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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN<br />
over time, how it looks today and how it is viewed by people around it I<br />
hope to demonstrate one example of the kind of processes in which a<br />
materiality can be formed in history writing and in creating, or not creating<br />
as the case may be, a heritage.<br />
The materiality of the Iron Curtain<br />
The aim of this thesis is to explore what knowledge about the Iron Curtain<br />
can be reached through the material traces it has left behind as well as the<br />
effects these remains have on people around them. The aim is also to<br />
contribute to the continuous discussion and methodological development<br />
of the archaeology of the contemporary past.<br />
Why use the Iron Curtain as material Whenever you deal with Cold<br />
War history the term Iron Curtain is never far away. Sentences such as<br />
“behind the Iron Curtain” or “after the fall of the Iron Curtain” are often<br />
used. But what was it really When I had just started as a PhD student I<br />
explained to a friend of mine what my research was going to be about. He<br />
looked quite concerned and then said “But you know that the Iron Curtain<br />
never actually existed It was a metaphor.” This inconsistency, the paradox<br />
of the real and imagined Iron Curtain is what makes it such an interesting<br />
material study. On the one hand there was the metaphor of the Iron<br />
Curtain: an idea of a Europe divided by two political blocs. On the other<br />
there were a series of heavily militarised borders running through Central<br />
Europe physically dividing it. Do they tell the same story If not, does one<br />
story take precedence when we write our Cold War history How do the<br />
stories that emerge from the metaphor and the materials fit within the local<br />
and world history<br />
Another reason why this is such interesting material is that it is now in<br />
the process of becoming heritage. In some places it has already come a long<br />
way, in others it may never be seen as heritage at all. What are the processes<br />
involved in this ‘becoming’<br />
But maybe most importantly, it is a very interesting material in itself<br />
which is well worth studying. Seeing that the term Iron Curtain is frequently<br />
used and well known to a lot of people in the western world, its<br />
physicality is little understood. Studies have been made in Germany of the<br />
materiality of the Inner German Border (Sheffer 2007 and 2008, Rottman<br />
2008) but generally studies have mainly focussed on the social consequences<br />
inherent in a divided country. There have also been archaeological studies<br />
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