot understand different people’s connections with it and why people interact with it the way they do. There is also an issue of how we value these different parts of the puzzle. In Berlin the stories that have arrived out of the narratives and the metaphor have a very high significance to the story of the Berlin Wall. But still the narratives and the metaphor have a need to be authenticated with material ‘proof’ such as barbed wire on a film poster, the objects in museums, the remains left in the landscapes in Berlin and to some extent in Slovenia where it is used, especially at the watchtower museum and the remains in the railway museum, to connect with a wider European history. These items are there to confirm the narrative. Not to provide another type of story. This is very common. In a way, in the Czech Republic where some remains have just been left they are easier to follow and understand as they have not been clearly put into a historical narrative. Here they just stand without being forced into a story or trying to fit in with the Iron Curtain metaphor. What happens when the metaphor and the material do not correspond Often there is a need to make them match which raises the question: is it easier to change an established narrative or the material So strong are the narratives that we create and so difficult is it for us to think in other terms that the two have to be made to fit together, even if it means changing the physicality behind it or at least the stories of which they speak. It is clear, through looking at this research, that the metaphor and historical narratives of the Iron Curtain have had a major impact on not just its own story but also on Cold War history in general. It is a problem when the material does not fit into the narrative and it therefore appears we need to change and adapt to make it fit better. The problem is therefore not that they tell different stories but rather that we are not allowing them to. As conservation architect Leo Schmidt demonstrates there are no sections of Berlin Wall left today that corresponds with people’s views (Schmidt 2005:16, see Chapter 2). This has created major tension in discussions of managing the remains of the Berlin Wall today. The problem, as I see it, is not the fact that there are different stories that appear from different sources, the problem arises when we insist on forcing them together even when they do not fit. Like trying to piece together many different puzzles into one, sawing and 211
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN filing at the pieces until they fit, inevitably losing parts of them in the process. In doing this it also becomes much more difficult to understand how it came to be and it becomes difficult to trace all the different influences that helped to shape the material that we see today, that has been part of their ‘becoming’, the constructions of structures, the developing ideas of these intermingled with politics, propaganda, popular culture and sometimes just pure randomness which results in materials being left, changed or removed. The end of a journey The abundance of sources generally available when dealing with a period closer to our own and the opportunities and problems that this brings is clearly demonstrated in this research. However we classify our sources as photographs, objects, written reports, films, oral accounts, maps etc. we still have to address them. Our methods for how we approach the different materials may differ but the problem does not lie in the ontological difference in the sources that we use but rather when we value them differently and when we place an historical narrative account against the archaeological material and try and join them into one coherent story. Instead we have to appreciate the sources for what they are and recognise the roles they may or may not have played. Andrén makes an important point when he says that differences between text and objects need to be recognised (Andén 1998:14) but by concentrating too hard their differences we risk missing what connects them. Of course we have to limit ourselves. When the sources are abundant it is just not possible to follow all the leads. I wrote in the introduction to this thesis that my start and point of return have been archaeological and my focus has been on the physical remains. However other sources and the interaction with these should not in any way be seen as un-archaeological. The abundance of information about the places we study force us to draw boundaries of what to include and what we have to leave be. Some of these decisions are more obvious than others. What has become evident throughout my research is that the different sources are not just a means to an end, something that have to be gathered in order to reassemble a past, but rather the sources and the tracing thereof are an important part of the stories that emerge and are themselves active both in the past and in the present. In our research we follow the actors of the stories we tell, they are all part of the material that we track. They do not always act in the way we want or expect them to but instead of discarding the parts that we do not think fit or which 212
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An Archaeology of the Iron Curtain
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An Archaeology of the Iron Curtain
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Contents Acknowledgements 11 CHAPTE
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The end of a journey 212 Sammanfatt
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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
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CHAPTER 1 Introduction Standing on
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1: INTRODUCTION carried out of the
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1: INTRODUCTION they may be… It i
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1: INTRODUCTION where the observer
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1: INTRODUCTION former Iron Curtain
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1: INTRODUCTION criticism from othe
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1: INTRODUCTION itioned somewhere i
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1: INTRODUCTION World War II dividi
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CHAPTER 2 A physical metaphor Concr
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR established
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR The changing
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR the events t
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR As time has
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR highly influ
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR popular idea
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Figure 16: Postcard of the newly op
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402 Kojsko Hum 402 THE OSIM
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Figure 50: Map demonstrating the bo
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CHAPTER 5 Case Study 2 The Czech/Au
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5: CASE STUDY 2: THE CZECH/AUSTRIAN
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Figure 55: Bunker near the crossing
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Figure 59: Military map from 1980 o
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Figure 77-78: Painting inside the f
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