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6: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
(Pétursdóttir 2012:584). The material we encounter in the places of the Cold
War may not look like we expect them to and this is an important point to
make. As they may tell other stories they may not fit into our known
narratives and accounts. Narratives can be seen as a consequence of the
‘linguistic turn’ and according to Solli “[c]onsidering the legacy of the
linguistic turn nothing is proving more resilient than narrative” (Solli
2011:43). Criticising this narrativisation can therefore be seen as a quite
natural part of a ‘material turn’ in which there is less stress on translating
objects and the study thereof into narratives. It is an important point to make
as it has consequences for the material that we study. In trying to fit them into
our known accounts and narratives we can actually cause damage to these
sites in the process. By excluding those fragmented objects and the memories
they entail because they may not fit into our narratives we are actively
forgetting them. Pétursdóttir demonstrates through her research that
“archaeological remembering of this site, and its inclusion in historical narration,
can in fact easily result in the active forgetting of things, their fragmented
and discontinuous memory and their utter silence” (Pétursdóttir
2012:577). The sites and materials that are not included in the historical
narratives are therefore in danger of disappearing altogether. Maybe this is
not an issue in itself, not everything can remain, but will be if we think that
what we have left in our historical narratives and accounts is representative of
a particular time, period or event.
How the material of the former borders has been treated in Slovenia/
Italy, Czechoslovakia/Austria and Berlin varies. In Berlin the historical
narratives of the Cold War and the metaphor of the Berlin Wall and the
Iron Curtain are highly established. Here the story of Cold War division
became so physical and obvious and as shown in Chapter 2 the idea of the
Iron Curtain intertwined with the physical Berlin Wall. Through history
writing, politics, popular culture and media the story of the Berlin Wall as
the Iron Curtain was created. The treatment of sites and objects of the
Berlin Wall therefore have to relate to this narrative and metaphor. To allow
the remains to stand on their own as different fragmented stories that do
not relate or fit into this grand narrative causes problems. On the Slovenia/
Italy border the remains have not really been connected to the larger
historical narratives in the same way and have therefore not been burdened
with such a heavy requirement. Instead we find smaller, more local stories
connected with the changing of the border line, smuggling and trade across
the border etc. Interestingly, the local narratives here appear to be in a
process of trying to connect with the European Cold War history, possibly
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