ICOM International Council of Museums - Museo Estancia Jesuitica ...

Abstract
398
National Museum as Memory Bank
Piret Õunapuu – Estonia
The aim of the presentation is to give a survey of the process how a society, which is
forming from people into a nation, begins to sense the necessity to retain its culture.
Museums are more and more often called memory banks. Taking the Estonians as an
example I would like to observe how the need arises for people to deposit their memory
in a bank.
Today the interest in museums is increasing considerably and many alternative types
of museums are being founded. Contemporary museology excludes national and
ethnographic museums from the typology, fitting them into the categories of both art
and science museums.
National identity is absolutely inseparable from national historical memory: every nation
is grounded on their common historical consciousness, a coherent narrative of a nation
as the permanent protagonist on the stage of history. Every nation has its historical
myths and heroes, its glorious moments in the past. Recalling them regularly and
recording them visually unites a nation and justifies its deeds today. Increase in the
nationalist movements and also birth of new countries needed history to support it.
Creating common past is a continuous process, in which the things from the past that
should be preserved, keeping the future in mind, and the things that should be
forgotten are sorted out.
A museum changes with a society. Its popularity has its ups and downs. Comparing
people's attitude to a national museum, regularities on a considerably wider basis have
become evident. Two of them have been highly conspicuous in Estonia.
The bigger the external political or ideological pressure is and the graver the threat
against the continuity of the existence of a nation is, the more individuals or
organisations begin to deal with their roots and the nation's memory. The clearest
visible sign of it is that people discover beautiful and colourful national costumes and
valuable folk culture once again. At the beginning of the last century, just before World
War I, the recently founded museum was an obvious sign of Estonian nationalism and
patriotism, symbolising people's desire for freedom, forming our own country and being
the equal of other European nations. After proclaiming the Republic of Estonia in 1918
this attitude was replaced by a more pragmatic one that the government of the country
should deal with culture and the museum. The museum got professional staff, a
beautiful manor house, did scientific research and presented one of the most
innovative permanent exhibitions in Europe at that time.
The other regularity is somewhat strange – the better your life is and the more
successfully your business goes, the more seldom you think of the folk culture. People
are getting into a daily routine when everybody's personal matters are more important
than collective matters of the whole nation.
Estonia is a small country and the Estonians are a small nation with its complicated and
painful past. Our ancestors can be traced back on the same territory approximately to ten