SEARCH FOR UNIVERSALISM IN A REGIONAL NARRATIVE. THE CASE OF THE NEW PERMANENT HISTORICAL EXHIBITION IN THE SILESIAN MUSEUM1 IN KATOWICE

• Main Author: Leszek Janusz Jodliński
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wydawnictwa AGH 2020-12-01
• Series: Studia Humanistyczne AGH
• Subjects: : silesian museum; new history telling; contradictory perspectives; national perspectives; narrative of the dominant group; european perspective in regional narrative; history in museums
• Online Access: https://journals.bg.agh.edu.pl/STUDIA/2020.19.4/human.2020.19.4.49.pdf

In 2012 politicians and some historians blocked the first (after 1989) permanent exhibition of the history of Upper Silesia. Its history turned out to be much more controversial and went beyond the framework of storytelling in a museum. Guidelines of the exhibition scenario have been consulted from 2010 with specialists and in the course of focus surveys. Result of the research and experts’ opinions defined modern history (19th and 20th c.) as key period for understanding the heritage of the region. The authors of the project wanted to replace national and regional myths by new categories of two leading universal interpretation such as modernity and industrialization The authors wanted to show the history of Silesia from the perspective of Poland, Germany and Czechia for their cultural presence etc. was significant in its history. The project was rejected and the script resigned from a multinational and European perspective.