The forgetting institution: Memory and oblivion in the National History Museum in contemporary Albania

Abstract

National museums are institutions that exhibit historical narratives politically influenced by individuals, groups or governments. These actions are implemented inside the exhibition space of museums through the creation of specific projects of memory and oblivion that seek to convert historic memory in an ideological tool. In this dissertation, it is discussed the different aspects involved in the creation of these projects to subsequently make use of them in specific case studies inside a national museum. For this purpose, it was collected visual material from documentaries, books and photographs of five areas of the permanent exhibition of the National History Museum of Tirana in Albania showing the level of transformation of its spaces, since its construction in 1981 during the Communist regime until the subsequent transitional period to a Capitalist society. These cases were analysed to find the implications of the ideological influence of political regimes in the museum exhibitions. As a result of this analyses it was possible to discover heterogeneous political influences in the construction of the Albanian historic memory particularly influenced by different ideologies. Consequently, the case studies showed some ways in which the museum has dealt with constructed representations of history ranking from the glorification of past to the contesting of the Communist period in Albania. It was demonstrated through the findings and the subsequent discussion that some of the political projects of memory and oblivion implemented by the Communist regime in 1981 have been kept intact or transformed, thus, evidencing a heterogeneous response of the museum to the historical discourse that the former Communist regime implemented in Albania.