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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 />

16

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