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6: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN we think cannot create enough of an interesting discussion in relation to the accounts that we know we need to let them stand by themselves. Instead of taking the view of Yaneva’s ‘hasty sightseer’ discussed above, who only reproduces concepts of society and culture, we need to go with the flow and follow the connections. An archaeology of surface should not be seen as equivalent to superficiality but should instead be seen it as an opportunity to stretch our research in all directions, horizontally as well as vertically. When we follow the different tracks and paths that the sources lead us through we can make connections and find stories we were not expecting. We can see how materials and periods are intertwined in often unexpected ways and that the past that we see in the present is here for us to see as a result of a long list of influences. For the Iron Curtain these influences involve many factors such as the materiality, the narratives, the metaphors, people’s attitude in the past and today, media, popular culture and how different people interact with the material today. It is important to see all these factors in order to understand how the material was created. It is a long and at times rather random process which is constantly recreating the material and the attitudes of it. One of the consequences of following the material of the Iron Curtain is that I have been led to sights that were so much less monumental and much more mundane than what I had expected. Starting from one of the most monumental of Cold War icons and metaphors, the Iron Curtain, I found smaller sites that at first may appear rather insignificant but when you look at them, really look at them, they surprise you in the way that they connect with so much more such as different time periods, physical places, people, objects, histories, stories etc. and it becomes clear how significant these places really were during the Cold War. How these different connections extend into today varies. Those parts that do not fit are often forgotten, consciously or not. The observant reader is likely to have noticed the heavy emphasis in this thesis on the eastern side of the borders, especially in my fieldwork studies where remains in Slovenia and the Czech Republic has come to figure much more than the remains in Italy and Austria. This was not intentional but was a result of the material that I studied. It is also something which demonstrates that the physical side of the Iron Curtain, the militarised borders, were in fact here, on the eastern side, sometimes a few kilometres inside the East/West divide. This puts it in an interesting contrast to the idea of the Iron Curtain which is, as we have seen, much of a Western idea. So the friend, whom I mentioned in the beginning of this thesis, who 213
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN pointed out that the Iron Curtain never existed was in part right, at least from his western point of view. From this angle it was merely a metaphor. But had he lived in the Eastern bloc during the Cold War his view would most likely have been another and he would have claimed that the Iron Curtain was indeed a very real thing, a prison wall keeping people in rather than a protective barrier keeping the enemies out. The term may be of western origin but its presence was certainly an eastern reality. I have used my research, in particular the process of my fieldwork, in two main ways: firstly to connect to Harrison and Schofield’s call for more research of the contemporary past in order to test methods which are still seen as experimental (Harrison and Schofield 2010:88). In this work I have noticed that there is indeed great insecurity within the validity of some of the methods often used within contemporary archaeology, something that I have tried to highlight and in part address in this thesis. The research should also be seen in relation to Harrison’s ideas of archaeology as a surface in which past and present exists ‘now’ which also connects with Olivier, Olsen, Pétursdóttir and others’ discussion of the past within the present. I have also wanted to use my research to demonstrate the complex process of how the past that we see in the present can be created and recreated and how open we need to be in our approach in order to see this process, to see that the influences can be so much more extensive than what we first might think. If we carry out our research as hasty sightseers we will only reproduce those narratives which are known to us. I started at the monumental, at the metaphor of the Iron Curtain. I came across plenty of barbed wire and concrete but I found that loading this with all the symbolism of the Iron Curtain was not enough. Instead of confirming the known narratives of the Cold War with the objects that I found I followed the material and let it show me other types of connections and fragments. Finally, and possibly most importantly, I have wanted to shine a light on this amazing material that is the archaeology of the Iron Curtain, an archaeology of a metaphor. 214
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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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Figure 77-78: Painting inside the f
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