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6: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN An archaeology of a metaphor The metaphor of the Iron Curtain, as demonstrated in Chapter 2, is strongly connected to the narrative history created through historical accounts, media, films, novels, materiality etc., but how does this connect to the materials The impact of popular culture can be seen to have had a major effect on the idea of the Iron Curtain as well as the Cold War. The effects of historical films have, for example, been discussed by historians Robert Rosenstone (2006) and Alun Munslow (2007) who suggest that film production is also a way to write history that needs to be taken seriously and not be dismissed as less legitimate. It is recognised that film can have a cognitive mechanism and “create experiential and emotional complexities way beyond the printed page” (Munslow 2007:572). The idea that experiences are becoming increasingly important to people has been raised by several researchers such as archaeologist Cornelius Holtorf (2007). Similarly to other researchers, of which many of them are active within marketing studies such as Pine and Gilmore (1999), he claims that the importance lies in “engaging people sensually, cognitively, socially, culturally and emotionally”(Holtorf 2007:6). Much of the influences of Holtorf, Pine and Gilmore’s work come from the thoughts of sociologist Gerhard Schulze (1993), who claimed that society was becoming increasingly focussed on how things feel, a “commodification of the eventful” (Löfgren 1999:14). Ethnologist Orvar Löfgren, whose interest lies in tourism, suggests that Schultze’s claims of this being a completely new phenomenon is not really true as these ideas have been around for quite some time within travel and tourism (Löfgren 1999:16). But as Holtorf also points out this ‘experience value’, has now extended into almost every field including archaeology and heritage and suggests that it is the experience of the sites and the stories that are more important than the acquisition of new knowledge (Holtorf 2007:4). Although not true for everyone we have to understand that some people are more interested in using the sites and the materiality to confirm and authenticate their already existing view of history. This can be seen as one of the issues with the two Berlin museums, where one, Documentation Centre, corresponds better with material story (possibly a bit less impressive and more fragmented) whilst the other, Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, corresponds more to the metaphor and the historical narratives of the Berlin Wall, of the Iron Curtain and of the Cold War that have been created and recreated since World War II. This can also be seen on a much smaller scale in Slovenia where the ‘idea’ of an Iron Curtain has started to make its 209
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN way into the history writing in that it is used to connect the local history to world history through the materiality of the border. This is mainly, at least so far, lifted forward at the museum of the former watch tower and to some extent in the border museum in Nova Gorica railway station but was also picked up and used by media in 2004 when Slovenia entered EU and Schengen when headlines like “Towns dismantle Cold War fence” were used (BBC News 2004). When we deal with a material closer to our own time there is therefore a need to consider not just the materials and the historical texts that have been produced but also an array of other influences, for example popular culture. It is of course not only the sites and materials of recent periods which have been affected by these types of influences. One example is the case of the Vikings and how the study and portrayal of them in history writing, popular culture, media and heritage and tourist sites has affected the way they are seen. In his doctoral thesis archaeologist Fredrik Svanberg argues that ”the core of ”the Viking Age” is a system of related axiomatic ideas that was put together about 130 years ago by some of the founding fathers of Scandinavian archaeology” and means that the idea of the Viking was constructed under the heavy influence of nationalism (Svanberg 2003:11). From these early nationalistic influences the image of the Vikings has since come to evolve. Chris Halewood, active in the field of Environmental Studies and geographer Kevin Hannam suggests that the image of the Viking has been heavily influenced by heritage tourism and popular culture. They suggest that the Viking is often portrayed as a bloodthirsty barbarian in the Anglo- American stereotypical representation of the Vikings, using films such as the Kirk Douglas’ film The Vikings, novels such as The Longships by Frans Bengsson and the cartoon strip Hagar the Horrible as examples. Instead, they suggest, the Scandinavian image of the Vikings in popular culture rather stresses that although they were seen as pirates abroad they were living in well-ordered societies at home and that this is still the way they are portrayed in popular culture such as films as well as in many heritage sites (Halewood and Hannam 2001:566). They claim however, that it is the bloodthirsty image that tends to draw most visitors to the heritage sites (Halewood and Hannam 2001:566). Remains and stories of older periods are therefore also affected by the later portraits produced by them but what can be seen to distinguish the sites and materials of later periods is that it may be easier to study more in detail how these developments have taken place and what the influences are from their conception until the present. 210
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An Archaeology of the Iron Curtain
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An Archaeology of the Iron Curtain
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Contents Acknowledgements 11 CHAPTE
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The end of a journey 212 Sammanfatt
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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
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CHAPTER 1 Introduction Standing on
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1: INTRODUCTION carried out of the
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1: INTRODUCTION they may be… It i
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1: INTRODUCTION where the observer
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1: INTRODUCTION former Iron Curtain
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1: INTRODUCTION criticism from othe
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1: INTRODUCTION itioned somewhere i
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1: INTRODUCTION World War II dividi
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CHAPTER 2 A physical metaphor Concr
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR established
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR The changing
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR the events t
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR As time has
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR highly influ
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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR popular idea
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Figure 16: Postcard of the newly op
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402 Kojsko Hum 402 THE OSIM
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CHAPTER 5 Case Study 2 The Czech/Au
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5: CASE STUDY 2: THE CZECH/AUSTRIAN
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Figure 55: Bunker near the crossing
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Figure 59: Military map from 1980 o
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