The Museal Production of Hungary's Inorganic Past and Poland's Postponed Victory / The Case of the House of Terror and the Warsaw Rising Museum

Abstract

More than thirty years after the fall of communism, both Hungary and Poland are still trying to reinvent their national identity by understanding their pasts. As flagship museums of Viktor OrbĂĄn’s Hungary Civic Alliance (Fidesz) in Hungary and Jarosław Kaczyński’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland, the House of Terror (Terror HĂĄza) in Budapest and the Warsaw Rising Museum (Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego) have been used as epistemological tools in advancing the governing party’s respective memory politics. Within their portrayal of the nation’s contemporary past, these museums also endorse a particular national identity that serves the political desires of both Fidesz and PiS. This article traces how the museums present and signify the nation and how they articulate the national identity espoused by the museum. The author borrows methodological approaches from museum studies and formulates her own research protocol, which identifies three layers of national identity articulation: the presentation of the nation, the representation of the nation, and the political production of national identity.