Towards professionalism through academic education in museum work: on the beginnings of museology education in Czech universities

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis contribution analyses three teaching units that once significantly influenced the development of museology in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), as well as in aninternational context: the Lectorate in Museum Studies, the external Chair/Department of Museology (both of them in the city of Brno), and the Prague Centre for Education in Museology. These institutions, closely associated with academic and museum matters, are discussed regarding their international importance (i.e., specific and innovative theoretical approaches to museum phenomena). This paper also offers some hitherto unpublished information about the origins and development of museology; it outlines the most important activities, the content of the curriculum and the modes of international cooperation. Considerable attention is also paid to the specific context of the period between 1939 and 1989 in the Czechoslovak Republic when the country was, with only short breaks, exposed to the influence of totalitarian ideologies.